<p>lowellbelle...if it's ok to ask, when you say "I KNEW I was going to get into Harvard and Yale...and I knew I wouldn't be accepted to Princeton or Cornell" do you mean you had an intuitive premonition about the decisions or there was some specific, special reason, like you're a legacy or your school or something?</p>
<p>I think the definition of a "safety school" is subjective. That funny pun about Yale being Harvard's safety makes the point, albeit in a rather farcical manner. You have to juxtapose the schools you're talking about. To some girl with wacko stats, Columbia may her safety for Harvard or MIT. Yet for be someone with somewhat lesser stats, Cal, or Michigan or UCLA may be safeties for Columbia. Then, for some MSU may be the safety for UM, while Wayne or Western Michigan or OSU may be the safety for MSU, ... and on and on and on... The point being is, I dont think there is a set group of schools, like say the Ivy League or the Big 10, where you can assign a group of schools called safety schools, since the definition means different things to different students. </p>
<p>As for Harvard, the proper definition of a safety, generally speaking, may be every other school in the country, although even there, Im sure there area a lot of people, like the NWestern person, above, who may have a story to refute that definition.</p>
<p>My safeties will be something like Rutgers, NYU, Carnegie Mellon, GWU, Michigan, and Brandeis. I wouldn't apply to all of them, though. After all, they're safeties (right?!). I'll probably just apply to Rutgers, and maybe one more.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Well, this is even more true at "uncompetitive" colleges."</p>
<p>How are you defining 'uncompetitive' ? Examples?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uncompetitive, in this case, I define as schools that traditionally have a large set of applicants who use it only as a backup school. Few people use HYPS as "backups", but far more use, say, WUSTL, Lehigh, and Tufts as such. That's not to say that "uncompetitive" colleges are * bad* colleges; clearly they're nothing of the sort, and clearly they also have a fair share of applicants for whom they're a top choice. But they also have a fair share of applicants who hope to - and often can - get into HYPS - that use such schools as backups only.</p>
<p>In such instances, unless an uncompetitive college is fairly confident that an exceptionally strong student (who stands a good shot at HYPS) will matriculate, they may very well reject that strong student and suffer less of a yield hit.</p>
<p>I realize these schools are higher-ranked and less certain than those typically mentioned as safeties, but you can do the lower Ivies (this is primarily for people who absolutely have the academic qualifications of a HYPSM student, but are perhaps hook-less or have a significantly lacking area such as leadership, sports, etc). Personally, I think you should also put your state schools at the lower end of your list, as well as other schools that specifically offer merit aid - if you're going to end up going to a school below your dream school, at least have them pay you for it! For instance, if you're a National Merit finalist, look into schools that offer a lot of scholarship money for that... USC comes to mind (I believe it offers half tuition guaranteed for this). U Chicago is also pretty good about offering it's $9,500/yr. CMU, Notre Dame... still quite prestigious, but less hit-or-miss than the Ivies.</p>
<p>"Uncompetitive, in this case, I define as schools that traditionally have a large set of applicants who use it only as a backup school. "</p>
<p>Ok, I see, less competitive in cross admits. Yes, I agree that you have to be careful with these schools. The point that kcastelle makes about schools that offer merit scholarships is also important - these are sometimes a bit more reliable because the student is not the only one making the decision. If the situation is that the parents can't / won't cough up full freight, far better to have a lovely merit school to attend than the flagship U you are not fond of. Of course, if you have a wonderful Flagship U you're in better shape.</p>
<p>Also, schools offering merit aid are less likely to reject an applicant on the basis that they would clearly be "too qualified" and go to a higher school. For example, Brown might reject a HYPMS-quality candidate because they might get stolen by a higher school, but CMU (who based on prestige alone should have even LESS chance of the student matriculating) might actually have a higher chance because a student willing to turn down merit money for their dream school might not be as inclined to turn it down for a second, third or fourth choice school.</p>
<p>Here is an interesting statistic from northwestern, a school that some people here believe is their 'safety':
25% of applicants with a 35 or 36 on their ACT were rejected last year.</p>
<p>Kcastelle, I'm not quite sure what you're saying. Brown, of course, does not offer merit aid. So do you mean that a student would be more likely to turn down HYPMS for a school like CMU than for Brown, because CMU offers merit $? Certainly it's true that merit scholarships do lure a fair number of kids away from the very top schools.</p>
<p>Yes, the only person admitted to Brown at my school this past school year turned down their unimpressive fin aid pkg for a full scholarship elsewhere. I believe you can find her on Princeton Review's Eye-On-Apply.</p>
<p>A significant fraction of Harvard's cross admit losses are to schools offering big "merit aid" packages or athletic scholarships (including Stanford and Duke) to students who only qualify for limited need-based aid at Harvard or other Ivies.</p>
<p>Donemom,
I don't have the cross-admit statistics, but I'm sure it could happen in some cases. There is also the case where students decide that the quality of a particular department trumps the college's overall standing. And ... kids change. What seemed important fall of senior year may be supplanted by quite a different wishlist in the spring.</p>
<p>Yeah, when you think safeties, it's more like 75% are accepted and all, so when I was applying this year around my safeties were Drew and TCNJ [though their accept rate is 50%, but it's a by the numbers school]. So yeah, I would def not think of Northwestern or U Chicago as safeties, so..</p>
<p>Donemom, that is true, but what I meant was that any school that offers merit aid is not only more attractive as a safety (because if you must settle, why not settle a bit lower without debt?) but also a safer bet as far as admission goes. </p>
<p>Any school below the very top tier that doesn't offer merit aid (famously Tufts, Northwestern, even maybe the low Ivies) is a dangerous choice as a "safety". They lose virtually all cross admits with the top schools because they're not offering money to lure them. CMU, USC, Chicago etc (also very strong schools that do offer merit money) will at least get a second glance in the cross-admissions battle, making them less likely to reject those perfect-stats kids and safer as backups. I'm not advocating using them as safeties, but there are certainly students who can use the last few as "safe matches".</p>
<p>Yes, I see what you mean, kcastelle. When my son, a current freshman at H., compiled his list, we secretly felt that Cornell was actually a safety, in that our high school is practically a feeder school for Cornell, and my son's stats were above many that Cornell had taken in the past. We also felt WUSTL was in the category of a back-up. Nevertheless, in order to sleep at night, he also included SUNY Binghamton as his true safety, where the admissions rate is much higher and he was a double legacy. All the other schools on his list were ivies + Stanford. Probably, with what I know now from CC, I would have encouraged him to have one or two more schools as safer matches. Fortunately, none of those aps, other than Stanford, ever had to get sent out,</p>
<p>Tee-hee, I remember how mortally offended a friend of mine was when I failed to show much excitement at getting into USC because I considered it a backup... I decided not to tell her I'd secretly also thought of a few higher schools that way!</p>
<p>Cornell was not a safety for anyone this year, even for students at NYS feeder schools. Students that got into Harvard and other Ivies did not get into Cornell, which drew heavily from its ED pool this year.
WUSTL has a knack for knowing which students are using it for a safety and consequently tends to waitlist those students.</p>
<p>Actually, WUStL is pretty uncannily good at that. A good friend of mine knew it would be painfully obvious they were his safety (which of course they were) and he tried his darnedest to convince them otherwise - writing letters of interest, oozing his love of the school during the interview, contacting the coaches of his sports. All to no avail - he was accepted to an Ivy but waitlisted by WUStL. Apparently he was a finalist for one of their (few) scholarships too... which means they knew they'd have to bribe him to get him!</p>
<p>Its all kind of ironic - kids with issues in their application wish for perfection, kids with applications that are pretty close to perfect get waitlisted at schools that would be happy to have them.</p>
<p>Might WUStL just get information about who gets into an Ivy, if the decisions were made before its decisions i guess, and waitlist many of those people? So maybe if a person didn't get into an Ivy, WUStL would function as a safety and accept him.</p>
<p>Also, people always talk about visiting, but what if you don't? What if you're an average income applicant, but going to certain colleges/states is not a trip your family will make or provide for you to make unless you eat their hearts out for it? My summer camp happened to be in Boston, so its actually safeties that I haven't visited.</p>
<p>So, even though people always tell you to, is it really so unusual not to visit and still get into WUStL, Cornell, UChicago?</p>