<p>Given the scare stories about how increasingly competitive 2nd and 3rd Tier schools are getting--would like to hear from students who ended up at safeties that turned out to be "a good fit" and overall positive experience.</p>
<p>someone from my school last year, if you heard this kid's stats, you would be horrified. He applied to 6 schools, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dart, and UPenn, and NYU. He got rejected by 5 and only one that took him was NYU. His stats 1590, 800 x 5 SAT IIs 97.2 GPA, Saluditorian. He ended up at NYU.</p>
<p>please tell me he had poor/non-existant ECs!?</p>
<p>or another case of colleges trying to show that they can afford to reject the best!?</p>
<p>umm, some speculate that his essays were mediocre, but still ppl, that is ridicuouls. He was a great kid, well respected by his peers and teachers. IDK what happeneed, it was a travesty in my opinion.</p>
<p>Good Safety Schools - Syracuse University, George Washington University, University of Maryland-College Park, Penn State?</p>
<p>Two of my sisters ended up at schools quite far down on their preference lists -- Barnard in one case and Wesleyan in the other (this was 20 years ago when Wesleyan hadn't become "hot" yet). Both were just as happy with the education and experience they got as was my 3d sister, who went to her dream school, Brown. The Barnard sister, who had really wanted Dartmouth or Penn, got into a number of good medical schools and became a superstar at the top of her medical class, ending up with a first-choice residency and a budding academic career...so it doesn't seem to have held her back any.</p>
<p>Just goes to show you that even with stellar stats, you can't be too incredibly cavalier about college apps. You've still got to be careful and take time on your application and essays. A friend of mine from high school had incredible stats and wrote his essay on how it was dumb to let in all the very smartest applicants to elite colleges, because they're not the ones who need to be taught by the best professors; it's the stupid people that all the good colleges should accept because the smart people are capable of teaching themselves.</p>
<p>All the colleges he applied to (all ivies or equivalent) apparently agreed with him, and so they all rejected him. Despite his being one of the best students at an elite private school, he ended up living at home and going to UTDallas. He's bounced back and is in med school now, but it was an important lesson learned!</p>
<p>i think the perfect safety school for me was University of Michigan. It is such an amazing school with a great faculty and student body. Also it has wonderful school pride. Everyone who i know goes to this school, loves it there and can not be happier with their decision. You just cant go wrong with that school since its so great though its not the toughest school to get into</p>
<p>agreed stan!</p>
<p>UMich is also considered a public ivy, so it's certainly up there in terms of academics.</p>
<p>lol...aibarr
that was a kinda stupid thing for your friend to do!</p>
<p>aaron56- We sure thought so! =)</p>
<p>all my safeties are public party schools...if i can't get into a good college i really want to go to, ill just take it as fate and just live it up in college.</p>
<p>Problem with Umich is the outrageous tuition for out of staters. If you can afford a safety school that will cost you 35K a year, then yeah it's awesome. For me, the best public university in my state was a better safety.</p>
<p>Stanmaster, you are quite correct. Michigan was not my "safety" per se, but it certainly was one of my reasonable matches. Of the 11 schools (Brown, Cal, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Michigan, Northwestern, Penn and UNC) I applied to, it was arguably the least selective for out of staters. I got accepted into 10 of the 11 schools I applied to and I opted to go to Michigan. Of the top 10 or 15 universities, Michigan is the only one that will almost always accept the perfect students (3.9-4.0 students with 1500+ on the SAT) and will often (better than 50% of the times) accept good students (3.7-3.9 students with 1300-1500 on the SAT). Such students have a 10%-30% chance of getting into most top 20 schools but at Michigan, they have a good chance. I would say Michigan is probably the poster child of safety schools that turned out well.</p>
<p>Transfer, Michigan is a bargain. It provides a top 10 or top 15 education at a highly discounted price to 65% (in-staters) of its students. It is also a relative bargain for out-of-staters as it is about $10,000/year cheaper than most universities of its caliber. As you pointed out, Michigan will cost $35,000/year for out-of-staters. Schools like Johns Hopkins, Duke, Columbia, Brown etc... cost about $45,000/year. Furthermore, there aren't many public universities that can come close to Michigan in terms of academic excellence, resources, experience and placement. Unless you come from the states of California, Illinois, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin and maybe Washington, chances are, even the flagship state school will not provide you with an education nearly as good as the one you would get at Michigan.</p>
<p>also Michigan is amazing about merit scholarships and grants. They really hand out alot of money to top students that really make you want to go there.</p>
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<p>I got accepted into 10 of the 11 schools I applied to and I opted to go to Michigan.</p>
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<p>I have a friend who made the same decision, choosing Michigan out-of-state over Columbia. He did extremely well there and got into his (ultraselective) dream graduate program.</p>
<p>I don't think I'd have made the same choice in his position, but he wouldn't change it for the world.</p>
<p>then why does ur profile say, attended Bryn Mar, then Harvard college??</p>
<p>What does that have to do with choosing between Columbia and Michigan? If I were in the position of my friend, who made that choice, I'd choose Columbia.</p>