<p>
</p>
<p>I think that means your daughter is going with HER instincts on what she wants in a college and not being influenced by what USNWR thinks is the ideal college. Last I checked it was students just like your D sitting in the classroom, not a whole bunch of stuffed suits from USNWR.</p>
<p>I think one big factor that doesn’t get mentioned enough is managing your child’s expectations and being realistic about the potential outcome. If they start to believe they will only be happy at one school and one school only, guess what? It will be hard for them to “accept” going to what they consider a lesser school. I think it was Slithey who said they should have pros and cons of all schools – even their #1 choice – so they can remember that later and say “well I didn’t get into XYZ but I’m happy about ABC’s great study abroad program.”</p>
<p>They’re just kids. They can’t see that where you go to school is important, but it isn’t a make or break thing that determines your success for the rest of your life. Unless you see it that way.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Mine also didn’t go to the highest ranked school she got into (she went to one closer to home) and she had several safeties she liked better than some of the matches and reaches. That’s the beauty of a well thought out list. Any school on it has its good points. Sure, the top reaches may be more desirable, but that doesn’t mean a safety is undesirable.</p>
<p>When we looked at Brandeis a few years back, while it wasn’t a safety for my kid, it sure looked like a safety for the kids with slightly higher grades and scores if I recall correctly. I don’t have access to scattergrams anymore (or maybe they aren’t posting them) but according to our Naviance in 2010 7 kids from our school applied and 5 were accepted - average SAT 1997.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why bother applying to any school which the student likes less than the safeties?</p>
<p>Believe it or not, there are some students who apply to just their favorite school which happened to be a safety for them. They have no need to apply to any other school.</p>
<p>Something that I see in hindsight was useful for D1 was having a whole bunch of possible safeties to choose from for her final list. She ended up visiting between 8-12 possible safeties (we’re in California, so some of that was UCs), all schools that had something to offer her. That level of variety, I think, put her in the driver’s seat, giving her a big psychological boost. If she really fell out of like with one of those schools, she’d take it out of the rotation and swap in another that (after thinking it over) she realized she preferred more. There was no sense of obligation, of feeling that she had to have School X on the list as THE designated safety, the school of last resort.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Because, no matter how much the student likes the safety, it may not be in the student’s best interest to attend if accepted to a substantially more respected college.</p>
<p>I’m not talking about small distinctions in academic level here. If you’re accepted at Yale and Northwestern and you really like Northwestern better, go to Northwestern. But if you’re accepted at either of those schools, you should seriously consider what you’re doing before deciding to go to East Middle-of-Nowhere Directional State College, where your job or graduate school opportunities after graduation would be much less than those of graduates of Yale or Northwestern.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I suspect this is the problem in the case of the 3 students described at the start of the thread. They ended up at schools that were not academically rigorous enough, and thus are unhappy. </p>
<p>I think for many kids it’s unreasonable to expect them to find an academic and financial safety that they are also excited about attending. Especially if what they are excited about is being academically pushed/challenged. </p>
<p>What might make more sense is to add more academic “matches” to the list, rather than having mostly reaches and a few “safeties”. Kids should assume they are not going to get into a reach, and at least have matches that they are excited about. Enough that even with some randomness they are almost assured to get into one of them…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What the heck?</p>
<p>My son’s safety school was UT Austin. The year my son was applying to colleges, UT Austin accepted all students in the top ten percent of their class from Texas. He was easily within that percentage and we could afford it. That made it a safety school.</p>
<p>Well, yeah. It was a school that he was guaranteed to get into, based on his qualifications. So it was a safety, closely defined. Not all states have such a program, anyway. Mine doesn’t.</p>
<p>The thing is, with the regular application date coming right up, it’s really hard to know if you’ve covered all your bases. My daughter has a list of eleven schools, from top reach to low match (based on scores), but none of them admits more than 45%. Now, she should be fine getting into at least a couple of them, but we’ve all been warned many times of the folly of complacency, and the need for a safety. Well, what is a safety, then, if it’s not a school with a virtual guarantee? From what some posts have said, a safety is any school that will (based on past performance on Naviance, or whatever) accept your kid, regardless of its admission rates in general; others seem to think that no school can be seen as a safety unless it’s a lock. She doesn’t have a safety in that sense–I really think she’d rather take a gap year (an attractive idea anyway) and reapply than go to her state school. So if all hell breaks loose again and she doesn’t get in to any of her matches (and I mean matches, not reaches), she’ll have to take the consequences, I guess.</p>
<p>I agree with mathmomvt - I don’t think it is always reasonable to find a safety one loves, rather one could attend if all else failed. Mine will apply to a rolling admission school as a safety (Pitt), and 2 or 3 good matches that she likes, along with her reaches. And yes, for her, Pitt is a safety.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>…and I think that’s OK as long as she is interested in attending any school on her list or having a gap year. What I’m upset about is that students go (with open eyes) to a school they “know” they will hate. What’s the purpose of that?</p>
<p>Maybe I should also rephrase “love your safety” to “your safety is a good enough school where you will enjoy your 4 years or one that could be used as a stepping stone to transfer and you won’t be miserable there while attending.” ;)</p>
<p>If there is no such school, then a gap year is a perfectly acceptable alternative IMO.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That may be less of an issue at a big state university with students of a wide range of academic ability and motivation, such that the school offers honors or otherwise rigorous courses to cater to a significant number of high ability and motivation students.</p>
<p>However, if the student prefers a small or “narrow” (in terms of student ability and motivation) school, it may be harder to get a good fit at a safety level school, since the courses will be aimed at the typical student, not the few outliers.</p>
<p>Major choice may also affect how this plays out. A student majoring in something “hard” like pure math and/or philosophy may find high ability and motivation students in his/her major at a school with a much lower average. But if the student’s major is one known as an “easy” major, that may make the problem worse.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But if the “good fit” and “safety” school intersection is the null set, is it still likely to be the null set after a gap year?</p>
<p>I think there a number of factors that affect how one thinks of this, and one is how risk-averse you happen to be. How safe does that safety have to be to keep you from being nervous? If you are honest with yourself, and construct a list that includes reaches, matches and safeties, with enough of each, the likelihood that you will end up at your safety should be extremely low. My observation is that this happens most often when kids overshoot wildly, or when there is a big gap between the reaches and the safety.</p>
<p>But it seems to me that for kids with the stats and interest to get into extremely competitive schools, there may not be a true academic safety that they will be extremely happy to attend. If a kid has the stats to be competitive at, say, MIT and Caltech, what’s the safety that you think he’d love?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Depending on the state of residency, perhaps the state flagship or other good state university?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Might be…but after a gap year, hopefully, you have a better perspective on “fit” and “selectivity.”</p>
<p>If you’re lucky, your safety can be a school without a “guaranteed” admit but with rolling admissions so you can get an accept early on and then not have to worry. My S didn’t want to apply to our state U so he applied to a rolling admissions school he liked better. When he got in there with significant merit aid, that became his safety even though stats might have just called it a “low match” or something. Once you’re in, it’s a guaranteed safety ;-)</p>
<p>“I don’t think it is always reasonable to find a safety one loves …”</p>
<p>Why have them to apply to schools they don’t care for? As for the “reach” issue, what’s wrong with wanting something better … regardless of how the individual defines the word?</p>
<p>My daughter’s safeties (at least, we think they are safeties) are both schools that she can make a very good case for attending–they both have strengths that would make them reasonable fits for her as compared to other schools that might be similarly safe. But they lack other elements that she really wants, and that are offered by more selective schools. So I can’t say that she loves them, or that she would be excited if that’s where she ends up. But she’s happy with her overall strategy.</p>