Well, if one is looking for an auto admit, its a nice option if they qualify. Better to go to college somewhere than to live in the basement for a HS post-grad year, IMO. Tucson is a nice city.
My point is not that there are no auto-admit schools. I’m saying that a definition of safety that that requires students to cross the country to find one is an unworkable definition.
Understand, but the point is, there are auto admit schools, decent ones, if one wants an auto admit option. An east coaster could start at an auto admit community college if they chose to.
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Starting at a local open admission community college can be a safety.
Of course, if there are no safeties that a student is willing to attend, then there would only be reach, match, and likely as possibilities.
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There are safeties. Just not safeties that meet your definition of safety.
There are also occasional stories of students who do not get into any college, including what they thought were their “safeties”.
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I agree that happens. I still think it’s extreme, and frankly ridiculous, to define a safety as auto-admit when those don’t exist for most of the country. The definition should be reasonably conservative without requiring a student to travel 2000 miles away from home.
Why not just use “likely” instead of “safety” if there is no assurance of admission, but it would be very surprising not to be admitted?
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Because the word safety works just fine.
Although applications are reportedly expected to drop due to shifts in population and other reasons, at least for the past several years, some have sadly learned that a “safety” isn’t always a “safety”, its a “likely”. Unless its 100% guaranteed, its not a “safety”. Anyone remember, decades ago, the story/saga of Andison? There have been many more like him who got in nowhere, and had to take a gap year. IMO, going to Arizona is better than living in the basement. But YMMV. Most in the IEC world seem to use the word “likely” , not “safety”.
***eta: One could pick a college with a 90%+ acceptance rate and a low GPA requirement as a “safety”. Here are a few choices in NY : What are the easiest colleges to get into in New York? | Achievable Test Prep
What is IEC?
Independent educational consultant.
Maybe the consultants aren’t using that word because they don’t want the rich people who hired them to get upset when their kid doesn’t get into schools the parents think they should get into.
I think guidance counselors still say safety and that’s what most kids deal with. My kids GCs talked about safeties and there are no auto-admit schools anywhere around here. Creating new definitions on this site that don’t match the ones the kids are hearing in school isn’t necessarily helpful.
These aren’t new definitions on this site. How long have you been on the site? These terms have been around for decades. There are plenty of “safeties” (guaranteed admits) if student is willing to attend them. If a student is going to look down their noses at a school because they can’t go home on the weekend, then they should adjust their expectations accordingly. And snarky comments about IECs don’t contribute positively to the conversation. (Especially when one isn’t familiar with them). Those comments are unhelpful.
A college that a student has a pretty good chance of getting into is a likely.
I have issues with the words match & target. Match because it seems like you’re looking for a partner that will match you, and if you’ve selected your match but your match doesn’t pick you back, it feels pretty stinky. Also, why can’t a school where a student has a likelier chance of admission be a “match?” To me, the word “match” is more about a “best fit” type of school, and a school’s admission rate is not a “best fit” factor.
With respect to target, it feels as though these are the schools you should be targeting. Why should a school’s admission rate (or a student’s chance of admission) have an impact on with why a school is a good fit for them?
To me, chancing is all about that, the chances of getting into a school. Ideally, all of the schools on the list should be a “best fit” or at least “good fit.” The names of the categories are just ways of saying the likelihood of the student getting into that best/good fit school.
My current classification is:
- Extremely Likely: 80-99+% chance of admission
- Likely: 60-79% chance of admission
- Toss-Up: 40-59% chance of admission
- Lower Probability: 20-39% chance of admission
- Low Probability: less than 20% chance of admission
My methodology for classification is pretty similar as described by @prezbucky in post #4, with the impact of a student’s major also playing a role if it’s an impacted/high-demand major.
ETA: If “safety” didn’t have a negative connation with it based on its usage, I’d be fine with it. But for too many people, they’ve associated “safety” as a “school of last resort” which I’m not a fan of. All a safety should be is a school that is extremely likely to be affordable, accept the student, and that the student would be happy to attend.
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There was no snark intended. I’m sorry if it came across that way. The fact is that most people can’t afford independent consultants and these consultants must cater to their customers and temper the expectations accordingly. I would not say that just because they do something means it is the correct way to do it. It may be correct for them and their clients but not for everyone else.
Further, the only definition that I take exception to is the one that @ucbalumnus is trying to change to say a safety must be auto admit for the student’s stats. That is the only definition here that I have commented on.
I’m not sure why you are questioning how long I’ve been on this site. I didn’t know there was a longevity requirement for participating in a discussion. I’m guessing I joined around 2015. Is that long enough for you?
You claimed there was some effort on this site to change the “definition” and that just isn’t true. The term “likely” has been here for many more years than you have. And the term “likely” has been used here for the 9 years you have as well. It’s not new. Just clarifying. And as an aside, there are IEC’s that volunteer their time and discount rates for those who can’t afford full pay. Not all, but some. The tone about the IEC’s using verbiage to placate the rich came across as disparaging, though glad to hear 
it was unintentional.
The comment above about “safety” having a potential negative connotation to the applicant is spot on. Tho the phrase “love thy safety” does have a better ring to it than “love the likely” . Will give you that 
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How else do you ensure that a safety is safe (100% chance of admission and affordability)?
For my kids I looked at schools where they were above 75% stat wise, the school had a greater than 75% acceptance rate, and no one from their high school with their stats had ever been rejected on naviance.