<p>i was just wondering what safety schools past applicants have applied to that are duke/ivy caliber students? i have a ~100.5 weighted average (we don't see cumulative unweighted on our transcripts) around a 33 ACT (took it once w/o studying and got a 31 so im confident it will go up after i study and take it again in june), have won many academic awards including a national essay contest and medaling every year in the national spanish exam, am in the top 1% of my class and do science research/volunteer at a hospital and 3 varsity sports...i am at a total loss when it comes to finding safety schools that i could be potentially happy at if i don't get into my top choices (Duke, UVa, UNC, Penn, Brown). Thanks in advance for the input!</p>
<p>Usually safety schools are state schools where you are certain to get in and can afford them. </p>
<p>What would they be for you?</p>
<p>well, they would be the SUNY schools, but i want to get out of NY and am not applying to any of them…</p>
<p>There you go. You know your safety schools but don’t want to apply!</p>
<p>The other State schools you have good shot at getting in - University of Minnesota, University of Pittsburgh, a few other midwest schools etc. </p>
<p>If you receive any free applications (you get invitations to apply where they waive the fee), they are sort of your safety schools even if they may not be financial safeties.</p>
<p>Tulane? They give mad merit money too.</p>
<p>I would say the University of Texas. University of Michigan, and Pittsburgh would all be good safeties for you. These schools focus on your GPAs heavily so I’m almost confident of your acceptance to these places.</p>
<p>i would definitely agree with Tulane, great school, tons of merit aid. Also, U Mich and U Wisco are great (if you dont mind the cold). CSUs or UCs if you want California, or your typical, UMass, U Vermont or Syracuse. All great safeties.</p>
<p>thanks! i was looking into University of Michigan im just worried it might be too big…but tulane is way too far…</p>
<p>Pittsburgh is indeed a great safety. It was my safety before I ended up at Duke and they offered me 3k short of a full-ride in the Honors College.</p>
<p>i will definitely look into Pittsburgh then thank you!</p>
<p>Safeties were pretty much the UC’s for me, since I live in CA, and I got into all of them. I don’t think a private school should even be in a safety list, but if you really wanna then go ahead. Hope you come to Duke. =)</p>
<p>If you’re willing to go smaller, Rhodes is very similar to Duke in many ways (minus the DI athletics) and offers good merit aid.</p>
<p>@djking99 i hope so too!! and D1 athletics is part of the appeal for me haha, i want the intellectual atmosphere with big sports teams in a medium sized school, which makes looking for a large amount of schools to apply to that i’d be happy at so difficult!</p>
<p>Having just gone through the process as a parent, I can say that outside of your state universitites, there aren’t any safety schools. If you want to have a backup where you think you have a better chance at admission than your first (or second or third) choice, you have to show more interest than you feel. I posted in another thread but I’ll say it again here, do not expect to be admitted to schools where you do nothing other than apply. By that I mean, you must visit or request an interview or show some kind of serious intent. My son’s top choices all involved plane tickets to visit. We visited as many as we could but time and expense prevented us visiting all the schools on his list. In the end, he was admitted to the ones we visited and waitlisted everywhere else.</p>
<p>Most state schools don’t keep track of interest. My kid applied to several state schools which offered afree application and all of them admitted. Several of them were very generous with merit money, much more so than our state flagship which does not award any money for national merit and someone with perfect scores did not receive any merit money.</p>
<p>The State schools mainly look at the academics in most cases. For someone like OP getting in at Pitt wont be a problem. If OP wants to attend, how much merit money might be available is the main question.</p>
<p>^ You’re probably right, although I would add, it depends on the state. OP’s list includes UVA and UNC which are not safety schools if you’re not from those states. Actually, UNC isn’t a safety school even when you are from NC. I’ve certainly heard stories of NC residents getting into an Ivy or Duke who didn’t get into UNC. Heard them, never met anybody who said it happened to them, so perhaps fiction.</p>
<p>Lets go with the assumption that any state school under 50 in USNWR is not a safety unless you have a way to get in automatically.</p>
<p>I would also add that it’s not just state schools that don’t track interest, but the majority of selective and highly selective schools also do not track demonstrated interest, so visiting or showing interest will not help you get in. To find out if a school tracks interest and uses demonstrated interest in admissions decisions, check the school’s common data set (just Google “school name common data set”). The common data set contains a matrix that shows which factors are considered in admissions.</p>
<p>Even though demonstrated interest might not be an admissions factor, visiting a school is still really important in evaluating if it’s a good fit for you, and more importantly from an admissions perspective - can also give you important insights for helping to write your “Why this College” supplemental essays.</p>
<p>My safety is the University of Georgia.</p>
<p>dukedad - I completely disagree with you about selective schools not tracking interest. Any school that publishes their yield statistics, especially if it’s accompanied by statements like “Great U’s yield percentage goes up for the third year in a row!” keeps track of interest. The only way to achieve a higher yield is to admit more students who come and fewer who don’t. Among many other factors in deciding who to admit, demonstrated interest level in Great U is bound to be one of them.</p>