I think a challenge with safeties can also be that schools with higher acceptance rates often don’t have the variety of programs or the quality in their programs that some more selective schools have. This isn’t true for everyone or for every program, but we have definitely encountered it as we work on the list for S24. (Yes, I have two kids one year apart, so it will be more than a year before I am completely done with this all. )
Developing a working list for S24 has been painful. He isn’t quite sure what he wants to major in but he has some broad ideas. I don’t think they are “out there“ or unique fields, but it is surprising to me how few schools have them all, or have much depth in them.
Of the 15 schools that have a good collection of the different fields he is interested in AND have some depth to those programs AND the NPC says we could afford:
-6 have acceptance rates below 10%,
-6 have higher acceptance rates between 20 and 50% but I know from reading on here are very difficult to get into,
Of the 3 with higher acceptance rates
-1 is very far away,
-2 require applying into a specific major with limited ability to switch if he changes his mind.
There are other schools that would definitely be affordable, are close enough for him to feel comfortable, and he would definitely get into, but are only middling for his fields of interest. It makes finding a “safety” he can be excited about very challenging!
I do think there is something to the way we talk about schools with our kids. My kid really didn’t want to leave California, but I convinced him he had to have out of state safeties. As he didn’t want to go out of state, he wasn’t too impressed when he was accepted to Alabama and Purdue. When he went to school and talked to his teachers, they were beyond impressed my son had a full ride offer at Alabama and they were also impressed with Purdue’s outstanding reputation. Because of other people’s reactions, by kid instantly felt better about his options. They are children. They don’t know much about much. We can’t control how all people they encounter will react to the schools they mention, but we can help educate them about why those schools are on the list in the first place. Obviously my kid knows UC Davis isn’t UCLA, but he’s feeling pretty great because we’ve talked up what Davis can offer him.
I will add, my friend’s daughter was so disappointed last year by not being accepted to UCLA or Berkeley, she really couldn’t enjoy the process of enrolling and move in at UCSD. UCSD is many kids’ dream school and she only felt sadness and inferiority going there.
My D was another student where her safety wasn’t the last choice. Felt more in the middle of her list and honestly, her longest reach was the last choice on the list. We made sure she focused on fit over rankings and that she’d be happy with any school on the list.
I would argue this is perception, but not necessarily reality.
My daughter is in International Studies and her school has the Mroz Institute. Charlesotn isn’t on anyone’s top school radar - especially for an IR/Poli Sci type major yet she’s met with Dennis Ross, the Swiss Ambassador, Ms. Barrett (who the ASU Honors College is named after) and her personal mentor is Mrs. Mroz herself. She also had a May away school paid for - and their poli sci major has three tracks (she’s double majoring). She’s going to DC for a semster in the Fall…no one would expect this of a lower tier school.
There are schools like IU and Ole Miss - that are easy ins and have wonderful resources.
I do think people need to check course schedules though - and especially at the small schools. Classes in the catalogue don’t = classes offered regularly - and that will hit the small, elite LACs, the mid size publics (does my kids school) and I suppose even the large publics. The small schools may be more affected - if someone goes on sabatical or leaves, etc. - then who will teach the class they did?
Ok, my kid likes schools with about 3-7k undergrads. My kid has a profile that would be competitive for admission to the Big Name schools. We need to find some schools that would be extremely likely admittances for our kid that would still have a good population of academically-minded students. Where should we look?
Here is a list of schools that all have at least a 50% acceptance rate (and some are in excess of 90%). If a student is legitimately competitive for a Big Name, all of these would probably be extremely likely admits.
Bentley (MA) – especially for all the students who want to major in finance/econ
Butler (IN)
Christopher Newport (VA)
Creighton (NE)
Duquesne (PA )
Elon (NC)
Fairfield (CT)
Gonzaga (WA)
Hope (MI)
Ithaca (NY)
Loyola Maryland
Loyola New Orleans (LA)
Manhattan (NY)
Marist (NY)
Mercer (GA)
Pepperdine (CA)
Providence (RI)
Santa Clara (CA)
Seattle (WA)
Southern Methodist (TX)
SUNY Geneseo
The College of New Jersey
U. of Denver (CO)
U. of Portland (OR)
U. of San Diego (CA)
U. of San Francisco (CA)
U. of the Pacific (CA)
Worcester Polytechnic (MA)
If your kid digs into all of those schools and can’t find one that they would be happy to attend, then it might be helpful for them to speak with a counselor about expectations. Because it’s not crucially important for college, but that mindset might likely follow them throughout life (i.e. they didn’t get into the “best” ECs, or get the “best” employers to offer for them or not in the “best” location, they couldn’t find a significant other with sufficient cachet, their kid didn’t get into the “best” activity, etc.) And frankly, someone with that mindset is probably going to have a hard time being happy in life.
At my daughter’s college, if they got the RA position, it was considered in their financial aid as income, and for the most part that number was removed from aid they received. It really only seemed like a viable option for a full pay kid, because otherwise why work for free?
I wrote down the same exact sentence as the OP about safeties! That to me is truly the definition, but I think that kind of safety is an ideal situation that may be tough to find, and in the meantime you have to apply to a few places.
Agreed it is ultimately an unnecessary expense, but I wouldn’t say a waste. My kid did not know much about college campuses when we started, and he did not know where he’d be happy or not. He was excited about well known programs in his field, but didn’t know enough about the lesser known programs to be excited or not yet. We asked him to apply to our state U, even though he was not excited at all and swore he wouldn’t go. It seemed worth the cost for us to have the option, since he’d never visited more than one college in his life.
2021 was a crazy year with schools going test-optional and admissions tours being canceled. My S21 sent out applications with the hope we could visit some of the schools after the fact.
He got into more than a few fairly competitive schools. He ended up choosing the University of Denver over some of the more selective schools. After the stress of applications and essays and canceled SAT’s died down, he was able to really contemplate what he wanted. 100% convinced it was the perfect choice for him regardless of the acceptance rate or rankings.
But some kids also want to see if they can get in. More a challenge/ego thing.
That was my daughter and Cornell - I wasn’t sending her but she wanted to see. Fortunately, once she saw the essay, etc. it was out.
I was the same 30 years ago without a common app - I wanted to see if i could get into a UC - and I did!!! One of the ones everyone hates to get into today
Yes, I wasted time and money - and back then it was a lot of time!!!
It has taken me a minute to get caught up on this thread. I guess I missed a lot over the weekend. Being a parent is hard. You want the best for your children. You want them to be able to reach for the stars and get them. You are their biggest cheerleader. But you are also their guide in life. That comes with the good and the bad. You have have to get the kids to understand their limitations and set realistic expectations. There is a balance to this parenting thing for sure.
I know like most on here we will run through a wall for our kids. But if our kids never struggle they will miss out on learning about part of life. There are no 100%'s in life. Kids have to understand that. Some kids never get told no. They never seem to fail at anything. There are amazing kids on this site. Kids with 36 or 35, 1580 or 1600, 4.0 u/w, ECs that make adults blush, essays that would make people cry. Nothing is guaranteed even for those kids. I have played enough poker to know if there is even a 5% chance of something happening it will eventually happen. And if that 5%(bad outcome) happens to your child then I am feel for you.
Even though I am my kids’ biggest cheerleader I have always been realistic with them. Some people might say I have also been their biggest critic. I know my kids better than anyone else. I know if they put 100% effort into an activity or not. I see what they are doing everyday. I also can see their greatness that others might not see. Given all that I have always wanted them to know the odds. The odds of getting accepted or winning the scholarship. My goal for that is for them know all possible outcomes and which are likely. In the world of college app process those odds can change and they have recently to some degree.
Kids and parents have to running what-if scenarios all the time and be discussing them. You can be like I am applying to 4 schools with 35% acceptance rates. I should get in one, but what happens if I don’t get in all of them. Or if the one I do get in doesn’t come through financially. What is Plan B, C, D, E. It sucks when things don’t always go to plan but you got to be prepared. If you are always worried about the worse-case scenario you will be pleasantly surprised when it works out.
I do get wanting transparency in the process. You see Michael got into over your Johnnie. And you know Johnnie is better than Michael. You are not going to get it. They aren’t going to tell you why. It sucks for sure. But some people have had to deal with more disappointment in life than others. We all do at some point. Usually screaming about it won’t do any good. Moving on with life will be better. Life really is about how we react to things and our kids have been watching the whole time.
Great list! But it misses the point that I and others are making: it is not that many posters who say their kids are not happy with their safeties are miserable, it is just they aren’t nearly as happy as they are with the prospect of matches or reaches. I do think for some kids we see posts about who are 1550/very detailed research and high-level math awards, getting into Cambridge yet not any comparable US schools, it is a peer -fit issue. These schools you list are all great but many have far less than 5% of the class who would really be intellectual peers. To get more volume of peers you have to go bigger and join an Honors college, which then misses the size/atmosphere component. So to me, those kids and families are certainly entitled to feel less happy about the prospect of safeties. The vast majority will accept it and make do, or transfer!
This is not an issue for me/my family, especially as Virginia residents, I am just trying to see the perspective of others with truly highly-gifted kids who get shut out of schools that have the highest concentration of “their people”. Our older one told us the first time she felt like she could be her true intellectual/quirky/nerdy self was in college. I felt the same when I went off to college. She would have had that same feeling at the match schools she got into, because they also have plenty of her people, but not the true safeties–it would not have been a peer-match but she would have made do.
Just because a school rejects a lot of people doesn’t make it a better school.
However, this is a real risk and is a concern of mine in some cases.
We’re still looking at my kid’s “safeties”, which are for him more like likelies. One of them looks fantastic, and another, upon further inspection, looks too light. We still have them on the table, even though he’s been admitted to his targets and reaches. Some haven’t given us the money we need, and we are just not willing to let go of the likelies yet.
The questions become: What defines a quality program? There are so many clues we can get from things like course lists and from talking with current students. Once we dig into those things, we have figured out that it’s less like quality and more like qualities that would make a great program for him in particular.
Those qualities that work for each kid can be found in some odd places. But how the heck do we find them? It is very hard.
Hello Gumbymom – I was looking for this option for UC and I was lost, can I send email to UC so atleast they can start offering to waitlisted students. I dont remember which school it is but if you know how to do it, I will be happy to give back the seats where we are not going.
I wish everybody would listen to this interview with the assistant director of admissions at Colorado College (it’s at around the 17:30 minute mark in the podcast episode): Spotify (edited to add for those who maybe don’t have Spotify: It’s Episode 292 of Your College Bound Kid, from January 16th of this year)
When you really dig into the data, there are far fewer potential spots for whatever “buckets” your kid falls into than the topline numbers suggest. It helped me feel really great about some of the small LAC my daughter was admitted to in RD. Now if only they had offered a little more merit and were more affordable…
This feels a bit like goalpost-moving to me—it presupposes that safeties are only a thing for those targeting “highly-rejective small-medium ivy-like schools”.
And also, what is the actual difference between those colleges and similarly-sized colleges ranked in, say, the second hundred in the USNWR lists? (Aside from endowment size, of course.)
Goodness… I drive for only a few hours, stop at a rest area, and see 76 new messages on this thread!!!
I understood the original poster talking about programs not always being offered at higher admit schools as thinking about particular majors more common at elite schools. For instance, my two children have to have a second major.in Classics. It’s one the few non-negotiables. Their biological father, my husband, and I all double majored in Classics. D17 did too. S23 knows this going in.
Classics is not offered in full (i.e. NOT just a classical civ.major but an actual language-based Classics major) at a lot of safeties. So that makes some limitations to the list. It’s doable, and we did it, but it was the example that came to mind when the OP was talking about particular programs and safeties. I don’t think they meant political science.
I’d also like to take this moment to point out that it’s easier to find a safety if one’s “affordable” is $40,000 out of pocket than $25000 than $10000! I think people talking about safeties who meant the $40000 range should be kinder when saying how easy they are to find to people who might need a $15000 safety. The easiest safeties to find are with a potential budget of $85000 after all!
)
But how the heck do we find them? It is very hard.
