<p>If your kid is heavily focused on HYPSM and similar schools, what schools are you using for safeties? Are you using Wash U, JHU, Tufts (popular safeties around here for kids aiming at Ivies? Or do you include schools that are much less selective? How did you choose them? Are you applying early to any safeties? All so confusing. Don't want to be rejected everywhere but don't want to waste time and effort applying to schools only for a very unlikely eventuality...</p>
<p>He is going about it bass ackwards.
The Question should read
" He is interested in Cornell & UPenn ( or whatever) as reaches, these are his stats & strengths, which good fit or sure thing schools should he be considering?"</p>
<p>And to answer the next question,
Regardless of the awesomeness of your progeny, unless you have recently endowed a chair @ Harvard or he has written a play that won a Tony, all the Ivies are reaches for virtually everyone.</p>
<p>You might consider JHU, Tufts, Duke, Northwestern, UChicago, Rice, UCB, UCLA.</p>
<p>Wash U, JHU and Tufts can not be considered safeties by anyone, really. I think many people use their flagship state university as a safety (depending on the state), or 2nd tier LACs which might offer good merit money and great educations (Rhodes, Sewanee, etc).</p>
<p>I do not consider Wash U, JHU, or Tufts to be safeties for ANYBODY. Schools with acceptance rates below 25% just are not safety schools. These 3 would be Match schools for a tippy top student. All students need safety schools, even Ivy caliber students. </p>
<p>My own kid went to an Ivy League school. In fact, she also applied to Tufts, which she loved, and that was a Match school on her list. She had two Safety schools. However, she graduated HS in 2004 and so her safeties have become more selective since then. Her safeties were Conn College and Lehigh. I think a college list should be balanced approximately 40% Reaches, 40% Matches, 20% Safeties. I like two safety schools because if Reaches and Matches don’t come through, there are still options on the plate. If a student is a tippy top one, their safety schools don’t have to be the easiest schools to get into in the country, but do need to be sure bet options for them. A top student’s safety schools may be matches or reaches for some other student, in other words. But schools with admit rates lower than 25% surely are not safeties for anyone.</p>
<p>Oops, cross posted with MomofWildChild and said the same thing.</p>
<p>I used my state uni (OSU) as my safety school</p>
<p>Picking those big name schools is easy pickings. Fun to loll those names off the tongue and day dream about each one of them. The real work is finding a school that will very likely accept you, that you can afford, and that you find you would like to attend. The school should also meet academic needs and aspirations. That is your most important school on the list because it is the hardest one to find. It’s very much an individual search since there are ever so many schools in this country, so many options. </p>
<p>What many kids do is apply to their state schools where the app cost and process is easy, the admissions driven by numbers, the admissions notification early, there is a large choice of offerings, many amenities. They then have the top schools as their reaches and look at schools like Wash U, JHU, and Tufts as matches. But these are not easy matches. I’ve known kids who were well in the upper quarter of those school’s stats and were not accepted. They are definitely not schools to take for granted.</p>
<p>The other thing to do is to apply EA or rolling admissions to a school very early. If you have that acceptance in hand, then you are set. UMich is an outstanding early response school. So is UMD< Penn State, a number of state schools. It also gives you a litmus test as to where you kid stands. My friend’s D was deferred EA from Georgetown, BC which made her decide to add some safer schools to her star studded list. She was wise to do so, because she was WL and denied at her initial choices, and she was really statistically a match for them. She is at George Washington which she threw in the mix as a more realistic match. I believe she was WL at Tufts and JHU.</p>
<p>I’m not a fan of tacking on the state U as a safety unless the student truly has an interest in the state U. I think the student should find safety schools that fit their selection criteria and schools that they like enough to attend. My own kid had a full ride at our state U, a fine university, but had no intentions of applying since the school did not fit her selection criteria. She found two safety schools, that while selective, were sure bet safeties for her (at that time).</p>
<p>I can vouch for Tufts, as I am an alum interviewer for Tufts. I have seen OUTSTANDING students rejected there. I know of some who got into Ivies but not Tufts. It is a very selective university, and for a top student, would be a Match. I would never ever call it a safety for any applicant.</p>
<p>Our D used UC Irvine as her safety school (and one we could afford for sure). We are in California and visited UCI. After our research, tours and a day spent on campus, she turned to us and said " I could be very happy here." Based on her stats, we had every reason to believe she would be admitted without a problem. She had a few other safeties as recommended by her GC. Santa Clara, U of San Francisco, Marquette. She had some matches. U of Rochester, RPI, Kettering, BU, CMU. She applied to HYPS and MIT as reaches aka dream schools. She did very well with the reach UCs and is at Stanford. We cast a wide net, which looking back was not smart.</p>
<p>Perception can be skewed…what I mean to say…for example…your child tests well, is number one in their class, all A’s, took the most demanding course load, strong EC’s…percentage wise-a “match” for the HYPs…but the HYPs can’t accept everyone with those stats, and colleges that you feel are slightly “lower” ranked-ie-the JHU,etc…don’t accept every applicant with those stats…then where are you?..choosing between one of your “safeties”…REAL life in the college application process…</p>
<p>Agree with Soozie. Tufts is a crapshoot. I, too, have seen top students waitlisted or rejected from Tufts who have gotten into “higher ranked” schools. My own daughter was one of them! (Rice '07) </p>
<p>Someone’s dream safety might be Miami-Ohio! Another student might decide he or she could be very happy at Ursinus. My son’s safety (chosen for the wrong reasons but I think it would have worked) was UGeorgia. He was intrigued by it (espec if he was in Honors, which was NOT a sure thing at all) and I wouldn’t have minded having him go there at all. In fact, if he had, I might be able to retire now! As it is…no.</p>
<p>My DW works for CSU, so if my DD goes to CSU, we pay half price, if she goes to the campus my DW works, it is FREE. However, DD refuses to take that in as Safety… We got lucky, DD is going to her first choice, but it will cost us $$$$$$$$$$$</p>
<p>Engamac, it’s like saying you wasted money paying for insurance because you did not need it. Consider yourself fortunate that your daughter’s choices included all of her reaches. In a case like that, upon looking back, you can say that you were too careful. Then I see families where their kids is stuck with the safety school just tacked onto the list. It is tough on a kid when rejected from many schools. To be stuck with one school, having no choice makes it even more painful. Like you are stuck. Boxed in. No choice. Having a couple of offers to entertain including some honors programs, merit awards, going to Flagship U where a lot of kids from the school are going, can make things a bit easier. </p>
<p>Artloversplus, I was the same way when I was in high school. My father worked for a college program so I would get free tuiton at the school. I could therefore commute to the satellite campus for free for two years and transfer to a degree awarding campus or the main campus for the final two years, paying only room and board. It didn’t interest me in the least. I threw in a safety school, a big OOS uni where I knew I would get accepted. The laugh was on me because though I was accepted there, I didn’t get a dime of financial aid, and the OOS premium made the school pricey. It would have cost me more to go there than to the private schools that all offered me financial aid/merit packages.</p>
<p>IMHO- what was true 2 years ago is not anymore 
The HS Class of ‘10 and 11’ are the baby boomers, meaning the 2 biggest classes to ever graduate HS with the strongest stats…Lucky us.
So what use to be safeties are not anymore, what use to be targets are not anymore etc… Even the flagships U are bursting to the seams, and not being as generous as they use to be. The numbers of HS Graduates will go down with the HS Class of 12 ;)</p>
<p>Flagship Unis are not the safeties they used to be. With the economy the way it is, college costs going up and savings/investments down, credit lines closed down, I think the state schools are going to have a lot of serious applicants. If you want that state school on your list, it is advised to get that app in early because certain majors close up quickly and with rolling admissions, it is possible for even a strong contender to be blocked because there simply are no more seats left in a program. A young lady I know was accepted to a nursing program at a very selective school but was turned down at state u. She did not know that the program filled up very quickly and you had to get your app in by the end of the year, not by the generous leeway of the due date given.</p>
<p>However, I think that with the number of college aged kids now going down, and the economy the way it is, full pay kids will get a leg up at those schools that are need aware and are expensive.</p>
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<p>I agree with this. My son’s graduating class was one of the most talented, high achieving classes in the 50 year history of the school. In any other year, son would have had a much higher class rank and better admissions results.</p>
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<p>Well, technically, you’re baby boomer echos since many of your parents are late baby boomers and (contrary to “common knowledge”) the largest baby boomer years were near the end of the boom in '57, '58, and '59 if I recall correctly …</p>
<p>My child has high numbers (Academic Index 9 if Ivies still use it) and most challenging course load available. Also, he attends one of the elite high schools in the country.</p>
<p>We were told by the school counselor that Ivy League schools are reaches for everybody.
Same thing can be said about Amherst, Williams and Swarthmore.</p>
<p>My child has 2 safeties: one state U and one LAC.</p>
<p>IMO, JHU, Wash U and Vanderbilt could be match schools but they cannot be safety schools.</p>