Students who must attend their safeties

<p>There are a lot of kids that have strong grades and very good test scores who can place reaches on their lists and some likelies, but where are the matches? It seems like these days, there are a lot of reaches.</p>

<p>We visited reach and safety schools in state and out. D really wanted to go back to NY and New England for college. While visiting the in state school, which was her safety, she remarked that it wasn’t her first choice but if she had to attend there, she could be happy there. Needless to say when the admission decisions came, she got into the in state school, a great school by the way, and an all girls school in New England, also a very reputable school. There were some tears at first but then she wiped her eyes and said “I can be happy there”. </p>

<p>I know as parents we want our children to reach their dreams but they and we have to realize that no matter how fantastic their grades on their transcript, their standardized test scores and extra curricular activities are, there are a limited number of spots available.</p>

<p>I actually got into my “reach” but rejected from my “safety”. You never know what will happen when those letters come around, and that goes both ways.</p>

<p>“I think my son would be upset if we started looking at schools that were all reaches and high matches for him. It was comforting to him that the first schools we visited were all schools where he would likely get accepted. His test scores are not high as compared to a lot of his friends and his brothers, and I think that he was concerned that he would not get into a college.”</p>

<p>cpt - that’s exactly what I was saying. My point was that it can be accomplished without going to a school that’s so easy to get into that it could make them feel worse, rather than better. I took my D to a school where she was surprised and pleased to find out that she was very much what they were looking for (she is not a tippy-top student) and where she learned that if she kept working hard, she’d have a lot of good choices. Also, since she’s not a great tester, she was thrilled to hear that it really is true that test-optional schools are truly that.</p>

<p>If we had taken her to a typical lower-tier state school, where she would be in the top 25%, her imagination and ambition would not have been piqued. It’s only after a year of visits and getting a handle on her abilities, and raising her self-esteem in many different ways, that she’s been able to be realistic about the value of the instate options (that they’re not just a dumping ground for “bad students like me”) and more optimistic that she could get in somewhere she is a mid-50% percentile match.</p>

<p>She has no actual reaches, academically, when all is done. She considered a couple, but did not want to be at the bottom of the pack, and generally doesn’t like an atmosphere that is too intellectually “intense” (however she defines that). She is, however, applying to several artistically competitive reaches, for which she is working her butt off, so she does have the ability to get in the ring and fight for what matters most to her.</p>

<p>EmmyBet, your daughter sounds a lot like mine. Academic matches have been tricky to find - it seems like most of the schools she would either be fighting tooth and nail to stay in the middle (she does not have the same love of learning for the math as other subjects and does not thrive in viciously cut throat environments) or it would not be challenging <em>enough</em> and she does not like the company of kids who don’t have any ambition or work ethic at all. She likes best to be in an area where her best probably puts her in around the the bottom of the top quarter, or top of the middle, not the very bottom or the very top. And she thrives on friendly competition. She doesn’t shy from competition, but she likes it to stay sportsmanlike and ethical.</p>

<p>The schools that are academically her best match, that would seem to fit this description, are mostly the less selective private schools, and then those are not financial likely’s. </p>

<p>Then of course we have the added strata of the whole audition to get in the theater program to deal with!</p>

<p>The list we are currently looking at has all the state schools which have reputations as having good theater programs, even some which are not as well known, because like you we figure that as she’ll be mostly in the theater classes, she’ll end up being plenty challenged overall, and artistically, which like your d, is where her heart and passion is. she simply does not care about being Valedictorian, does not care enough to decide only a 36 ACT will do; not enough to put the work it would require. She will put that much work into what she loves which is theater. She’s a bright and good student in her academics and her teachers all rave that she’s wonderful in classroom discussions and a good influence in the class room. But though I like to think that if she REALLY wanted to she could be a 4.0 unweighted gpa type student, (let me tell myself that lol) that is not who she is.</p>

<p>Might not be such a bad thing if she ends up someplace she doesn’t have to struggle too much for her core classes, actually, assuming she was in a BA program. If she ends up in a BFA she may end up taking literally just a few core classes, if her dual credits all transfer, and they most likely will. So the ease or difficulty of core classes, in the end, might not be that big of a factor as to how well she fits.</p>

<p>If she ended up at a school where her ACT (which is 28 - she’s solid. Not tippy top…gotta love math for that…lol) was something like 9 or 10 points above the middle and even a couple points above the top range (which there are a couple) then I suppose we could look at honors college if we really thought the core would not be challenging enough. Despite her math allergy she does love all the other liberal arts especially writing and history and she is looking forward to some of her senior classes this year such as philosophy and psychology. The honors colleges at some schools - UT for example - are just about as hard to get into, numbers wise, as an Ivy. No joke. But the less rigorous the school overall, the less rigorous the Honors requirements seem to be, so one of them might be a pretty good fit. If, that is, the theater programs work well with the Honors.</p>

<p>We are also looking at the private schools who have a reputation for generous merit aid as possible matches. Many of our choices are a combination of likely/match/reach. That’s okay as long as there are at least a couple that she would be happy with that are likely’s in all three areas. (a true safety for her would be one with automatic admission requirements that she meets, that is a non audition program, and that I know even with NO help at all, that we could manage the sticker price - though with most of the schools, she qualifies for at least some of the money just on her ACT scores)</p>

<p>There are a couple private schools who may not be as generous but they have good programs so we are going to give them a shot with the attitude of you never know till the envelope comes. I guess those would be reaches, at least financially.</p>

<p>We are also looking at Oklahoma public schools which while they are higher priced for us, being out of state, still end up being somewhere in between in state public and private, and of course the private ones in OK also as being out of state doesn’t matter in that case. OU would be a perfect example of match for her, academically and financially, but as their theater admissions end up being in the lower single digits, I guess that’s a dream school. hah. But she’s going to shoot for it because, she should have at least one dream school to try for.</p>

<p>I listen wistfully to the discussions of all these wonderful East coast and midwestern schools but honestly we don’t have the resources to deal with the distance, not even to audition and visit - I don’t even think Unifieds are really an option. That’s just the reality of it. I have come to the conclusion that our resources, which are finite, are best spent concentrating on maximizing her odds here closer to home.</p>

<p>I’ve put up the crystal ball and decided we’ll just shoot at everything that flies in her range and decide when we see what falls. :-)</p>

<p>One last edit: I might never have reached this conclusion which I think is a wise one, were it not for CC and all the frank and intelligent discussion here: I am so grateful.</p>

<p>From Emmybet

</p>

<p>Interestingly, according to ShawD’s GC, she only has “likelies” and “matches” on her list but no reaches. She’s scared by the pressure of the reaches and I think does not want to be rejected. We’re about to visit 6 schools next week, but her first choice at the moment would be on the likely list. She’s not only visiting, but doing a science summer program there and meeting with the President at the suggestion of an enthusiastic alum who is a business acquaintance (and a very impressive guy generally).</p>

<p>She’s an anxious kid and is really just coming into her own academically, thanks to maturation and a late diagnosis of ADHD which led to extra time (somewhat helpful on its own) and Ritalin (incredibly helpful). Nonetheless, she doesn’t necessarily have the confidence she might have had the diagnosis come earlier. Moreover, while he is an intensely driven ambitious kid (he wants to succeed; in the short run, he wants to have the highest grade in the class and indeed had the highest grade on the first 3 mid-terms he took and in the longer run he has asked me what he’s trying to accomplish with college grades), she is much more social and values a warm supportive community. She visited her brother’s school and felt that the pressure would be too great. So, we’re steering away from schools that would ratchet up the anxiety. I don’t think they are tier 4 schools, and some border on the bottom of the top 20, I’d guess. </p>

<p>Also, as a point of caution, ShawSon was wait-listed at a small NE LAC that his GC had listed as a safety. He was as far to the upper right-hand quadrant in Naviance as any kid who’d applied from his school in the last few years, but he didn’t visit or show love. Fortunately he got into great schools, but nothing except for schools that decide solely on the numbers are truly safe.</p>

<p>I think the Unifieds are a worthwhile endeavor if you go to one that is sparsely attended–not in NYC or other locale where the crowds tend to go. My son auditioned for a dozen schools when he went, and found that audition fees were often waived, he found schools and programs that did not jump out to him during his search. </p>

<p>A young woman I know ended up at a school that was not on her list and got merit money (UMiami) by looking at the schools at the Unifieds.</p>

<p>For those kids with very high test scores, it’s difficult to categorize many schools as matches because those schools may still only accept about half or 60% of kids at that stat level. I’ve been astounded at some kids who were not accepted to BC, ND, JHU, Cornell, to name a few schools. And those kids were high matches to those schools. Because at such schools the applicant pool is already pretty much preselected and there is a narrow band of what constitutes the norm, kids that are at that match level may well not get accepted. I get a bit nervous when I hear of schools like Bucknell, Lehigh, Skidmore being used as safeties even for top applicants. There is just too much that can happen in the app process to take that much for granted, in my opinion. The vast majority do gain acceptance to such schools, I have to admit, but I tend to be risk adverse, especially when it comes to school that are supposed to be safeties.</p>

<p>What is a “unified”?</p>

<p>cptofthehouse, I totally agree with what you wrote above about visiting the Ivies et al and getting stars in the eyes… I’ve never quite understood the need for people to go out of their way to visit the lottery type schools…</p>

<p>One more thing. I have found that every single school we have looked at so far except one (which is off our list) has at least one unique offering or quality or some factor that she could be very excited about. That’s a comforting thought.</p>

<p>Shawbridge, my d is like yours too in that she is social and values a supportive community. (we should start our own college, haha!)</p>

<p>It’s hard sometimes when you hear about these kids who are all literally as high as the scores go, in everything, not to get sort of sucked up into that because that sort of achievement is so very highly valued and regarded in our society. Lots of kids who accomplish those things are very happy and well adjusted kids (I know lots of them personally and they are delightful people who give me faith in the future) but one reason my d doesn’t score as high in those areas is because she knows who SHE is and she is very, very, very much all about connecting with her friends and working in collaboration and keeping a balance in her life, and those are life skills that will take her a long way in the long run. There is nothing good about high achievements if someone is lonely or not well adjusted. (not saying the super brainly kids are - because as I said I know many of them and they are happy and have good social skills, too) So you have to just really look at your kid objectively and keep in mind that what matters is putting them where they really can achieve their fullest potential; not how prestigious it looks on paper.</p>

<p>One good thing about being in performing arts, is that ultimately, much of their success boils down to the audition itself, and not the name on the parchment; they have that opportunity to prove themselves even if a top tier school or an Ivy wasn’t in the cards for them due to circumstances out of their control. (though of course audition outcomes are random too - but it’s an opportunity.)</p>

<p>Fendrock, I’m sorry - I was referring to Unified auditions for theater schools, which in our case the closest one is still 12 hours away.</p>

<p>cptofthehouse, if it looks like we could manage Unifieds, we’ll keep an open mind. I’m all about flexiblity. I’m just being really unvarnished about the financial reality at the moment. :-)</p>

<p>Unifieds are specific to theater auditions - they are centralized audition sites (NYC, Chicago, etc.) where many schools provide opportunities to audition, rather than requiring all applicants to travel to each school individually.</p>

<p>Snap - welcome to the club! We’ll have an interesting year. Our girls do have a lot in common, and I think we’re on the same wavelength.</p>

<p>With many specialized programs, not just theater, there are many schools that are first choice options, where for someone else they would barely be an academic safety. This throws a very interesting wrench into the process for kids focused on specific fields of study. It also means these kids have to learn how to describe where they’re going in the face of people who say “Where? Why THAT school?”</p>

<p>Just pick one that is not in NYC or the east coast. My son went in LA at a later one, and it was easy picking for him. What is great about it is that there are schools with active theater programs that are not on the main radars. They show up to these things and are usually terribly undersubscribed so you can do walk in auditions there and chat with the folks. I felt that was worth every bit of what it cost.</p>

<p>Hey, cpt - do you ever post on the Theater Forum? If you have stories to share, we’d love to hear them!</p>

<p>I would agree with a lot of what’s already been said. Our D applied to A LOT of schools. She definitely had more reaches than anything else, but most of her reaches were the HYP etc. with very low acceptance rates. In the end, she was waitlisted at almost all of her reaches (rejected at 3), accepted at her matches (with exception of Vandy where she was waitlisted) and accepted at her 2 safeties with significant merit $. The school she ultimately selected was by NO means a safety (UVA --OOS); however, it wasn’t the highest ranked one of her acceptances either. We always taught her although prestige/reputation needs to be considered somewhat in her decision, it most definitely shouldn’t be the biggest determinant of where she chooses. It’s got to be about fit. She felt UVA was the best social fit for her. In fact, she SERIOUSLY considered her safety, Pepperdine, because they were so generous with the scholarship they offered her. She loved the location, beauty of the campus, dorms, etc. and probably would have been quite happy there. Ultimately, she decided she wanted a larger school with a stronger athletic program (everyone goes to football games, etc.). She wouldn’t have applied to any school if she didn’t like it. I think that’s the problem with so many kids these days. They have a hard time envisioning themselves as being happy or successful if they choose a lesser ranked school. Society has turned many of our youth into prestige wh**es. The kid who goes to any solid university, if happy there, will thrive and be every bit as successful as the kid at HYP; no one will ever convince me otherwise.</p>

<p>I have, once in a while. One thing I really regret is that I did not find CC until after I went through the performing arts/MT audition process with my son. It’s painful to read about every mistake we made in our process, and embarrassing as well. I really wish I had discovered CC and made use of that resource. </p>

<p>The MT process was a horrible experience for us and for S’s school as we botched so many things. Now he has graduated and been working on and off, but enough to be self sufficient with a room in a nice apt in Manhattan. It’s been rough for him, but this is what he wanted to do. He has qualified for his Equity card which, by the way, means $2K a year, too much for a starving artist living hand to mouth. He’s had waitering and other part time jobs but has had to drop them when he gets something in the performance field. I wish things were easier for him. Both H and I are very apprehensive about his choices, and know very little about anything regarding performing arts, so we can’t help him much.</p>

<p>Don’t be embarrassed, cpt. Who could possibly know any of this stuff intuitively? All of these audition do’s and don’ts are arbitrarily decided criteria, based on traditions and the peculiarities and needs of the industry, and unless someone has experience or has been told by someone with experience, there is no way to “guess” or “figure out”, in a vacuum, what the colleges want and what is required.</p>

<p>Certainly the information and help I have gotten here so far, is all stuff I had no idea about, and our drama teacher does not seem to know much of it either (though dedicated she is new) and the guidance counselors don’t usually know about the specialized MT or theater requirements, and we have no acquaintances who have gone this route in the past 5 or 6 years. So how would we have known anything other than the basic information on the college website audition guides? There is a good bit of information there but it is far from the entire strategy needed for any kind of shot at it!</p>

<p>As for your son - either he will figure out a way and get lucky (no matter how good you are we all know it takes some luck in this field too) enough to make it, or he will eventually decide to go on to something else he can find fulfillment in, but at least he won’t regret never having tried, for the rest of his life. He won’t have to wonder if he could have if only he’d been brave enough to go for it. He will be able to say, if he does decide to explore a different path, that he gave it his best shot, and I bet he’s learning stuff that will make for some amazing stories for the rest of his life in the meanwhile. Or, he might make it. Lots actually do. :-)</p>

<p>There is a lot to be said for having the peace of mind that comes with not having to regret the road not taken.</p>

<p>Something that I really valued, that my parents did, while I was searching for colleges was that my parents only let me visit schools that were considered ‘likely’ for me. That way, I would ‘fall in love’ with a school I knew I could get into. Basically, I picked my safeties purely based on geographic location first, then based on whether it was known as a party school or at least had a lively social life, so that way I KNEW without a doubt I would love it there. I didn’t particularly care for the academics, though my parents made sure it was at least a decent school (ex. they didn’t let me look at San Diego State because they thought I wouldn’t keep my ‘priorities’ straight there).</p>

<p>The thing that I think is a problem with most students in my generation is that they think they fall in love with their reach schools, and the reality of it is that they’re not going to be accepted there (for the most part). So when the rejection comes out, they’re completely crushed. I think it’s incredibly important to visit colleges before you apply to them, but if you’re only visiting your reaches, and you by chance fall in love with one of them, then it makes April and the rest of your senior year so much harder. The valedictorian/salutatorian and a couple of other people in my graduating class ‘fell in love’ with various Ivies; none of them were accepted (aside from one girl who got into Cornell but chose Berkeley instead) and they were all devastated and felt they were ‘settling’ for UCLA/Berkeley (which nobody should EVER feel like they’re settling if they attend those schools).</p>

<p>With my parents, they told me they would only pay for the applications to schools that were considered matches/safeties for me. If I wanted to apply to a reach school, I had to pay for it on my own (granted, I have a job, but still it gets to be expensive and I didn’t really want to spend any money; plus I was perfectly happy with the schools I had picked previously). So originally, I wasn’t looking at any reaches and I was perfectly content with it. But, in early december my parents told me they’d let me apply to my reaches after all and pay for it, but none of the ‘reaches’ were my number 1 choice. I pretty much only applied to them to see if I could get in, to be honest. So I ended up applying to Yale/Stanford/Harvard, but I was using them as backups (not in the literal sense) to my number one choices (Cal, UMich and UVA) if for some weird reason I got into HYS instead of the publics. I ended up getting rejected at Yale and Stanford, but waitlisted –> accepted at Harvard, but I already was accepted by my #1 and had sent in the enrollment deposit before the decision came, and I couldn’t be happier with my choice.</p>

<p>Also, as the youngest one in my family, I had the benefit of going through (somewhat, at least, haha) the college selection/application process twice with both my brother and sister before I had to go through it myself. Both of them weren’t the greatest students (they actually had quite a hard time with high school haha - my sister got kicked out for a year, was a drug addict, came to school drunk a few [hundred] times, and barely had a 3.3 iirc; my brother had like a 2.8 and got arrested a couple times also hahaha) so neither of them had their sights set too high. </p>

<p>Basically, when it came time to apply to college, my parents were telling them they didn’t want to waste money if they were just going to screw around like they did in high school, so they told them they had to pick schools where they’d split half the tuition. So my siblings were only really looking at safeties and schools they’d love and knew could get some scholarships from. Granted, we do live in california so there are a TON of options for amazing public schools, but they were mostly looking at Cal States, etc. In the end, both of them opted to go to Community College for 2 years instead (my parents agreed to pay for that + 2 years at any university regardless of cost) and my sister was accepted to all the schools she applied to after that (ended up at Berkeley). My brother was accepted to 4 out of the 5 he applied to (including Duke), but ended up at College of Charleston because that was where he ‘fell in love’ with the school.</p>

<p>Also, my best friend was in a similar situation as the link posted on the 1st or 2nd page. He was an amazing student, 4.1 GPA, 2050 SATs, captain of varsity Basketball, on varsity Volleyball and involved in a couple of clubs. He applied to UCLA, Berkeley, UCSC, UCSD, UC-Riverside, UC Santa Barbara and UC-Irvine (basically it looked like UCLA/Berkeley would be slight reaches, UCSB/SB would be matches/high safeties, and UC-I/UCR/UCSC would be safeties), but when decisions came out in late March, he was rejected at UCLA/Cal/SD/SB/SC, waitlisted (and later rejected) at UCI and only accepted to UCR, his last choice. Needless to say, everyone was pretty shocked.</p>

<p>My friend took it pretty hard. He started smoking a lot, drinking more (we party a lot, but we started drinking during the week just to screw around) and he stopped caring in any of his classes really. He showed up late frequently to our first period class, and we’d mess around in class a lot.</p>

<p>I started talking to him about it and it turned out he was taking it pretty hard. We would go to the beach pretty much every night, smoke a couple cigarettes and talk about life, and he would complain about how ****ty it made him feel and stuff like that. It basically took a pretty hard toll on him because both his brother/sister had gone to UCLA for Med School and his dad was affiliated with the school, and he felt worthless compared to them. </p>

<p>His philosophy was that if he could only get into UCR, then what was the point of even trying to finish high school. However, we talked about it a lot for a couple of months, and he started researching UCR and eventually started liking it a lot. His parents bought him a brand new car (they had totaled his other car) and he bought camping equipment so he could go camping every weekend when he’s out there (something he always wanted to do) and he also bought a piano and started playing that. Eventually he got over it, and now I think he can’t even wait to go out there. It was his last choice, but I’m confident he’s going to love it out there. I think the most important thing is just talking to someone about it, and finding all of the positives about the school. There are perceived negatives, but most of them are purely based on the feeling that you’re attending a ‘lesser’ college – that shouldn’t be the case though. It takes time, but talking about it certainly helps.</p>

<p>thealbatross…Great story! You sound like a very grounded individual. Best of luck to you at UMich!</p>

<p>Thanks, Snapdragon. It’s just tough to see your kids having a rough time and not be able to help.</p>