<p>I am (going to be) a high school senior this year and I am compiling a list of the colleges that I will be applying to. Our school counselors say that we need to have 3 "reach" schools, 3 "safety" schools, and 2 "about right" schools. I am not exactly sure how to figure out which schools are "reach" and which are "safety."</p>
<p>I am a 4.0 student unweighted. I took 2 honors as a sophomore, 2 APs + 2 Honors this year and will be taking 3 APs next year. SAT score is 2270 and SAT II scores are so far all 800 (math and us history..I am going to take French in the fall). I am also president of a club at school and am a ballet teacher & a French tutor outside of school. Does anyone know of any good "safety" and "reach" schools for me or at least how I can figure out which are "safety" or "reach"? I am thinking of a double major in political science and business.</p>
<p>Reach schools would include schools with very low acceptance rates. For instance The Ivy League, Stanford, UChicago, MIT, Pomona, Duke, and so on.</p>
<p>While your stats are comparable with the people normally accepted your not a shoe-in because the reject so many people. Even people with stats comparable to yours.</p>
<p>Safeties would include your state schools or schools with higher acceptance rates. For example I would include all public schools in Texas as apart of my safeties because the guarantee admission for students in the top 10%.</p>
<p>IMO, safety schools are the most important and most difficult to pick. They have to be schools that you would be perfectly happy attending and that you could afford without much pain. </p>
<p>Generally speaking, the state flagship university is usually a safety for students with your stats. </p>
<p>After that, a school where you fall into the top quartile of the applicant pool is a good place to start. </p>
<p>But, remember, you must “love thy safety” enough to enroll there enthusiastically if your dream school(s) don’t come through with admission or aid. </p>
<p>Thank you! I live in California so can I call a college like UC Berkeley, UCLA, or UC San Diego a safety school? Or would a safety be more like San Jose State?</p>
<p>^ Berkeley probably isn’t a safety school for many people, but if you have a high enough GPA/SAT combination, you’re pretty much in if you are in state.</p>
You are a very well-qualified applicant, but because of the low acceptance rate (~22% at UCB and UCLA), high number of applicants (~50,000 each at UCB, UCLA and UCSD), and quality of the applicant pool (>25,000 applicants at each will have UC GPAs over 4.0), none qualify as a “safety.” They would go on your list in the “match” category. The other 6 UCs are probably in the safety category for you, especially if you have ELC (as they are then guaranteed).</p>
<p>A safety would be one of the mid tier UCs: I, D, SB. You also need to make sure your safety school is financially doable. UCs don’t offe good aid except for to the poor, so at $30K/yr they can’t be considered safety schools for many families.</p>
<p>As the others have said, I would not consider UCB or UCLA as safeties. They are the top UCs for that reason. Safety UC’s I would say are moe like UCI, SB, SC, D and “just right” perhaps would be SD and SF? (not sure about SF)</p>
<p>In a world where it’s significantly harder to gain admission for college (versus 2-3 years ago), I think some of these old rules-of-thumb should be reconsidered. Specifically:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I suspect that the guideline of applying to only 6-8 schools needs to be increased. Maybe it should be 8-10. </p></li>
<li><p>I think we should be discussing two (or more) kinds of safety schools. Schools where you will probably gain admission (say, a 60-90% chance, if you can quantify it) and then fail-safe schools where you are virtually guaranteed admission. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I agree that some safety schools turn out not to be safety schools - either because the student doesn’t get admitted or the school turns out to be unaffordable. </p>
<p>I don’t know if you can quantify admissions in some cases. In Calif, it’s nearly impossible with their state schools unless you have a guaranteed spot at a UC school…but the school may still not be affordable.</p>
<p>That’s why I think kids need 2-3 financial safeties - just in case. </p>
<p>As for applying to 8-10 schools. That is probably true if there are a lot of reaches, if money is an issue, and/or if you need to apply to a few safeties.</p>
<p>I like this discussion, but I am perplexed that a kid as talented as you are can’t figure out what a “safety” school would be? I guess it would be a school that you would have a 90% chance of attending IIFF you got turned down by the others. If money is no object, than you have about 3,000 safety schools. If money is an object, than I would guess it would be an instate university. By my definition, UCLA would not be a safety school, but perhaps Cal-State Fullerton would be.</p>
<p>^
I see your point, but I think the o.p has a great question. There are a lot of definitions of “safety school”, and taken together, they can be confusing and inconsistent. </p>
<p>I also think that the gap between 90% certainty and 100% is a big one. Kids ask the question: is it possible that I will go zero-for-eight? What happens then? Maybe it’s wrong question, but it’s a natural one.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the answers! I was wondering if anyone could give me a list of safety schools. My college list so far is Columbia, Georgetown, UPenn, UCB, UCLA, UCSD, & USC. The only problem is that all these are reach/match schools so I just need 1 or 2 safeties.</p>
<p>My sense is that some of replies to your post suggest lack of knowledge of the California University system, and of the costs for in state students.</p>
<p>You already have one safety on your list, and that is UCSD. Other safeties with your stats include University California Davis and certainly any of the other UCs (UCSC, UCR, etc.). I don’t think you should be exploring the California State rank of schools since these may prove to be a poor academic match for you. So in addition to UCSD, consider adding UCD and UCSB/UCSC.</p>
<p>Although not quite a safety USC is very likely with your stats. The question which you haven’t answered is in regard to financial need, and getting sufficient aid is always a reach.</p>
<p>I would also encourage you to broaden your list of reach colleges. Instead of just 3, with your stats you may want to double the number. You have good chances to “hit” a reach on par with Georgetown and Penn. But you’ll have to apply to more than 3 to achieve that with some level of certainty.</p>
<p>Also think about other “top” (non California) State Universities. Some (Univ of North Carolina comes to mind) go out of their way with merit money for very strong out of state students. They like California students in part because so few with very strong stats apply, and they want geographic diversity.</p>
<p>I’m not actually sure if I am an NMSF. When are we supposed to know? I received a letter in the mail around April (or May?) of last year telling me that I was in one of the rounds. The letter said I would be updated later if I was a Semifinalist or not. When are we supposed to know this stuff?</p>