Is that possible to have the top 10 LAC’s be your safety schools? Somebody in D’s school said he’s going to apply a few for his safety but honestly they are mostly under 20% acceptance rate. I am confused.
And he can’t even apply to Wellesley. Sounds like a risky plan.
Your D is lucky to have a classmate who cured cancer, landed on the moon, and won an Olympic Gold Medal . . . all while still in secondary school.
Seriously, the top LACs are every bit as selective and competitive as the top National Research Universities. To treat them as “safeties” seems rather myopic and foolish to me (unless, of course, you’ve attained the foregoing achievements).
Nope. They are safeties for no one. And you can see that in the current results for some of those top 20 or so colleges, high stats kids who didn’t get into those 20% schools. Someone who assumes he’s such a shoo-in for HYPSM that the top ten LACs are a given, may not have the thinking skills all the top schools expect.
Truly safe: A place that guarantees admission for anyone who has your GPA and ACT/SAT scores, and that you know for dead-certain you can afford with guaranteed federal and/or guaranteed state aid and/or a scholarship that college/university gives to everyone who has your GPA and ACT/SAT scores.
Pretty safe: A place that has never denied admission to an applicant from your own high school who had your GPA and ACT/SAT scores and ECs exactly like yours. But the year you apply that pretty safe place can tighten up its admission policy for some reason, so don’t count on admission there.
Everything else is matches and reaches.
Lots of kids (and lots of parents) can be pretty delusional about this. If it looks like they aren’t likely to come to their senses, just smile and nod and move on.
Agreed, they are not safety schools to say the least. Sounds like a terrible plan.
And what would make any of those top LACs a lot less “safe” would be an adcom finding an application less convincing regarding fit, that there isn’t a compelling story that would interest the applicant to attend that particular LAC. Sure stats are important and higher is typically better but LAC’s are looking to build an intimate, unique community and they won’t offer a spot to someone who might be treating them as a back up when so many other overqualified applicants are clearly wanting and willing to attend.
Since they are safeties for no one, his actual safety would be to start at a community college if he gets shut out.
OP: you’ll give yourself fits trying to underestimate others’ stupidity or poor choices.
D just came home and told me the guy got yelled at by his mom sharing his LAC safety school idea.
Guess what? His mom said he is better than that! My jaw dropped… =D>
That’s incredible. No way are the top ten LACs safety schools for anyone. A lot of people seem to have a lower opinion of LACs, but admissions can be as competitive as any top university.
Inherited mental disorder.
Maybe I’m just mean and petty, but if these people are stupid enough to not realize what acceptance rates in the teens mean, let them, maybe even encourage them to, pursue their strategy.
No, you are not being mean and petty…well, maybe you are but it sometimes feels good doesn’t it? Trouble is, it sounds like the kid is receiving misguided parental advice (MPA) and he will be the one to suffer instead of the parent.
I entirely agree with @SlackerMomMD, especially because factual ignorance is quite different from willful denial of valid information simply to satisfy one’s ego. I feel sorry for the kid, but I can picture 2 April 2016 in their household, if the “Ivy group” has denied and waitlisted . . . and so, too, have the first-tier LAC “safeties.”
Laughing at the fact that some LACs are just as selective as Cornell and UPenn. It doesn’t make any sense to use schools with near identical acceptance rates/statistics as a safety simply because the name isn’t “ivy.” They sound to me like someone who’s going to be on here next year clogging up the boards with “I DIDN’T GET IN ANYWHERE WHAT DO I DO” posts.
Fun Fact - the kid just found out his number one school UChi is ranked below a bunch of LAC’s on Forbes’ “The Best Colleges 2015” . I hope he’s learning something new before it’s too late.
Any odds concerning “mom’s” insistence that Forbes simply know less than she does?
Ivies were mad at the report though. :-SS
The fact that the Forbes list is so different from the other list, shows how the “top” schools are all similar in quality. As a parent of a LAC and UChicago student, neither of my children would’ve rather gone anywhere else, and neither would’ve gone to each others school- so current seniors put the ranking sheets down and go visit the schools and focus on fit.