So what exactly is a "safety" for those applying to highly selective colleges?

Applying to College
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<p>So I figured that the following schools would be safeties, or at worst, low matches, but a lot of CCers are telling me otherwise. Am I just naive? Is this just CC being paranoid? Somewhere in between? I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I think my confidence is justified.</p>

<p>About.com describes a match school (Match</a> School - Glossary Definition of Match School for College Admissions)
as a college where "your test scores, class rank and/or high school grades fall righ into the middle range (of their profile)".</p>

<p>Is this definition now outdated? Or is it just because even my safeties are very selective?</p>

<p>I don't want this to turn into a full-on chance thread, but here are some of the schools I figured were "safeties" for me with these stats:</p>

<p>SAT I (800, 760, 730, 2290)
SAT IIs of 800 and (projected) 750+
APs of 5 and (projected) 4/5
High GPA, high class rank
Decent ECs</p>

<p>I know colleges don't only look at SATs but I figured it would be a good way to show my point here.</p>

<p>College Name: 75% SAT Range (CR, M, W)</p>

<p>Bates: 700, 700, ?
Colby: 720, 720, 710
The UCs besides the top three: (used Davis for this) 630, 670, ?</p>

<p>In all sections, I'm above their 75%...does that qualify as a safety?</p>

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<p>I think it’s just a poor definition in some respects. Obviously, many students fall into the middle 50th of the profile for the Ivies, and yet Ivies are not matches for anyone. </p>

<p>I’m sure someone on this site can provide a better definition of a statistical match… personally, I’d say it’s one where your stats are within the middle 50th and the selectivity is such that you are more likely to be accepted than rejected with such stats. Then again, I could be wrong.</p>

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<p>^Yeah, I definitely agree with that. To extend the argument, hundreds of students fall significantly above the 75th percentile and are rejected. This becomes less true at the non-top colleges that focus significantly more on grades and test scores. </p>

<p>IMO: A safety is somewhere where you’d be very surprised if you got rejected (assuming you don’t think too highly of yourself). A reach is somewhere where you’d be surprised if you were accepted (again with the same assumption). A very high reach is somewhere where you’d think they made a mistake by accepting you. A match falls in between. </p>

<p>My advice: look on your schools naviance page, if they have one. When looking at the scattergram: If you are in the top right of acceptees and no one (out of many people) with similar GPA and test scores was waitlisted/rejected, than it is a safety. If you are around half acceptances/half rejectees, than it is a match to reach. If you are around many rejectees and only a few acceptees, it is a reach to high reach. Again, these look at just GPA and test scores from your school, but they provide a decent guide.</p>

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<p>I suggest you check out the admitted students page (can seniors…etc etc etc) and what they put for their safeties. </p>

<p>For me personally, UCSD was my safety. Some basic stats:</p>

<p>2290 SAT I (770 CR, 740M, 780W), 2350 Superscored (770 CR, 800 M, 780W)
6 SAT IIs (5 800s in Math IIC, Chem, Bio, Chinese, Physics 760 in Literature)
GPA:3.95/4.0 (our school did not weigh grades) ~Top 5% of class (our school didn’t rank either)
5 AP tests by end of junior year (all 5s), 12 by end of senior year (10 5’s, 2 4’s)
4 leadership positions
1 internship
Some awards</p>

<p>But really, check on the page with lots of seniors’ results</p>

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<p>state flagship college.</p>

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<p>^Not if it is Cal, Virginia, Michigan, etc. (although those are safeties for the top few students)</p>

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<p>^Yeah… I have friends who are calling UMich their safety, which is far from accurate for the majority of applicants. If anything, these state flagships fall under the match definition for many students. </p>

<p>Conversely, most state flagships are, indeed, safeties for the top students. </p>

<p>And I agree with the person who said to check the accepted threads or the graduated senior results thread. Those are extremely helpful.</p>

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<p>Highly selective schools are not safeties, no matter if your stats are stellar.</p>

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<p>Safety: A place where your statistics make it highly likely that you will be admitted.</p>

<p>True Safety: A place that is required to admit you based on your statistics (most community colleges and many public Us publish the stats needed to guarantee admission), that you can pay for without aid other than federally determined need-based aid, that offers the major you are interested in, and that you would actually be willing to attend in case everything else goes wrong.</p>

<p>The single most important institution on your college/university list is the True Safety. Find it. Every year too many students just like yourself end up starting “I didn’t get into any place that I like that I can afford” threads because they didn’t take the time to find a True Safety.</p>

<p>If you are a California resident, the UCs you list may be reasonable Safeties. If you aren’t, they aren’t, and you need to keep looking.</p>

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<p>^^op don’t put that much thought into it it’s not that important
-i had UVA and UMich as my “i’ll probably get in here but there is a possibility i might not… im pretty sure i’ll get in though” safties.
-i had UMinn as my "this is an ok school and i don’t think i’ll have to go here but i might " saftey.
-and i has Kansas U as “omg if i get rejected from all my schools and have to go here i’ll just die!! i know it won’t come to that though” safety</p>

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<p>Jugador, Bates and Colby are too competitive to be considered safeties. </p>

<p>There are at least two components to figuring out whether a school is a safety. The first is where your SAT scores, GPA and class rank compare to the school’s mid range. </p>

<p>The second is looking at the school’s acceptance rate. Both Colby and Bates have acceptance rates around 30% – low enough that they are not safeties for anyone. My definition of a safety is that it accepts greater than 50% of its applicants. On my more conservative days, I’d bump that up to 60 percent – since I think your match schools acceptance rate should be between 30-50 percent.</p>

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<p>SAFETY COLLEGE </p>

<p>A safety college is one that </p>

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

<p>2) has a strong program in an area the applicant 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 the applicant. </p>

<p>I don’t think “match” is a useful concept if you are looking at highly selective colleges. Make sure you have one safety, and treat the other colleges as reaches.</p>

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<p>Does your school offer Naviance? If so, check to see where all students with your GPA/SAT combo were accepted to get a better feel of suitable matches and safeties.</p>

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<p>Often a tier 2 school or a school in the bottom half of the tier 1 schools would be a good safety for students good enough to have schools in the top half of tier 1 as their reach schools. </p>

<p>Make sure that whatever safety you pick is a school that you’d enjoy attending and can afford. Take seriously the fact that you may have to go there.</p>

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<p>There are countless threads on CC this year about kids who applied to a safety thinking “I’ll die if I have to go there” and a bunch of top-rated schools. Come April, parents said No Can Do financially, and these students are on CC complaining that they now have to attend the dreaded safety. </p>

<p>Please, please, please, parents and and rising seniors, talk to each other THIS SUMMER (if not sooner) about what your family can afford. Research what schools actually offer merit aid. Run the EFC calculators (Federal and Institutional methodologies). Identify a safety that you LIKE and can AFFORD. It takes a lot of the pressure off the entire process, knowing there is a good alternative if the pie-in-the-sky applications don’t work out for one reason or another.</p>

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<p>Too often people recommend one-size-fits-all safeties (eg. “your state flagship”). In other words, doesn’t it make sense that your safeties are at least the same TYPE of school as your top choices? If your top choices are small schools, for example, then shouldn’t your safeties be small schools, but just easier to get into? Likewise if you want mid-size or urban or whatever schools, shouldn’t your safeties share some crucial criteria?</p>

<p>So if you’re from, say, Pennsylvania, and Williams, Colby, and Trinity (Connecticut) are your top choices, doesn’t it make more sense to have, say, Clark University and Skidmore be your safeties, rather than Penn State?</p>

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<p>Schmaltz,</p>

<p>On the face of it, going down one level to similar type institutions for your safety makes sense. However, if money is any kind of an issue for you, you may still need to have that cheap home-state public U or community college on your list.</p>

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<p>I tend to think of safety as a college I will get into 100% and if all else fails, and I had to attend a college because I was rejected from everything, I would attend this college. Thats what a safety school should be. </p>

<p>For example since I live in NYC, if i applied to all the ivys, i would also apply to Queens College. That would be my safety. Even if i had perfect SAT and 4.0 GPA because you never know.</p>

<p>Schools you can get into are your standard schools and of course there are the reaches</p>

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<p>So, we have almost identical stats except my SAT IIs were a little lower…hopefully my experience will give you a good idea!</p>

<p>My safeties were UCI, UCSB, UCSD (I’m from California), Boston University, and American University. I was also pretty positive I would get into USC and Carleton College, but I didn’t really count on them as “safety schools.”</p>

<p>I got into all of my safeties, so it all worked out well for me! Good luck!</p>

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<p>UT Austin was my safety, because of the top 10% law.</p>