<p>lol Spikemom - I think its the letters, not the word that was considered "offensive"..If the word omitted was fist and full.. the letters deleted are...well you can figure that one out. ;)</p>
<p>Good topic about safties.</p>
<p>re the point about financial safeties: It certainly adds a little sparkle to a safer school when you get not only an acceptance but merit aid! It is great to feel WANTED.</p>
<p>Cami, maybe a merit aid safety would be helpful?</p>
<p>When I first came across "love your safety" on this site, I understood it to mean that college decision lists should be built from the botom up--i.e., find a safety your son or daughter would be very happy to attend before you start looking at the match/reach schools. In that way, you increase the chances that your child will really like the safety because he/she will be considering the school at the exciting part of the process--the beginning, and because there will be nothing to adveresely compare the safety with during the visit/selection process. If there is a particular aspect of the safety which makes it stand out over even the reach schools (great writing program, Top 5 football team, beautiful campus, music scene--whatever floats your kid's boat), this can be reinforced throughout the process.</p>
<p>I've learned a lot of things here, but I still think that advice is the single best thing I have read on this forum. College is a means to an end--admission to a particular school (or even type or ratings level of school) is not the end in and of itself. A kid who is happy at his Top 100 school is, in my opinion, far better off than a kid who is miserable at his Top 20 school because he didn't get into HYPS. </p>
<p>Some kids love their safety so much that they decide they'd be most comfortable there. I remember one parent posting that her child--a budding sports journalist--was being nudged by her guidance counselor to apply to more selective schools than the ones she liked, but was resisting because the j programs at her schools of choice were top notch. I think we're likely to head down the identical path with our own sportswriter to be a year down the road. She doesn't care whether a school is a "safety", a "match" or a "reach"--she only cares about where she would feel comfortable and where the program she is interested in is top notch. </p>
<p>The term safety" applies only to the admission decision--it says nothing about how the student will do after admission. Unfortunately, some students and parents equate likelihood of admission with the best result for college experience. Sometimes there's an equivalence there, but sometimes there's not.</p>
<p>We have an interesting contrast on the CC forum. Here we have "love your safety." On channel 2 (parent's cafe), we have an anthropologist trying to tell us that the average campus has a poor intellectual culture. So which is the best decision: to love the safety with its poor, party-time culture or to hope for admission to a very selective school, even if it is a big reach?</p>
<p>when a kid has top credentials and knows that they're as good as kids who do get into the very top schools, it is just plain hard for them to think about the fact that they may not. its human nature.</p>
<p>it reminds me somewhat of the old groucho marx joke - he wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have him as a member. its easy for top students fall into the trap of believing that any school that they "know" they will get in to without any problem isn't "good enough" for them. parents and gc's who get stars in their eyes when talking to the student about their high possibilities feed into this.</p>
<p>as a parent, we want to encourage our kids to dream and reach for the best. at the same time, we want to prepare them for the "what if..." when i kept encouraging my daughter to look at safeties, she sometimes would respsond with, "why, don't you think i'm good enough to get into Dream U?" </p>
<p>its a really tough balance - letting yourself and your child get excited about the reaches while still trying to remain grounded.</p>
<p>i don't know if your son is applying to any schools ed. but i know that when a lot of my daughter's friends got their deferral letters on the ed applications, it really helped to get across the message of how unpredictable these things are -- she knew about 1/2 dozen kids who applied ed to the same ivy -- only one got in -- and none of the friends could look and say, "oh course She was the one to get in. </p>
<p>if your son is applying to schools that you believe are good fits for him based on the criteria he has identifed, there may not be much more you can do. perhaps the mantra isn't to necessarily love your safeties at the getgo, but to have safeties that can be loveable - ie, that when disappointment passes you can collect yourself and say - hey this'll work out ok.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So which is the best decision: to love the safety with its poor, party-time culture
[/quote]
Well, this is the crux of the problem right here. in two parts. First, the assumption that only the most selective schools have the potential for an intellectual culture. I submit not. Second, the assumption that a safety, by definition, has a "poor party-time culture." It is just this type of thinking which prevents a kid from "loving the safety" and creates the hyped-up pressure for the Ivies, HYPSM - as though they are the only 10 places in the country where one can get a good education and find kindred spirits. Come on!</p>
<p>If your kid has strongish stats, less than amazing but a record to be proud of..there really are some great Match schools out there. I guess our approach was to focus on strong Match options and to ignore the concept of Safeties. (As parents, I wish we had taken Financial Safety a bit more seriously..talk about unrealistic..our Son looked like the more mature one.) To open up that Match list to some stellar schools, play the geography card and be willing to be the one from far away in your class. My S really did not do a safety school application, and I don't think many kids really need one unless they are applying in a hothouse environment like New England or where state schools are also highly selective. His entire list was made of Match schools with two Reaches. The Match schools offered at least a significant portion of high achievers as students and dedicated teachers with decent grad school outcomes. He is aware that classwork at many Match schools is just as rigorous and difficult re performance as courses at the Reaches. I think college is so much about peers that Matches are where the most discerning thinking must take place...kids need to be with other kids who are excited about learning even for social lives to be fulfilled. Still, when our S was waitlisted at an Ivy he greatly liked, I was surprised he was so surprised. No matter how many people spell out things like "turned down tons of 1600s and valedictorians," I guess that we don't really believe it until it happens. Happy outcomes for your Son!</p>
<p>"So which is the best decision: to love the safety with its poor, party-time culture "</p>
<p>What the above means is that if your student doesn't want to go to a party school, s/he picked the wrong safety. There are plenty of schools that are not difficult to gain acceptance to which also are not party schools.</p>
<p>One certainly should pick a safety that one loves. Just because a student has great stats doesn't mean that s/he won't be happy at a less competitive school than their first choice college.</p>
<p>GW was my safety. I loved it because I wanted an urban university with a strong political sci department. I ended up going to Harvard, my first choice, but happily went to GWU for grad school. When I applied to grad school, GW was my first choice. I was living then in D.C., one of my favorite cities, and I wanted to attend grad school there.</p>
<p>Come on guys, the anthropology prof is generalizing from her experience at a regional university in Northern Arizona. I don't doubt there are some bright, thinking people there, but there are a lot who are just trying to get a degree to get a job, and have a little fun - take it with a grain of salt, she's trying to sell her book, and the school is the kind I attended - practical "career-oriented education". It's not a typical safety for these HYPS eligible kids.
There are many fine Honors' Colleges, including, I believe one at UA or Arizona State, that would have more of an intellectual culture and a lot better weather than Harvard!
He might not like the size of the school, and the kid may need to be careful about selecting that freshman dorm, but Honors' Colleges can provide a great education with many like-minded souls.</p>
<p>As for the intellectual purity of the Ivy League, 2 years ago I had dinner with the daughter of a friend, newly minted yale graduate, veteran of the dreaded "Directed Studies", whose biggest disappointment with Yale was that it was not as intellectual as she expected it to be! They are kids! We know that college is what YOU make of it, they have to learn that fact.</p>
<p>Added: I agree with Faline about safeties being less pressing outside the NE - willing to travel is a powerful hook. Another situation for attention to safety/matches is when your local schools just aren't that great, particularly for the size college or type program the child wants.</p>
<p>I see so many wrong stereotypes here- there seems to be an assumption that safety equals huge flagship. That's not the case. There are a lot of safeties that aren't like that at all. If you don't love your safety, then find a new one! I have one safety which isn't a party school at all, and it's just one of many I know of. You can't bank on your competetive schools. It just saddens me that people assume safety=big state school.</p>
<p>Well, it is OK to like your safeties, but fall in love with your reaches. When it comes to admissions, one can expect the best, but still prepare for the worst. It is unfortunate that the "easier" admissions, be automatic for the 10% in Texas or rolling, can be seen as less worthy. What may automatic for some is also a very high prized ticket for out-of-staters. </p>
<p>FWIW, a good exercise to help "appreciate" the safeties is to look from the top down. Do not spend too much time looking at the kids who "barely" got in, but look at the over-qualified candidates. Your evaluation may change when considering the number of valedictorians or NMF who end up selecting a state school over a more prestigious school to take advantage of honors program or superior merit aid. </p>
<p>The higher one aims, the bigger the odds are to find the end result disappointing and ... humbling. However, the acceptances letters, even from "easy-to-get-in" schools will go a long way to make the process less stressful.</p>
<p>Schools with lots of hard-core intellectual kids:
Holy Cross, Brandeis, Earlham, Rhodes, Wellesley, Franklin and Marshall,Sarah Lawrence.</p>
<p>Haven't named an IVY yet. Haven't read the thread on the cafe, but if there are parents who have decided that the choice is between party school or Ivy, you haven't done your homework. Plenty of the Ivy's are party central for four years.... and kids graduate from them without challenging themselves too much... and plenty of other schools have rich, intellectual campus cultures. Lots of top schools substitute intense pre-professionalism for intellectualism, as if working at Goldman Sachs were the be-all and end-all of the human condition. Can you get your ticket punched at these places? For sure, but that doesn't mean you can't get a fulfilling intellectual experience in lots of different places.</p>
<p>Yup, celebrian25, NSM and others! S's list, including safeties did not include <em>party culture</em> schools. There are schools out there, quite a few, that have decent academics, are not huge, and are not hard to get into, IMO. Those are the schools that will make up most of my D's list. Also, if what I've read on CC is true, some (many?) of the more selective schools have pretty big <em>Party cultures</em>.</p>
<p>edad, </p>
<p>There are plenty intellectual safeties for HYPS/AWS kids.</p>
<p>(1) Honors Colleges in state Us -- or if in-state, State U's with national prominence (UVa, UCB, Mich)
(2) LACs-- particularly in midwestern, cold, or rural locations; also deep south (Lawrence, Centre, Skidmore, Rhodes, Hamilton)
(3) Quirky intellectual schools (Reed, U Chicago, St Johns, Marlboro)
(4) Merit Aid "upward trajectory" schools (Wash U, Vandy, Tulane, Emory)
(5) For females: womens' colleges like Bryn Mawr & Smith</p>
<p>OR, you can try playing against type:
(1) For a guy &/or a math whiz/scientist-- Vassar, Bard, Wells, Bennington, etc
(2) For a non-jew: Brandeis
(3) For a woman humanities major-- JHU, CMU, Case</p>
<p>Finally a school associated with top flight school can work as a safety:</p>
<p>Ex: Barnard (Columbia), Wells (Cornell), Pitzer (Claremont Colleges), U Mass Amherst (5 colleges)</p>
<p>xiggi--could you clarify? Are you saying Wellesley is intensely pre-professional or that it is not intellectual? I would like my daughter to take a look at Wellesley, if she can get over the "no boys" thing. I don't know <em>that</em> much about it, but everything I know of Wellesley thus far is very impressive. My impression is that it is full of smart, friendly women.</p>
<p>SBMom -- Not sure what examples on your list qualified as Deep South? Not Centre or Rhodes (believe me, I've tried convincing my son that Memphis and Kentucky are southern, with limited success :)</p>
<p>Millsaps, Birmingham-Southern, and Furman -- now we're talking.</p>
<p>good point lderochi.</p>
<p>One serious problem in finding safeties, is the widespread problem with campus cultures built around drugs, alcohol and parties. Sure this occurs everywhere, even at the most selective top schools. As a rule the problem seems to grow as we look at colleges with lower rankings. I wish there was such a thing as a party index. I guess it would be very difficult to quantitate this and make part of the USNWR rankings. I would like to see the index posted right up there next to the SAT ranges and class rankings. I also wish some of the school administrations would be honest in stating their opinions and intentions. Too few want to take a stand and enforce restrictions and laws, but they also do not want state that they have lax policies. I suspect some just don't want to lose any paying customers.</p>
<p>I know what you are looking for and what your point is but: to me the issue is how long the partying is, 7 days a week, work hard and then party hard. People talk about wild partying cultures but at many schools the hard work is just as much a part of the culture. </p>
<p>Certainly most students cannot remain drunk 7 days a week and remain in school. I would look to the number of retained students and graduation stats right next to the beer sales. </p>
<p>I know a lot of people who jab at the IVY schools for party cultures but I think it is more work hard party hard.</p>
<p>"I wish there was such a thing as a party index. "</p>
<p>when we were visiting colleges, we got the same canned answer at each college when we asked tour guides about this: "well it is college, but if you aren't in to that there is absolutely no pressure to participate." best index we found - walking around a neighborhood where the frats or off-campus housing tends to be and see how many beer bottles were out at garbage pickup! :)</p>