I’m just curious.
For those of you who got into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and other top schools, which safety schools did you apply to?
Someone please answer? I can’t believe there aren’t any top school graduates who applied to safety schools!
Not sure what you are asking. For a high stats kid a safety school is usually the local state flagship or a rolling admissions school like UMich. But if you are asking whether there’s a prestigious school which is a safety for a kid with the stats to apply to HYPM then the answer is no.
I’m not really a “top student” but if you are a good enough student to be considered at schools like the ones you’ve mentioned, then your safeties are probably what most people consider reaches. I would suggest schools like Boston University/College, American University, Northeastern, Northwestern, etc. Also, where are you from? Some of the “southern ivies” like Vanderbilt, Rice, and Emory might be good fits. Maybe even Tulane. On the west coast, I’m think Santa Clara (I rhink) and Loyola Marymount. I’m definitely least familiar with that part of the country so I would research those schools. Hope this helped!
Berkeley?
University of Washington Honors Program?
Claremont McKenna?
One thing I will say is that you should really pay attention to deadlines if you are a senior. The longer you wait, the less options you are going to have. You should take a week or so to come up with a list of schools that you could still love or at least really like should you get completely shut out of those elite schools (it happens.) Many application deadlines, particularly for scholarships, are either Dec 1 or Jan 15. I’m positive you know all of this, but this is just a friendly reminder.
These are unlikely to be safety level for anyone – maybe match or low match in some cases, but not 100% certain for admissions for anyone. Of course, such issues as cost and academic suitability may take them out of the running for some students.
Indeed, cost may be the biggest factor in determining what can be a safety. A school cannot be a safety if you are not sure that you can afford to attend.
I’d look for schools with either EA or rolling admission that you like and you can afford. For example a number of high caliber students in my area apply to UMichagan.
I don’t care how high your stats are Id say any school under 40% acceptance rate is a reach period. You can ask all the high stat kids that were rejected from GT. I was surprised myself but glad our high stats kid also applied to safeties with 60-70% acceptance rates. Look for that regardless of stats.
100% is a strong standard to get to, but if you were a recruited athlete, (who was academically competitive at the HYPSM alphabet soup schools), you could be fairly certain of quite a few next level down schools. I will point out that to be really in the running at the top schools, it takes more than high stats, so those kids are going to be quite a prize in that next level down.
Remember that 40% is for all the applicants as a whole. There are quite a few unsuitable ones in there to begin with, and since the thread postulated “top students”, you have to consider that their chances might be as good as some otherwise outstanding students going for a “60-70%” school.
Not necessarily true. For example, University of Texas - Austin has a 40% admission rate, but it is an admission safety for top 7% rank students in Texas high schools. Of course, that makes it more of a reach for everyone else.
Remember that many schools have different admission buckets of different levels of selectivity. Common buckets are in-state versus out-of-state at public universities, or by division or major. Some schools admit a portion of their class using publicly stated automatic admission criteria, making them safeties for applicants who meet those criteria.
100% is for certain admission and certain affordability that is generally needed to make the school a safety. Now, if the student does not like any 100% safeties, s/he can apply to several 90+% almost-safeties, hoping that it is extremely unlikely to be rejected by all (although that worst case scenario is still remotely possible).
Of course, if one applies to a known-affordable early rolling or EA school and gets an early admission, then that school is now a 100% assured safety.
Lol, 100% is probably impossible to find, but I applied to a school with a 96% acceptance rate. I’m not an Ivy hopeful, though.
Another example might be WSU. I think if you have a 3.5 or above, you’re virtually assured of admission and it’s a fine school.
Haven’t heard if that is for OOS, however. The WA state universities do love the OOS tuition payers.
You do not need a school with a 100% overall admission rate. But you need an affordable school where your chance of admission is 100% to make it a safety.
I’ve looked at the “Chance Me” threads and it occurs to me that there are a large number of posters on this board who might not know what “safety” means.
@JustOneDad That’s funny, WSU is the abbreviation for the college I was talking about, but I am pretty sure you mean Washington State University, not Wichita State University. 
Wichita? What’s that?
It’s the biggest town in one of those flat midwestern states, Kansas. You know, with all the tornadoes? 
Wichita is a place in Kansas where there was a large Boeing factory, and there still is a significant aerospace industry presence. Not surprisingly, Wichita State has a fairly large aerospace engineering department.