What Constitutes a Safety / Match / Reach?

Applying to College
1

<p>Is there a simple rule to what constitutes an admissions (not financial) safety, match, and reach for a top student? (Details about my academic and extracurricular record are listed at the end of the post to provide context to my question.) </p>

<p>I am asking since I'm currently in the process of finding colleges to apply to this coming fall. So far, I have been using the following criteria to organize my list:</p>

<p>Safety: 50%+ acceptance rate
Match: 30-50% acceptance rate
Reach: Below 30% acceptance rate</p>

<p>However, several of my peers have told me that I am cutting myself short and that I should instead change my system to the following:</p>

<p>Safety: 40%+ acceptance rate
Match: 20-40% acceptance rate
Reach: Below 20% acceptance rate</p>

<p>This would mean that many of the colleges that I am considering (University of Michigan, University of Rochester, Boston College, etc.) would be matches for me instead of reaches.</p>

<p>The only problem is that I do not want to overestimate myself either since I want to have an even balance of safeties, matches, and reaches in my final list of colleges that I apply to. </p>

<p>Academics:</p>

<p>Most Demanding Courseload (12 AP courses w/ all 4's and 5's on the corresponding AP exams)</p>

<p>GPA (UW): 4.0
GPA (W): 4.7
Class Rank: 2/~800</p>

<p>SAT I: 2320 (730 CR, 800 M, 790 W)
SAT II: Math II - 800, Physics - 800, US History - 760</p>

<p>I will also have taken some advanced math courses (Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations) at my local community college by the end of my senior year.</p>

<p>National Merit Commended
National AP Scholar
AMC 12 School Winner
Various School Awards</p>

<p>Extracurricular Activities:</p>

<p>Math Club: 9-12 (President)
MATHCOUNTS Coach at Local Middle School: 10-12
Volunteer at Reuben H. Fleet Science Center: 10-12
Tutor: 10-12
Mayor's Youth Council: 12
CSF: 10-12 (President)
NHS: 11-12 (Treasurer)</p>

<p>I also enjoy studying advanced math and physics in my leisure, but I have not won much in the way of competitons. I have taken a number of Art of Problem Solving courses online, though.</p>

<p>I will be attending a semi-prestigious summer math and science program this summer.</p>

<p>Miscallenous:</p>

<p>I live in California. For any given institution that admits by department or college, I currently plan on applying for Engineering (or Physics if the former is not available). I expect to have great recommendation letters from my teachers and decent essays.</p>

2

<p>IMHO: A safety school should be a slam dunk – a school that you have a great chance of being admitted to – and that’s usually one of your state schools. In California that would be one of the Cal States. With a 4.0 UW GPA, if you choose wisely, you only need one safety school.</p>

<p>With your GPA, an approximate ranking of ~2/800 and a 2320 SAT, a reach school would be any of the ultra selective colleges, such as Stanford, MIT, the ivies and little ivies (they are reaches for everyone). </p>

<p>With your GPA and rank, I would think UMich, URochester and BC would be matches. (BC doesn’t have a large endowment, so they don’t give much financial aid – I don’t know if that’s an issue, but I would run the net price calculator on BC. Same thing with UMich as the State of Michigan is balancing their budget and providing financial aid to in-state students by charging out of staters the full tuition.)</p>

3

<p>There is no set acceptance rate system that one can use as a safety/match/reach indicator. Someone with a 1600/2400 and a 3.0 GPA has a much lower chance of getting into a school with a 50% acceptance rate than someone with a 2300/2400 and a 4.0 GPA.</p>

4

<p>Well, it really depends on the type of student you are and what schools you’re looking at. If you have a C+ GPA, but an 1800+ SAT, then decent regional schools such as Stetson and Monmouth will be safeties. </p>

5

<p>Acceptance rate is mostly irrelevant for determining safety/match/reach. </p>

<p>Example: San Diego State has an admissions rate of 33%, but the top 25% ACT score begins at a mere 26, and the top 25% SAT score at just under 1800. University of Rochester has much better ACT/SAT scores (32 and 2140) but a slightly higher admit rate of 35%. For most U.Rochester students, San Diego State would be an academic safety despite the similarity in admit rates.</p>

<p>Truth is categorizing by safety/match/reach is an art, not a science; especially when extracurricular activities are involved. Academically, you need to find where you sit on the ACT/SAT continuum compared to that school, and your GPA as well. That is fairly easy to determine. Extracurricular activities are when it gets unpredictable.</p>

<p>Ultimately this is all about competition. Brilliant students rarely apply to San Diego State, but tons of mediocre ones do. Thus its low admit rate, but nearly equally low test scores.</p>

6

<p>It’s different for everyone, but I would say 40% is a little cutting it close. A true safety is one you know you’ll get into, no problem, and you’d be near the top of the class with possible merit aid. Any safety also should be one you can afford and would attend if you could. No point to applying to a school you don’t like at all since there are so many schools out there to choose from. I wouldn’t consider BC and UM to be matches OOS because they can be somewhat crazy with their college admission standards sometime, but you seem to have a great shot at both so probably a high match to be safe. Just be aware that they may not offer you the greatest FA, so make sure the majority of the schools you select are affordable.</p>

7

<p>A safety is a school which you are 100% certain you will be admitted to, 100% certain you can afford, and a school which you will like to attend.</p>

<p>If UCR is affordable, you can make it a 100% safety by signing up for its admission guarantee during June 16-July 31, 2014 and then including UCR in your regular UC application:
<a href=“http://vcsaweb.ucr.edu/Admissions/WhyUCR/ourGuarantee”>http://vcsaweb.ucr.edu/Admissions/WhyUCR/ourGuarantee&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Do not use acceptance rates as a reliable indicator of admission selectivity.</p>

8

<p>Here are some lists of potential safeties:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/16451378/#Comment_16451378”>Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - #300 by BobWallace - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums;
<a href=“Updated list of schools with auto-admit (guaranteed admission) criteria - Applying to College - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1562918-updated-list-of-schools-with-auto-admit-guaranteed-admission-criteria-p1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

9

<p>Provided the school isn’t a “crapshoot school”, i.e., HYPS, etc., then this is how I generally rate the schools:</p>

<p>SAFETY: your stats are above the school’s 75th percentile
MATCH: your stats are in the school’s 50-75th percentile range
REACH: your stats are in the bottom half</p>

<p>For some applicants (e.g, Emma Watson; Chelsea Clinton; Malia Obama; offspring of Bill Gates) all schools are a SAFETY regardless of stats.</p>

10

<p>

</p>

<p>But see this thread if the school in question considers “level of applicant’s interest”:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1626043-ways-to-show-a-high-level-of-applicant-s-interest-p1.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1626043-ways-to-show-a-high-level-of-applicant-s-interest-p1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

11

<p>OP:
Ivies/Duke/M/Caltech/Chicago and the rest of the top 20 are all reach for everyone. Even for a high stat student like you. With that said, if you apply to all UC’s you covered all your reach/match.safety.
Your scores are little bit higher than my daughter, but (IMO) she has better ECs. She was admitted to Cornell, UCB, UCLA (Regents) and USC (Presidential). She applied to most of the UCs and SLO. USC/UCSD/UCD should be a match for you.</p>

12

<p>With your stats and ranking if your school does actually rank because a lot of CA schools don’t rank, you should have received the “we guarantee that we’ll find a UC school for you” letter in the past couple of weeks. As such, if you don’t get in to your selected UC school, they’ll find you a spot at one of the other UC schools. That would be your safety net.</p>

13

<p>@gibby‌:
@ucbalumnus‌:
@shawnspencer‌:
@NROTCgrad‌: </p>

<p>Since there is always a chance of unpredictability in the college admissions process, I’m convinced that I should apply to a <em>true</em> safety where I am guaranteed admission. (In fact, I was planning on applying to UCR through its GAP program.)</p>

<p>However, it seems quite possible that there may not be a ture safety that fits my college search criteria (not necessarily due to issues of prestige but due to factors, such as research prowess among many others, associated with it). For that reason, it seems only logical to create a new tier of colleges based on selectivity that lies between “true safeties” and “matches”. How much risk of rejection do you think would be appropriate for institutions in such a category? Is there any way to quantify this risk? And do you think that I should apply to a certain number of these schools so that I can assure myself of acceptance to at least one of them?</p>

<p>What is the drawback of using a combined approach that integrates acceptance rates with GPA and SAT score percentiles? Under such a system, one could define a safety to be a school with a 40% or higher acceptance rate and one where my GPA / SAT falls above the 75th percentile (and possibly even one that considers extracurriculars to be “Important” rather than “Very Important” since mine aren’t that great). I realize that some schools may have Tufts Syndrome; I plan on immediately demonstrating interest through campus visits and other means to such schools immediately after I finalize my list of colleges to apply to. Or is too late to start doing so come July?</p>

<p>I was under the impression that some of the “low-level” UC’s (i.e., UCI, UCSB, UCSC) would serve as schools at which I should expect to be admitted. </p>

<p><a href=“http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/files/freshman-profiles/freshman_profile_irvine.pdf”>http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/files/freshman-profiles/freshman_profile_irvine.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/files/freshman-profiles/freshman_profile_santa_barbara.pdf”>http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/files/freshman-profiles/freshman_profile_santa_barbara.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/files/freshman-profiles/freshman_profile_santa_cruz.pdf”>http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/files/freshman-profiles/freshman_profile_santa_cruz.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>As the data avove demonstrates, the acceptance rates to these universities for my GPA or SAT score ranges are all (significantly, in some cases) above 75%.</p>

<p>@menefrega‌:</p>

<p>I did not recieve such a letter. Does it matter? I always thought that that guarantee was nothing more than a fullproof fallback plan to UC Merced, which I shouldn’t need due to the UCR GAP program. </p>

14

<p>@Episteme‌ - In a sense, I think you are approaching this a bit the wrong way, and yes, you might be selling yourself a little short. For a student with credentials such as you you have, there is no school that you don’t have a chance of getting into. Yes, you need to have matches and safeties to go along with those schools that no one can even give odds about getting into, such as Stanford, Harvard, etc. But since every school in the country is a theoretical possibility for you, the issue really becomes what are you looking for in a school. First and foremost, are finances an issue? In other words, are you able to pay for any school, no matter the cost? If not, are you eligible for loan-free tuition at schools like Harvard that guarantee such for incomes under a certain amount? Or will you be looking for a school that has full tuition and/or full ride merit scholarships? Finding the financial fit that guarantees you won’t come out with anything more than minor debt amounts is critical.</p>

<p>After that, you need to look for the best academic fit that also appeals to you for other factors. Are you looking for a large school, a medium sized school, or a smaller environment than that, even? Does location matter? By location I mean urban, suburban, or rural. Also geographic location. Are you wanting a warmer weather location, snow, or doesn’t matter? And do you care how far from home it is? A classic, movie style campus with lots of green, or something more urban and/or modern? Sports make any difference? Greek life? Anything like this is more important than many people think. This is somewhere you will living for 4 years, and you can’t (and shouldn’t) study 24/7,</p>

<p>Of course it should meet your needs to study math, physics and/or engineering. So as you can see there are lots of things to consider. Once the answers to these questions are known, it is much easier to recommend schools that meet the need to have a balanced list of elite schools, schools that should be a match, and schools that are still very strong in meeting your needs but should be virtually certain to accept you.</p>

<p>Make sense?</p>

15

<p>Be careful with looking at campus admission rates for UCs. At most UCs, engineering divisions or majors may have different selectivity thresholds (usually higher) than the letters and science divisions where math and physics are.</p>

<p>By all means add the mid-selectivity UCs to your UC application if you are interested in them, but do not be too surprised if your chance of admission differs from the published campus numbers if you choose a popular major (particularly in engineering).</p>

<p>Of course, be sure to check affordability in the net price calculators. A school is not a safety if you are not assured of being able to afford it. A school that is an admission match may actually be a reach if you need a reach-level merit scholarship to be able to afford it.</p>

16

<p>@fallenchemist‌:</p>

<p>I understand. I have answers to several of your questions in this thread:</p>

<p><a href=“Recommended Schools - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1654874-recommended-schools.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>My thoughts on the financial aspects aren’t yet solid, but it seems from several replies on that thread that I should probably be considering schools that are cheaper than I had planned on. </p>