<p>Mule is pretty popular around here and competes with Lehigh, Lafayette, Dickinson, Gettysburg, Ursinus etc for the suburban Philly kids. Over 1300 Sats, Level 1 academics, top 20% is pretty much a sure bet for the RD app. Sat's in the 1200 range and you probably need to apply ED. I think they are now accepting 30 to 40% of the class, ED but their RD yield is not high - too much competition with the other PA schools.</p>
<p>I attended a public high school, and many of my friends got into private colleges such as Marist, Vassar, Colgate, NYU, UCLA, Providence College, and Villanova. Yet they enrolled in UConn because it is great with financial aid so that they don't have to graduate with forty thousand dollars in debt money. UConn is a popular 'safety' but it is becoming more competitive-a lot of the top students from my high school are going. You can definitely get a great education there.<br>
When choosing a safety school it should be a school where you can expect to get a lot of financial aid.</p>
<p>It's worth mentioning that even HYPSM are safety schools for some people. No need to patronize people who mention Middlebury as an example of a saftey school.</p>
<p>and who would HYPSM be safety schools for?
Jodie Foster or Chelsey Clinton perhaps as long as their scores were comparable- but who else?</p>
<p>Good question Emerald. Harvard in particular turns down quite a few perfect SAT applicants each year. I'm sure they all thought HYPSM were good "safeties" when they applied.</p>
<p>I suppose if you really were River Phoenix then HYPSM might be a safety. Not only a celebrity, but a dead one at that. Otherwise, treating HYPSM as a safety is a recipe for disaster.</p>
<p>There are those for whom getting a perfect SAT score is so simple it is not even worth mentioning. For example, winners of multiple International Olympiads.</p>
<p>Another example is RSI alums applying to MIT.</p>
<p>And I really am the late River Phoenix, may I rest in peace.</p>
<p>RP I don't doubt you. And if you have gained acceptance to one or more of the HYPSM, congratulations. But I still feel very strongly that these are not safeties for anybody, even those people who can get a perfect SAT or who have competed and won international academic competitions. These schools can tell people like that to take a hike simply because the interviewer didn't like their personality -- and they know that somebody even more qualified is right around the corner. A true safety means YOU WILL BE ADMITTED unless you're a serial killer, in which case they still may waitlist you. HYPSM (and some others) simply don't fit in that paradigm for anybody. At best, some people are very strong matches.</p>
<p>"These schools can tell people like that to take a hike simply because the interviewer didn't like their personality"</p>
<p>This is true, although rare. I agree with you that HPYMS are likely to reject people for more arbitrary reasons, but I still feel that 'safety' (ie 'likely admit') is a fair descriptor in this case.</p>
<p>I think that if the 1600 scorer, winner of an international competition communicated in his/her application the arrogance associated with treating HYPSM as a sure bet, a rejection could well be the response.</p>
<p>River-- two years ago MIT published its acceptance rates by SAT score... don't know if it's still available. Good news is that 1600 scorers had a 66% acceptance rate.... which is terrific. Of course, you've got to feel for the 34% of 1600 applicants who were rejected... must stink to be them. </p>
<p>If you are delusional enough to belive that safety and likely admit are the same when dealing with HYPSM, then good luck to you.</p>
<p>Above posts demonstrate the same ignorance which I attempted to casually nudge against when I first added a comment in this discussion. I am NOT talking about 1600 scorers - at the risk of sounding arrogant I believe that 1600 is not a difficult score to achieve. Certainly not next to accomplishments like being an International Math Olympiad perfect scorer.</p>
<p>I attend MIT: once you're at a top tier school, the best of the best are so far removed from the average person (I am not talking about myself here, but about those who I know personally) that no school would reject them, except in the once in a million case. I mentioned RSI because out of the 3000 or so kids that have attended RSI in high school, only 1 or 2 have ever been rejected for MIT - and this was because they held personal quarrels with admissions representatives.</p>
<p>This is a small minority of kids, much smaller than the minority of kids with perfect SAT scores. So clearly this is the exception rather than the rule. I only wished to make it clear that if somebody references (for example) U.Chicago as a safety school, they are not necessarily flamebait.</p>
<p>blossom and RiverP - last year at Stanford info session, adcom quoted stats by score (info is also available online): 50% of 1600 applicants were accepted. Now that is 5X the success rate of the overall pool, but is still a 50/50 chance at "failure." And Stanford does not allow interviews, so it's not the "I didn't click with the interviewer" factor.</p>
<p>HYPSM are just not a SAFETY for anyone. You said it just right, blossom: thinking "good chance" = safety is a delusion.</p>
<p>I'm so sorry I missed all the fun. Good job 'rents. I especially liked iderochi's dead celebrity. Ditto, ditto, and ditto.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That's what's known as having a ghost of a chance.</p>
<p>Cami
I haven't read too much of this thread but was attracted by the mention of Muhlenberg. My S#1 is entering his sophomore year there and loves it. It was a reach/match for him as opposed to a safety and his interests are bio/environmental science and a strong interest in music. The minute he set foot on campus he knew it was the place for him, and after he sat through two classes and met with a teacher and an admissions person, he was sold. He applied ED and got in.
He's not religious but most of his hall was Jewish. He was so impressed that they included him in visits to the Hillel House. He especially appreciated the fact that when he had used up his meal card shortly before the end of first semester that they brought him over there for food. He ate LOTS of Latkes and bagels that week!!<br>
He can't wait to get back to campus.</p>
<p>RP, I see the distinction you are trying to make, ie. that the case you are making is not re perfect SAT's, but something well beyond that. Perhaps at MIT, things get more predictable with certain accomplishments such RSI, International Math Olympiad, etc. However, as my son will be at Harvard this fall, I've followed several threads there concerning the accomplishments of those who applied. What is striking is the number of students who have achieved national and state recognitiion in an area who did not get in--check out some of those threads, and you'll see what I mean. However, those with such levels of accomplishments, while having no guarantee of getting into any one particular elite school, do seem to have a very high chance of acceptance to one of the HYPSMAWS group.</p>
<p>so lessee
H is Harvaard
Y is Yale of course
P would be Princeton or Penn
S would be Stanford I imagine
M is MIT
A is what Amherst? I can't really think of any other As but I don't think I know but few people who even applied to Amherst
W is you got me- Wheaton- Willams- Waldorf?
S could be Swarthmore- but if you are going to include Willams-Swarthmore & Amherst- What about UChicago? ITs never ending!</p>
<p>H:Harvard
Y:Yale
P:Princeton
S:Stanford
M:MIT
A:Amherst
W:Williams
S:Swarthmore</p>
<p>This is based on selectivity (difficulty of admission), not degree of excellence. I have also seen HYPSMC, with C=Caltech.</p>
<p>Im a baseball fan and I think this might be relevant... </p>
<p>In baseball, when evaluating talent there is said to be some players that are so underrated that they become overrated simply because of all the talk about the person being underrated. If a team were to trade for this player, the buyer would be fooled and would likely overpay thinking it would be getting and gamble...</p>
<p>I think the opposite might apply to college admissions... A kid I know -and many others from what Ive read- was the valedictorian of my school, awesome recs, 1580 SATs... and almost perfect application, so good, it might have been TOO GOOD. This might sound ridiculous but it makes sense. A kid with such qualifications might not do anything to stand out because really, he/she doesnt need to... Because of this -and of course also because 90% of applicants are rejected- I believe HYPMS cannot be a safety for anyone. </p>
<p>Maybe a kid with such exceptional qualifications can feel pretty safe that if he were to apply to those five schools one of them will take him, but not any one particular school.</p>