<p>DD told me her best friend only applied to : Princeton, UPenn, Cornell, Stanford, WashU, and OSU (OOS). Her dad is 100% against her even applying for OSU. They regard WashU and UPenn as their safeties. </p>
<p>While she does has an excellent set of stats and does not need one penny of aid, to me, this list is almost crazy.</p>
<p>Well, you're right. It's taking a gamble. Many people make the mistake of looking at the range of stats of accepted students and think they will also be accepted because their stats fit within that range. They don't realize the competitiveness of the admissions process. Hopefully she won't find out the hard way.</p>
<p>The list is crazy, and I hope that she loves OSU! What is the harm in applying to a few safety schools, and lower tier match schools, especially for someone not requiring a dime in aid? I think that it is foolish.</p>
<p>Your d's friend and family need to become familiar with Andison's saga; his list overlaps with the friends quite a bit:</p>
<p>She's crazy! What did guidance counselor say?</p>
<p>I don't think you can safely have a direct conversation with her parents, though, without them being insulted that you think their kid is an idiot loser.</p>
<p>WOW UPENN a safety? my son was wait listed there and we found it anything but a safety.</p>
<p>Well, my daughter's list looked similar at some point, except it was longer:
HYPS, Cornell, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, WUSTL, UMich, NYU. So her only so to say "safety" was NYU.
After we (parents) looked at the list, three true safeties were added. But the problem is: while she were ready to go to any school on her initial list (and NYU is within her top 5 choices) each of the newly added safeties has a problem: one is still close to top 20, and DD would be happy there, but would be unreasonably expensive without a scholarship (and scholarships are hard to get there). The other two schools are our state school's campuses, and DD is not "in love" with any of them. So ..... if she doesn't get into any schools on her initial list, a gap year may be a better option after all.</p>
<p>OK, we could spend A LOT MORE time and probably find a perfect safety, both academically and financially. But this time would be taken from something else.</p>
<p>I agree that the OP's friend does not have a true safety, and probably should.</p>
<p>There are back-up plans that don't involve traditional safeties, though. My S2 only applied to reaches; his back-up was a gap year. (He didn't need it. However, he is a musician, and made a conscious decision to only attend a top school. If he couldn't get into a top school, then he decided he needed to re-think his plan. It scared me, and made for an anxious April for me, but he was comfortable with it.)</p>
<p>My D also did not have a true safety. In her case, though, she had identified a couple rolling admit schools that accepted late applications. She also applied EA a couple schools. Her plan was that if she didn't get accepted to either of the EA schools, she would start looking harder at the rolling admit schools. She also didn't need to.</p>
<p>In both cases, my kids didn't want to spend time and effort during "application season" on back-up plans. It's just a different way to skin a cat.</p>
<p>Muffy333, while I appreciate your input, could I please ask you to tone it down a bit. Calling some one who you have never meet an "I L" is not nice nor appropriate.</p>
<p>The reason they think WashU and UPenn as sateties because she has many family members attened those two schools.</p>
<p>If you're the laid back type, there are a whole bunch of colleges that take late apps. Some that you've even heard of! So definitely not the end of the world, and there is always community college, but crazy not to apply to some more selective safeties early on.</p>
<p>Dad II -I'm sorry, I just meant that people who think UPenn is a safety usually have a certain type of mindset and might overreact to someone suggesting it is not. I know you would never call anyone an idiot loser.</p>
<p>Many health insurances will only cover kids over 18 if they are full time students. This should be taken into consideration if you think of a gap year option. Also, applying to the same top schools the following year will not necessarily bring better results. </p>
<p>Andison (mentioned in post #4), who was a super-competitive and super-qualified to get in everywhere (end got in nowhere on the first round), is now happily enrolled at MIT, but was rejected both times by Swarthmore (only God knows why...)</p>
<p>Wash U and Penn are not safeties for ANYONE. Many highly qualified applicants are waitlisted or outright denied admission to those two schools each and every year. A trusted adult needs to gently tell her that she needs to find a safety that she can be exicted to attend if she doesn't get into any of the super selective schools she has her heart set on attending. If she ends up at her safety she can always try to transfer into one of her first choice schools. That seems like a much easier path.</p>
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Her dad is 100% against her even applying for OSU. They regard WashU and UPenn as their safeties.
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<p>You know, it is one thing to be very proud of your child's accomplishments, but it is quite another thing to be so either uninformed, or arrogant that you set your extremely bright and successful child up for a major fall, with no acceptances in hand.</p>
<p>citymom:</p>
<p>while I'll get bashed by the cc Wolverines, I would suggest that UMich is a (near) safety for anyone with HYPS stats.</p>
<p>As a CC Wolverine--I would agree; if someone really does have HYPS like stats, it would be highly, highly unlikely for UMich to turn them down.</p>
<p>Dad II, Muffy didn't call the girl an idiot loser. She said if you asked the parents about their choices THEY might think YOU were insinuating that their daughter was an idiot loser. Frequently parents of top students who have not gotten full information are insulted when told that their 700+ 3.90+GPA plus all kinds of honors kids have a chance of being turned down at all the top 20 schools.</p>
<p>Agree that U Michigan is a safety for kids who are truly competitive for HYP. But U Mich is a viable safety only for high stat students who apply BEFORE the priority deadline, which this year was October 15. We know two tippy-top stat kids from the Class of 07 who applied to U Mich only after being deferred by an Ivy in the early round: Michigan deferrred them,too. One eventually got in. I don't know what happened to the other one.</p>
<p>There were a couple of kids at my daughter's high school (super competitive public magnet school) who had a similar list and did not get into ANY colleges at all last April. It's a sad outcome, and it doesn't have to be that way. I do wonder about the guidance counselor, but perhaps his/her advice wasn't taken by the family.</p>
<p>Ouch. Some parents don't understand and don't want to hear it. They see that their kid's SATs fall within the 25th-75th percentile range for a given school, compare their kid's GPA with their own GPA 25 years ago, know how busy and hardworking their kid is, and conclude that the kid is golden.</p>
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The reason they think WashU and UPenn as sateties because she has many family members attened those two schools.
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<p>Unless those family members are her parents and they would make her a legacy, and those parents contributed something like 7 figures to the school (or perhaps endowed a chair, or has a building named after them- Can you say developmental admit), or are really bigwigs on the faculty or administration at these schools I agree with the others who posted that there is no way Wash U or Penn is a safety for this or any other students (You can read a posts where legacies are rejected each year). </p>
<p>THe parents of your D's friend would save themselves and their D a lot of heartache and sleepless nights if they added a true safety that the D would be happy to attend to the mix.</p>
<p>If your DD's friend does not think it happen the parent's forum has thread that dicusses this too. Forward this link to her..</p>
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I'm interested in hearing from other parents who have had their child rejected (not even waitlisted) at their alma mater~~~particularly if these were not "reach" schools for the child. We find ourselves in this position this week, and to rub salt into the wound, the school called me last night on a fundraiser call! (University of Richmond). Like I'm going to even CONSIDER that!!!!</p>
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