This happened to me today. I got into a school with an average 88 GPA, and I maintain a 100.4 GPA. My non-required college essay was fantastic and I’m a published writer and I was flat out rejected by a safety. I am not angry, but extremely confused. I got a likely to an Ivy League college! Can someone explain?
My first rejection, and it wasn’t even Harvard or Yale.
Which safety?
Also, college admissions can be idiosyncratic. It’s not like they just read from a board with the highest-ranked schools taking the highest scores and go down the time. For sure, your application to each college would be slightly different.
@PurpleTitan I won’t name it because I know other people see it as a dream school. It’s just odd to me though
If other people see it as a dream school, then maybe it wasn’t really a safety at all… Congrats on the Ivy acceptance.
The safety may think you have a high probability of not attending so they made offers to increase their yield. College admissions is somewhat mysterious at times, reading the results threads from various colleges shows that a lot more goes on behind the scene that doesn’t invole test scores and gpas
If other people see it as a dream school, it’s likely not a safety for anyone.
It may shock you, but the Ivies aren’t in some special class where all those schools are desired the most by everyone and more selective than any other school.
If you got a likely letter from an Ivy, then you either are a top of the top student in terms of test scores and grades, with some great academic achievement, …or you have some hook that puts you into a special category. That you were not accepted to your safety school leads me to believe you are in the latter category, and the school was just not interested in your hook or have enough students they prefer over you in that special category. Are you a recruited athlete, URM, first generation, disadvantaged, celebrity status, have strong family connections? My guess is that you are one of those categories and the school that rejected you decided not to give much weight to that category for whatever reason. My guess is also that your likely letter was from Cornell or Dartmouth.
@PurpleTitan, some people see schools with 90% acceptance rates as dream schools.
@Anonymoose3, in this case I don’t believe it is one of those types of schools.
@cptofthehouse, you are good. Looked through posting history?
@cptofthehouse agree with @PurpleTitan you are good. Cornell with a hook.
@pinkwhitered congrats on the likely letter! I think you should share the school if you actually want your question answered though. No one is going to be offended that badly because you considered a school they liked a safety. You certainly don’t have to but if you want a more accurate answer it would help.
It happens a lot, actually, if the “safety” is at all selective. Often they deny or WL because they don’t think you really want to go, that you are using it as a safety. D had a similar experience this week.
A few possible reasons:
- The supposed "safety" considers "level of applicant's interest", and you did not show enough interest. Considering "level of applicant's interest" has become more common because many schools do not like being used as "safeties" by students who are unlikely to attend.
- You happen to have application characteristics (possibly what is usually called a "hook") desired by your "likely" school, but not by your supposed "safety" school.
Obviously, your supposed “safety” was not an actual safety. It does appear that this is the season when many students post here about finding that out, because they were overconfident in making their application lists. Perhaps this is related to the tendency for students to throw in “safeties” as afterthoughts, so that they are either not really safeties, or they are not schools that they want to attend.
Simple answer : You were rejected so it was not a safety. Safety means 100% chance, the result speaks by itself.
State school that gives preference to state residents and you aren’t one? The average stats will look low, but because you are in a more selective category of applicant, you don’t get to enjoy those stats.
It was probably Lehigh - they are the only notable school that posted decisions this morning.
What acceptance rate did your ‘safety’ have, OP?
Lehigh decisions also came out around the same time OP posted. I’ll put my money on Lehigh - 31% acceptance rate.
Wow that’s a very risky safety which mean it isn’t one I guess. I’m assuming it’s especially tough if OP is an engineering major although I may be off. Sounds like the OP will be fine though even if he has to go to an Ivy League school.