<p>In 2003, my oldest son's guidance department described a safety school as a school that accepts more than 50% of their applicants. Things have changed so much since then, and what once might have been considered a safety school is now not so easy to get into. I have heard of nightmare stories where good students don't even get into their target/safeties these days!</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter what your safety school does about other students; the key factor is that it will almost positively admit you, preferably with a good scholarship. Your safety may be my reach, or vice versa.</p>
<p>Either you recalled the %age wrong, or the guidance counselor was flat out of his/her mind. Since the dawn of time, everyone has known that an academic safety is a place that you are guaranteed (or all but guaranteed) admission based on your profile, and that a financial safety is a place that your family can pay for without financial aid other than aid that is absolutely guaranteed based on your profile.</p>
<p>50% chance of admission based on the students profile isn’t a “safety”. It isn’t even a “likely”, it would be more in the range of a “match”.</p>
<p>If you look at a college’s admissions website or a college guidebook and find their mid-50% range for acceptances for GPA and test scores, and if all of your child’s statistics are above the upper-end of the mid-50% range, and the college accepts at LEAST 35 - 40% of their applicants, and you can afford it - it’s probably a safety.</p>
<p>I think that perhaps between 2003 and now “safety” also includes the concept of cost, but I agree with Lafalum. If your student is in the upper end of the 50% range and the college excepts 35-40% of applicants it’s probably a pretty “safe” college for an outcome of acceptance. It pretty much played out that way for my two olders. Most CCers will say that a safety is when you’re in the top 25% and you can afford it and acceptance rate is high. In our family we didn’t really differentiate between match and safety. If anything a ‘safety’ to us were the publics that posted the stats for auto-admits.</p>