<p>Hey, without stating any stats at this point, I'd just like to know what YOU UoC students applied to as safety schools.</p>
<p>I'm just trying to get some ideas about what kind of safety schools I should look into, and I do value most of your guy's opinions.</p>
<p>Thanks for any help!</p>
<p>Can't help without any stats, interests, grades, etc.</p>
<p>Oh, fine.</p>
<p>Well, right now I'm a Junior and my strong class/subject/interest is English</p>
<p>SAT: 720 CR 710 Math 740 Writing</p>
<p>Grades:
UW GPA: 3.8
W GPA: 4.7
Class Rank: 5/~600 (public school, morons etc)
AP US History B
AP English Language and Composition A
Spanish 3 Honors A
Physics Honors A
AP Calculus AB A</p>
<p>I'm Expecting 5s on both AP English and Calculus tests, 4 on APUSH</p>
<p>ECs (low point)
- ~100 Comm Service Hours for Boy Scouts
- ~50 Comm Service Hours for Church
- ~150 Hours of tutoring (I love tutoring people so I can better my own academic prowess by analyzing their mistakes, etc; you could call it my passion..but it's not what i would call educating)
- 3 years in CSF
- Going to join Math Competition Team this summer
- NHS
- Calculus Club</p>
<p>I'm definitely interested in three things:
1. Majoring in English
2. Getting away from California (Midwest/East Coast); preferrably colder weather
3. Going to Law School</p>
<p>So..any suggestions?</p>
<p>Edit: Also Hispanic</p>
<p>The only "safety" that fit for my son was going to be Oberlin. Other schools of interest were not safeties----Carleton, Swarthmore, Reed, Pomona, Yale......</p>
<p>Any preference on location or size? Where are you from? Financial constraints?</p>
<p>My safeties were Notre Dame and Michigan. Those aren't safeties for many people; it really depends on your own situation, which is why we're asking for more information about you specifically.</p>
<p>Well, I appreciate the responses so far, and as asked, I will oblige and offer more specifics.</p>
<p>I'm from a very small suburb of Orange County Southern California, my parents make ~120,000$ (sweet spot, will be hard to pay). My sister attends UC Irvine at the moment, and my ideal locations would be the East Coast and the more Eastern Midwest States. As far as size goes, there's little to no preference for me..probably something around ~4,000 undergrads would be fine. I'd prefer an urban setting to a rural setting, and would like to avoid suburbs if at all possible (I'm not a fan of suburbia).</p>
<p>Again, any help is appreciated!</p>
<p>Not a safety by any standards, but Tufts (Boston, 4800 students) has always struck me as quality, cozy, and a great educational experience. The school gets unfairly harped-upon because it's consider an "ivy-wannabe" but honestly, I think I'd rather go there than go to a lot of ivies. Admissions may or may not be easier than Chicago; it's difficult to tell.</p>
<p>I think it also depends on whether you want to go for "normal" or "quirky." For "normal," I think URochester, Carnegie Mellon (not the greatest place for an English major, but I can imagine a Chicago person liking CMU), Brandeis, Vanderbilt, Emory, Macalester and Case Western all might be possibilities. If you're okay with Cali, I would also suggest CMC or Pitzer. These are probably not safeties in the truest sense, but two of my friends who wanted Chicago and didn't get in are now at Vandy and CMU, and both of them love it. Please check out these schools on your own, though-- I'm not you and I don't know what you want in a school and what you're willing to give up.</p>
<p>If you're looking for a quirkier student body, I would suggest Reed, Oberlin, Clark, Lewis and Clark, Sarah Lawrence, Bard, and Ursinus, even Wesleyan and Vassar. With the exception of Reed and Sarah Lawrence (SLC is suburbs, but it's tantalizingly close to New York City), these are not city schools.</p>
<p>If you NEED a city and you want a safety, I would suggest Drexel (12,000 undegraduates, Philadelphia), George Washington University (9,700, D.C.), Eugene Lang College (900 students, NYC, bills itself as a rising Reed/Swarthmore), and Occidental.</p>
<p>I would also suggest looking at WashU and NYU-- especially because I know a handful of students who were given great scholarships at both of those schools and chose to come here, so I imagine that those schools warm to the Chicago type of personality.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot, amykins!</p>
<p>I will definitely look those colleges you mentioned up. But, while I have my stats posted, and while I'm here, would anyone like to share what they think my chances are for these types of colleges? I do consider myself a pretty accomplished writer (12/12 on SAT essay).</p>
<p>Again, any help is greatly appreciated. I'm glad everyone is so helpful to a new and questioning user like myself.</p>
<p>UMich is a very good school which you should consider (it was mine).</p>
<p>I'm more of a science mind, but my safeties were Case Western and (mega-safety) the University of Pittsburgh. Pitt's Honors College is nicely well respected on the East Coast and is great for preprofessional stuff. I know the English department is pretty strong, and the Philosophy (also nice for pre-law) department is considered one of the best in the nation (for example, most of the philosophy professors at Chicago have their PhD's from Pitt.) They give good scholarships and the Honors College/ honors diploma if you go for it (they give a special degree with a lot of extra requirements, a BPhil) gives a great education.
For a scholarship example, I applied with stats similar to yours, although my GPA is a bit higher, I'm female and white, and I'm not a Boy Scout. :) Pitt gave me full tuition, which out of state is roughly $22,000/yr for the program I was interested in. They also offer guaranteed admission to some professional schools, although off the top of my head I can't remember which ones.
Anyway, my two cents- I was more than happy top have it as a safety, and it wound up being my third choice school (behind Chicago, where I'm attending, and UPenn... tough acts to follow.) I was really surprised at how much I liked it and how much a UChicago-style mind would fit in in the Honors College there.</p>
<p>Thanks guys, I'm really liking these replies.</p>
<p>I don't know, it would just kill me not to be able to afford/get into UChi, I feel like I've found home. I'm not one of those people who sells their souls to the deity of ECs but instead I focus on what I think helps me evolve more as a developing intellectual mind. I feel that UChi is just chock full of people I've been dying to talk to. The high school that I go to is a cesspool in terms of intellectual capacity and fulfillment :.</p>
<p>Keep 'em coming, guys!</p>
<p>glasses:</p>
<p>FWIW,if you investigate I don't think you'll find Reed to be materially more selective overall than Oberlin. At least these stats from 2007 US News, do not support that conclusion:</p>
<pre><code> mid- SAT Range, top 10% class, % accepted, LAC selectivity rank
</code></pre>
<p>Oberlin 1270- 1460 68% 34% 20
Reed 1280-1470 (?) 57% 45% {not shown]</p>
<p>(?= data not reported in comparable format)</p>
<p>I'm not commenting on the schools, education, quality, etc., just your son's chances of admission as you expressed in post #4.</p>
<p>I would recommend the University of Rochester. Its somewhat easier to get into than Chicago and often has great financial aid packages to a student like you. One of the deans atthe U of Chicago sent two of his children there. You can get a great education there and the campus is quite nice ( not much of a city and the weather is horrible though ). You really can't count on any school being a safety anymore as college admissions have become a crapshoot.
My child was waitlisted or denied at a few safety/match schools and accepted at reaches that we never thought would be possible.</p>
<p>ILikeDice -
Case Western, U of Rochester, and Brandeis would be in the match / strong match category for you, and you should have a decent shot at merit aid for all of them. Also consider Penn State Honors - one of our top students is attending on a major scholarship (his college fund went south in the dot com bust) and enjoys it a great deal.</p>
<p>monydad:
I'm sure you are right. My son stopped early in the app process because he was accepted ea to Chicago and figured out that it is the best fit for him.</p>
<p>Ilikedice, I think that you're a very strong applicant and will probably get into Uchicago. If you apply there early, it can be a weight off your year (that's what I did, didn't have to worry about colleges afterward) I think that some safety schools for you (not because they're generally easy, but because you specifically are such a strong applicant) would be NYU, Reed, possibly Johns Hopkins, Vassar, and many others. Especially if writing is a focus of yours and you could write very good essays, then you would have a very good chance of getting into these schools and Uchicago.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids ever applied to a true safety -- one because of a Chicago EA, the other because of a Michigan rolling acceptance in early December. Based on that experience, I can recommend applying to good rolling admissions schools very early (September). Try Michigan or Wisconsin, both of which are in small cities, and at least don't feel rural. Maybe Texas (not sure if it's rolling) or Ohio State (Columbus is pretty nice), or Pitt (which has a pretty good English program according to my daughter).</p>
<p>Had they applied to a safety, Boston University would have been high on both their lists. (They, too, liked urban.) My daughter liked Reed a lot, and my son was looking at Johns Hopkins, too, but neither of those would be much of a safety. However, you might look at George Washington or American in D.C.</p>
<p>By the way, I think CMU (which is next door to Pitt) has a famous creative writing program that produced Michael Chabon (and where he may teach). But I don't think it qualifies as a safety under any circumstances. Same with NYU -- it has gotten much more competitive as NYC has gotten more popular. You would have pretty good chances there, but it is much more a match than a safety.</p>
<p>Drexel would, except it's completely a tech school -- I don't think it even offers an English major.</p>
<p>Take a look at Boston College. It's not a safety for much of anyone anymore (I know someone at an Ivy who was rejected), but it'd be a good match for a medium sized city school in the East.</p>
<p>Pitt would be great if you're looking for an urban environment similar to Chicago. And like JHS said, it has an excellent English program, as well as pre-law.</p>
<p>And Pitt gives good scholarships, as I posted before, but cannot overemphasize the importance of. Safeties are good when you are certain you will get in, but even better when you know that you will probably get some type of merit based assistance.</p>