safety schools

Parents Forum
1

<p>I would be interested in all of your opinions relating to what a safety school really is. For example I have read comments here and have heard anecdotes that schools such as Tufts can devine that an applicant is using Tufts as a safety school and get rejected for that reason. There are a number of schools such as George Washington Univ. that are used by students applying to the top lac schools as safety nets that also are put off being considered as last choices. Also when kid is asked at an interview or in an essay why this school, are we as parents condoning our kids lying on application? Or is it just accepted practice?</p>

<p>So fellow parents is there such a thing as a sure shot safety school if our kids are applying to top 15 lac or Ivies? Even schools such as Lafayette,Lehigh, Bucknell are tough to get into. We advise our kids to find a safety school they really like which is tough when a kid's heart is set on a Haverford, Colgate or Brown. Also, for my D who wants to go to a lac the safety schools are the larger schools which are the opposite of what she wants. What do you think?</p>

2

<p>I'm a student.</p>

<p>There are tons of fantastic schools, and any person could be happy at any number of them. I think a safety school is a school where a student is very likely to be accepted. In college admissions there are of course no certainties; however, if a student is a step above the level of most applicants, he or she will probably be accepted. There is, of course, the backlash of kids who are denied because the school wants to teach a lesson and bunches of kids who are simply denied from their safety for some unknown reason. That is one reason why it is important to have at least two safety schools, as well as a few mid-range schools--this is a category that is often forgotten! </p>

<p>It is possible to fight the denial by a safety by showing interest. Any safety school should be a school where the student would be happy to attend. It should fit every requirement the student has set out (city? close to home? engineering? small?) only be less selective in admissions. If this is the case and the student would truly be content at any college on his or her list, whether or not it is the most or least selective, the chances are he or she has already shown an interest in the school by visiting, requesting information, or having an interview. Then, the school will not feel like an add-on, thereby fighting the "Tufts syndrome." If the student has done this and likes every school, then there is also no need to lie on the essay "Why College X?" Answer truthfully why that college was picked as opposed to one of the other four thousand in the US. It is trickier if an interviewer asks if the school is the student's first choice. In that case, the student should either lie or work around the question by talking about his/her love of the school and desire to attend. The interviewer will certainly notice, but it is not the same as saying to Tufts: "No, my first choice is Harvard." </p>

<p>There aren't any sure shots, but in-state state schools come pretty close. Besides those, kids should find safeties in schools they like and would be happy to attend that usually fill up classes with students a level or two below their own. There are lots of big schools and lots of small LACs at all levels of admission.</p>

3

<p>There are many good safety level LACs for top 15-qualified kids. Look at those schools that are in less popular regions, which are in other respects very similar to the top 15 but jut don't have so many applicants (Beloit, Lawrence, & Allegheny were my D's safer bet schools, and she was shooting for top 15 LACs.) Others would be Denison, St Lawrence, Wooster, Kalamazoo, Bennington, Goucher, Mt Holyoke, Rhodes, Hendrix, etc... Whether snowy & in the sticks, single sex, tiny, or just not in the northeast, there are many many safer bets that offer great LAC experiences.</p>

<p>I think honesty is best; hopefully if asked "Why X?" (after having picked carefully) the kid can simply say, " I want a small intimate lAC enviornment with great faculty and research opportunities."</p>

4

<p>I think that there is a big difference in how a person uses and defines safety. Some students look at a safety school as a forced choice (you really don't like any onf the answers but you hve to put in something). The students who tend to apply to a safety as a forced choice only see the college as just a place where they know they have the stats, they are likely to be admitted but at the same time praying that they'll never have to excercise the option of attending. Thus the school is really not a safety for this student.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Also when kid is asked at an interview or in an essay why this school, are we as parents condoning our kids lying on application? Or is it just accepted practice?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I can only answer to the situation as it happened in my house: my daughter loved each school she applied to from reach to safety because she went into the process treating every school that she applied to with the mindset of If this is the only school that I am accepted to can I be happy? This same mind set caused her to carefully chose her schools, and extensively research them, visit them, spend the night sit in on a class, go to the interview having concrete reasons as to why she wanted to attend a particular school, what she had to offer and why they were a good fit for each other. The "safety school" got the same level of attention of consideration as the reach because the school you view as a safety today could be where you could be attending in the fal.</p>

<p>IMHO because in there are no sure bets as far as being admitted to an IVY or to 15 LAC, one would be remiss not to have a plan B or even a plan C. Even applying to Tufts (which she was accepted), D applied because she genuinely liked the school, never though of it as a safety and had it been the only acceptance would have been a very happy student there.</p>

5

<p>I wrote, back in October 2004, </p>

<p>
[quote]
My definition of a safety school is a school that</p>

<p>1) is pretty much certain to admit my kid, based on its known behavior in acting on admission applications,</p>

<p>2) has a strong program in an area my kid is interested in,</p>

<p>3) is affordable based on its known behavior in acting on financial aid applications,</p>

<p>and</p>

<p>4) is likeable to my kid.</p>

<p>The state university in my state fits those characteristics for my oldest son. It pretty much admits people "by the numbers," and is not known to reject applicants who are successful in the accelerated secondary math program my son is now enrolled in there. Of course, we will consider and apply to other schools as well.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So part of my goal as a parent, while advising my children as they make THEIR decisions about where to apply, is to make sure that they always feel good about applying to State U or some other school where they are shoo-ins, while also exposing them to schools that are longer shots for admission where they might find interesting and challenging programs. My children are all very familiar with State U, because we go to that campus frequently when I do my research. And I have looked up when famous, selective universities have their information meetings in our town, so that my oldest son can visit those and learn about other schools. Apply various places, and see what happens, is our philosophy. </p>

<p>About your specific concern, which is being rejected by a school that perceives it is your child's second choice, you have to fight that perception actively. If your child is ONLY considering LACs rather than research universities, you have to look for LACs that are distinctive somehow (e.g., in a different region) from the other LACs your child is considering, so that each school has an honest difference from each of the others. It is perfectly truthful and shouldn't be objectionable in an interview to say, "I'm still making up my mind about whether I most want to be farther away from home in a region with a different climate or closer to home." It's not worth second-guessing how a school will interpret your child's interest if your child's interest is genuine. If a school rejects some applicants out of spite, supposing your child doesn't really want to attend, it is no loss if your child doesn't attend. MOST schools below the very top echelon admit more than twice as many students as they have space for, so all those schools know that lots of their admitted applicants will choose other schools. Just be sure to have a sure-fire shoo-in admit school on the list, as we did hear stories last year of seemingly strong applicants who got in nowhere (in my view, because those applicants didn't have enough regional diversity in their application lists, and didn't show enough student initiative in researching a broad list of desirable schools). </p>

<p>Best wishes in the application process.</p>

6

<p>Thank you all for your wonderfully thought provoking replies. I agree with everything all of you said. The key seems to be to do just as much research in to a "safety"as a first choice. I also think that parental advocacy of a solid safety as being a good place to go rather than a consolation prize is good advice. Thank you all for your wisdom. Dana's dad.</p>

7

<p>As a parent whose children both wanted to attend LACs, and did, I second what SBMom said: it is possible to find excellent small school that fit a certain profile of location/size/personality and yet do not have the same dauntingly low acceptance rates and high SAT ranges as the most highly ranked LACs. The same kind of equivalent fit can be found for kids wanting a midsize school or large university. Of course one student's safety will be another's match or even reach, but the general point remains that a good fit can be found at multiple levels of selectivity. (It is also worth thinking about geography: applying to a small school in a different region of the country can turn a reach into something approaching a match for some students, since smaller schools often want national distribution among their students but have regional reputations that they wish to expand and are eager to enroll qualified students from other parts of the country.)</p>

8

<p>Mattmom, Good point about location but I thought of it in a different way. I've seen kids that are sure they want to go far away to a college in the fall and then change their mind when it's decision time in April. I think it's good to have academic, financial and location safety schools. All should be ones the students want to attend of course.</p>