<p>^ No, USC is not Stanford rejects...it's UCLA rejects...;)</p>
<p>I kid...USC is a great school. Of course, USC is going to be a tier below Stanford, every school besides HYPM is, but who cares?!</p>
<p>some people said that SUNY-Geneseo is an ivy safety for New York residents, really? Geneseo's average SAT is only a little bit lower than UMich and its acceptance rate is even lower than Mich, why Geneseo is so selective? Just for financial?</p>
<p>I would suggest Vassar or Bard as intellectual back-ups. So many people here at Bard are Ivy/small ivy rejects.</p>
<p>Quickly, could any liberal arts colleges act as back ups? Vassar's out- too close to home.</p>
<p>^ Claremont McKenna or Harvey Mudd?</p>
<p>"liberal arts colleges act as back ups"
Carleton
Pomona</p>
<p>Pomona? The average SAT score is like a 2180, and its acceptance rate is 16%.</p>
<p>It isn't a safety for anyone, but it can be a backup if you've already gotten in.</p>
<p>St John's College NM or MD
Reed
Davidson
Claremont McKenna
Pitzer
Grinnell
Oberlin
UChicago
UMichigan
WUSTL
NYU
Carleton
Bates
Marlboro
Wesleyan
Wellesley
New College of Florida</p>
<p>Vassar
Rice</p>
<p>there are a ton of them!</p>
<p>"^ Claremont McKenna or Harvey Mudd?"</p>
<p>Not so sure you'd want to consider HMC a backup. Plenty of "well qualified" applicants get rejected. The admission pool is already pretty self-selective.</p>
<p>Yes, rocketDA, but most posters in this thread have not been naming safeties. UChicago? Rice? Carleton? WUStl? They're all tough.</p>
<p>Maybe Macalester or Conn College?</p>
<p>Good distinction people are making between 'safety' and intellectual backup. I like the latter term & like many of the suggestions. Just remember that places like Reed, Carleton, and UChicago have their own 'campus cultures' and will be looking for the applicant to fit into that. (There's a difference between being selective & being 'particular.') </p>
<p>I would only disagree that Tufts, or LAC's such as Wesleyan, are safeties for the highly-qualified. They tend to reject (or more often wait-list) the overtly Ivy-qualified due to Yield concerns, & are very conscious about being used as safeties when it looks obvious to them that the applicant will be an Ivy-admit. Being wait-listed (the favorite response) cancels out that safety-strategy. </p>
<p>(All the Ivy-qualified and Ivy-likely at my D's private h.s., over the last 10 years, have been wait-listed at all the East Coast LAC's, with the exception of one 3 yrs. ago, who was admitted to one of the them because Mom was very active alum.)</p>
<p>^epiphany has a point in teh second part, though I have never heard about Wes actually doing that. I think the real thing to watch out for with some of these schools, many of the selective LACs (Carelton, Pomona, Wes, Vassar, Reed, etc.) is that while great stats give you a good shot, they ALL care about fit, a lot. So that factors in things like deconstrated interest, but also essays, ecs, etc. </p>
<p>Basically, I'd hesitate to call any of the top 10-15 LACs true safties for anyone because fit is such an important factor, important enough to perhaps outweight above average stats. They'd make good matches and low matches, though. </p>
<p>I'd also disagree with college help that selective unis like Georgetown and Duke are safties--matches, maybe, but not safties.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Safeties for Ivy applicants:
Duke
Chicago
Washington U St Louis
Johns Hopkins
Northwestern
Emory
Rice
Notre Dame
Vanderbilt
Georgetown
Tufts
Wake Forest
Brandeis
Lehigh
NYU
Boston College
Syracuse U
U of Rochester
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Half of these schools are by no means "safeties".</p>
<p>for strong candidates georgetown/hopkins/chicago/nu work well. my own preference would be for chicago among those.</p>
<p>for the very top applicants penn/cornell/brown are safeties.</p>
<p>with regards to the above post, perhaps duke is the only one which does not belong on the list. the rest can serve as safeties, normally for top students at the top few boarding schools.</p>