Dickinson is a fine safety for a high stats kid. I don’t know Whitman well.
The point of the safety (not to belabor the obvious) is to try and replicate some of the things the kid adores about the reachy schools, but at a place where admissions is “very highly likely” if that’s a category. When kids tell me they can’t find a safety school because they love Brown so much, I need to ask them- what is it you love? Do you love the Hampshire type elements? The Bard elements? Sarah Lawrence? Bennington? Conn College “campus on a hill”? Or do you want to major in math but not at MIT or a tech school because you love other humanities subjects as well. So what about U Minnesota, one of the top math departments in the country? U Maryland (especially if you are instate?) U Washington? Or you want a mix of preppy/boho/artsy kids- USC?
The point is not to replicate the student body, Val by Val, and score by score. The point is to figure out why you love Brown, or why you love Dartmouth or why you love JHU, and then figure out where you can find those elements at a school which is a sure bet admissions wise.
But it does take a spirit of adventure for a kid to think outside the box/outside the region. And it does make the budgeting more challenging given travel costs. So there are trade-offs.
And it’s interesting that you guys are quick to mention Harvard. Most of the kids I know who fell in love with Harvard don’t end up at Harvard (obviously, given the stats) and most of them do a $%^&- poor job identifying good safety schools. Northeastern is your safety if you don’t get into Harvard? I find the schools polar opposites on everything except for their proximity to Logan airport.
My high stats STEM kid applied to RPI and WPI for his safeties. Honors college at one of the big unis would have worked too or almost any of the smaller engineering colleges except Olin. For my younger son honors program at American was a fine safety.
I’d think the Harvard kid looking for a safer school should consider Brandeis (which I realize is not a slam dunk safety, but at least when my youngest was applying it looked slam dunk in our Naviance), some of the midwest colleges which don’t get a lot of love from East Coast kids. I know a kid who’s going to be attending U of Miami with a big scholarship when Brown fell through. She’s actually pretty psyched about it.
I understand that really smart kids who want a small LAC might feel that smaller LACs with lesser stat kids are beneath them, but I think if they really look even they can find something. I don’t think safeties have to have over 50% admissions rates. And I do think rolling admissions and EA is a great approach for safeties.
“Another thing I have to question is why a high-stats kid can only be comfortable and fit in with other high-stats kids”
To me, it’s about seriousness of purpose. I was a nerd in high school and only fit in well with other students who took their studies seriously and were excited by intellectual pursuits as I was. That was typically found in the honors classes and so forth, not in the “regular” classes. It wasn’t so much about the raw intelligence but about the seriousness of purpose. I was so glad when I went to college and it was “cool” to care about what you learned about in class that day, and you weren’t a nerd for caring about it.
Whitman is a terrific safety for the right high-stats kid, particularly a sharp, outdoorsy kid. I love that school. Its main drawback is being impossible to get to.
And I think college is about finding people who are different than you, learning their views, seeing how everyone fits together. The world is not full of serious, intellectual people and it is unlikely you are only going to interact with other people just like you.
I don’t think there are many kids in college who aren’t serious about learning, or at least not many who will remain in college for long. I don’t think there is a college in the top 200 that doesn’t have at least a group of students who are ‘serious students’, who win national prizes, do research, write papers and books, invent things, discover things.
“I see the issue of schools rejecting high stats kids as something of an urban legend”
Rejecting is a myth, but waitlisting is not. Low yield schools often waitlist high stats kids to see if they follow up. If they follow up then the school knows that their chance of actually coming there is much higher.
“Another thing I have to question is why a high-stats kid can only be comfortable and fit in with other high-stats kids”
I think it really depends on the kid. I don’t think that this is always the case. Some students enjoy being at the top of the class, and some really dislike like being the smartest person in the room. I have one of each of these.
I had one who was used to, and enjoyed being the smartest person in the room. I don’t think it was particularly good for him. I was really concerned that he have a good cohort of students around him who would really push him. He doesn’t suffer fools well, but mostly I wanted him to have the experience of knowing less than kids around him - at least some of the time.
I think a lot of kids who get rejected from schools they thought were safe phoned in their applications.
Unfortunately I think there are many colleges (especially large state universities) where a large number of students are majoring in drinking and partying. Even these colleges probably have strong students in certain majors or honors colleges, but you have to make an effort - and if your interest in English lit, they may not be the best choice.
I know a lot of college kids who aren’t serious about college. Some of them coast for four years and end up with a degree (strategic choice of majors, good luck, etc.) Some of them coast and it takes them a lot longer to make it through- or they stop out and never go back. Some of them grow up a lot after a year of being a party animal and THEN kick into gear.
At a school with an academic vibe, the presence of the slackers isn’t too problematic. At a school with a strong party or athletic culture, the slackers can make a strong student feel like HS 2.0.
So I am absolutely not advocating “it doesn’t matter where you go” and longtime posters here know that I disagree with that philosophy quite vociferously. It does matter.
But I don’t buy that a kid in love with Harvard or Princeton or Amherst or wherever with their teeny tiny admit rates can’t find a similar school (depending on what it is that they love about it) with a much higher admit rate, and potentially one where the stats suggest the kid has a very, very high probability of being admitted (even if waitlisted and then admitted after “showing the love”.)
@lvvcsf, I preferred using the term “likelies” rather than safeties.
A rule my kids established with regard to college admissions was that they would only apply to schools where they felt they’d be happy to attend. For one, that meant one applied to two Ivies (and he strongly hinted that he never sent his second recommendation to one of them), and for the other, that he would not bother with Ivies at all. And these were kids whose activities, coursework and scores would all suggest the ability to do very well at an Ivy. But they didn’t feel the vibe, so there you have it.
I was asked to speak at a parents panel at the end of junior year and I raised the FA issue. Among a room full of parents with PhDs and very high expectations, only 10% knew how much the flagship cost ($23k for in-state at the time). When I told them that they could expect EFC to run 30% of net income, there were audible gasps. We live in a high COLA area and many of these parents are federal employees – so decent pay, but not enough to fork out full-pay privates without a good deal of pain. HS counselors are reluctant (to put it mildly) to discuss FA and how EFC is calculated, lest they be considered to be subtly hinting that certain kids should apply to one tier of schools, and others to different ones.
The Financial Aid Fairy is not going to drop out of the sky for most families. If it does, consider it manna from heaven. Otherwise, they need to have a budget and a plan. That plan needs to be communicated to the children in the family, preferably long before senior year.
What can also matter is if the student’s major is a “slacker” / “gut” major or a highly rigorous one at the school in question. At two schools of similar admission selectivity (not super-selective schools that “slackers” are unlikely to get admitted to), a given major may be highly rigorous at one school but a “slacker” / “gut” major at the other.
I think it all circles back to choosing safe and match schools wisely. There are some colleges which might not have the low acceptance rates or jaw-dropping median stats, but have challenging curricula, engaged faculty and students, and intellectual vitality. They are likely to offer irresistible merit packages to some promising students, in order to maintain a critical mass of high-performing applicants. They might be in artistic or cultural centers which attract gifted faculty. They might be large public universities with terrific honors programs. This is why college visits are desirable whenever and wherever feasible. They give students and families a chance to examine a college firsthand.
Not in my neck of the woods! I’ve been stunned to hear about kids from our local HS who had high stats and were outright rejected from schools for which they were in the top quartile. One in particular was a stand-out student, with national awards, etc. She was rejected everyplace except for one super-safety. Of course, this is a HS in a NY suburb where half the class is applying to top schools and competition is fierce.
Some common reasons why a “safety” may not really be a safety:
a. School does not want to be anyone’s “safety” and uses “level of applicant’s interest” to reject or waitlist high-stats students who do not appear to have it as a high choice.
b. School has different admission buckets of different levels of selectivity (e.g. by major, or auto-admit versus non-auto-admit), so a student may be applying to a bucket with much higher selectivity than the school overall.
That’s a student who hasn’t put together a sensible list, or perhaps has come off badly on their application. But I do think every student should have at least two safety schools on their list.
I think FallGirl is right on the “magical thinking” by parents about finances. The schools push very hard the idea that they make it affordable for everyone. I ran the numbers for QMP and was startled to see how much the schools thought we would be able to pay. (Luckily, tuition is not that high yet!) If the parents did not use an estimator, or thought that it couldn’t be right, given the school’s rhetoric, the financial aid offers are probably shocking–on the low side.
A lot of interesting issues are receiving attention in this thread. Here is my 2 cents’ worth on a couple of them.
@lvvcsf I think there are sub-categories of safeties: financial safeties and academic safeties. The applicant with a 32 ACT may not get into Oberlin or Kenyon for a variety of reasons, so maybe she applies to Denison or Ohio Wesleyan as an academic safety.
The applicant with a 34 ACT and stellar ECs might get into Northwestern, but can’t afford it for whatever reason. They’ve applied to Earlham or Wooster as backups and receive substantial aid packages.
As to whether a top student can be happy at Beloit vs. Harvard . . . The vast majority of top 50 or 60 LACs provide excellent teaching, tremendous research and internship possibilities, and a superb undergraduate experience IMO. Generally speaking, I believe there are only 2 primary differences between the Swarthmores & Amhersts of this world and the Beloits and Earlhams. One is prestige. The other is the relative percentages of tiptop, high performing kids in the student body. Both of these things are really important to some applicants (and their parents).
Many 35 ACTers are very happy to be big fishes in smaller ponds. They will come out of their undergrad experiences with extensive research experience, 1-to-1 relationships with many professors, Fulbright scholarships, and offers to Ivy grad schools. Others thrive when surrounded by a student body that is overall more like them. They are part of a cohort that will achieve great things as CEOs, educational leaders and elected officials. While these can be found in either environment, the difference is in the percentages, and the critical mass.
In any event, whether a school is a reach, a match, or a likely, I think it is important for applicants to spend time on campus, talking with current students, meeting professors, and sitting in on classes (especially upper level classes, if possible).