<p>What should a person looking into the Ivies look at in terms of safety schools? I know it's highly person-specific, but I just don't know how selective the schools I should see as 'safeties' should be. Any suggestions? Any school you name I'll look into on my own... otherwise, I don't know where to start.</p>
<p>I didn't have any safeties (as in, schools I knew I would definitely get into), but the least selective schools I applied to were Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, and Macalester. I probably wouldn't recommend that strategy, because as "safeties" go they were pretty damn risky, but my situation was unusual and rather complicated.</p>
<p>For a person with Ivy competitive stats, most flagship state schools are easy to find safeties (exceptions would probably be Berkeley, etc., although in-state is probably still okay for almost every flagship school). Less selective LAC's are often good bets--going off of Camelia's situation I would probably count Macalester as a safety for an Ivy competitive applicant, Bryn Mawr as a safer match (not really a safety), and Wellesley as a match/high match but really not a safety. Generally, for a school to really be a safety, it should have a 50%+ acceptance rate. Mine was Case Western Reserve, which is similarly selective to better state schools. </p>
<p>Most schools, even very competitive schools, are at least good bets for Ivy competitive applicants--for example, I was pretty sure that I would be accepted into NYU and BC--but you really shouldn't rely on a school with a low acceptance rate as a safety, even if you think that you are very qualified. The point of a safety is that it is safe--don't push the definition of a safety with a very competitive school that is simply not quite as competitive as an Ivy. Elsewhere I have seen someone who regarded UChicago as their safety--this is absolutely ridiculous. They probably thought so because U of C has/had around a 40% acceptance rate, but they were incredibly ill-informed and extremely lucky that everything worked out for them. This is an extreme example, but true.</p>
<p>Greene's Guides: Making it into a Top College contains a fairly comprehensive list of "selective" schools broken down into Demanding, Very Demanding, and Extremely Demanding, with Extremely Demanding being the Ivies and top LAC's/Universities, Very Demanding being the bulk of the well-known LAC's (Wellesley, Carleton, Bates, etc.) and other excellent Uni's (Rice, ND, Tufts), and Demanding being slightly less competitive than that (BU, Macalester, Union). His advice (and I agree), is that for a very competitive applicant, the Exceedingly Demanding schools are tough matches, the Very Demanding Schools are safer matches, and the Demanding schools are appropriate safeties. I highly recommend his book, and his characterization was true for me, fwiw. I applied to 4 Exceedingly Demanding schools (4 of the most competitive of those schools) and received 2 rejections and 2 waitlists, and 4 Very Demanding schools and got into all of them, plus my safety, to which I was easily admitted. I don't totally agree with his break down of the groups (personally, I think that many of the Very Demanding schools are as good/better schools than a few of the Exceedingly Demanding schools), but it is a pretty comprehensive list that takes a lot of the "Is this a reach/match/safety?" guesswork out of the process.</p>
<p>I was absolutely sure I would be accepted to Chicago because not a single applicant from my school with stats anywhere near mine has been rejected there in at least six years (I only have data since 2000). They rejected me because I was considered an "international" applicant and had applied for financial aid. I guess that teaches me not to be arrogant! :p</p>
<p>If you look at the results posted in the stats section of CC, you can find some pretty unpredictable outcomes for individual students at particular schools. To be really safe, you should probably be thinking something like 75%=tile or above academically at a school that has an acceptance rate getting up close to the 40-50% range.</p>
<p>MarathonMan has a good, quick way to look at the stats and decide, as well. The unpredictability factor, like in Camelia's case, is why a school like UChicago shouldn't be considered a safety. I felt similarly about Wellesley and Carleton, and it worked out for me, but I certainly wouldn't have felt comfortable with those being the least selective schools on my list. Better to be safe than sorry, and there are some very sorry people every year in April because they didn't choose their lists carefully enough.</p>