<p>I would like to consider U of Michigan a safety school for my daughter because of the following: </p>
<p>1) Good fit with her academic interests and EC’s.
2) We can afford to pay out of state tuition out of pocket.
3) Global acceptance rate ~40% (though OOS acceptance rate may be lower).
4) D’s high school’s acceptance rate: 50%.
5) D’s GPA well above prior accepted applicants from her school.
6) D’s SATs are far above 75th percentile for Mich.
7) Honors program available.
8) Rolling admissions. </p>
<p>If she is not accepted by Dec (and is also not accepted by her EA school), she will apply to a safer school.</p>
<p>With our latest son at college, finding a “safety” school was not an issue. We looked at colleges that were nearby and he liked a number of them regardless of selectivity. We then found schools that were like those schools. When he got his list together, he had a few reach schools but they were not his top choices. My other kids were pretty much the same way. They did not go straight for name recognitions. That your child does not have any specific programs in mind means that he has a very wide field to choose. Just start looking at the colleges nearest you and see what he likes and does not like about them.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse - Just curious, were any of your children Ivy-caliber or equivalent? From anecdotal observances, it seems that your refreshing prestige-free approach only works for students just below a statistical match for the tippy top schools. (An exception would be the tippy-top student who falls in love with a women’s college.) I like to think that I have been very open-minded in my search, but my top choice is Swarthmore simply because it matches the most of my criteria. Then toss in financial aid–only the super-selective schools can afford generous loan policies. Hence why I will be applying SCEA to Yale even though I would ED to Swat if I didn’t have to worry about FA. And by all accounts, both Swat and Yale are reaches for everyone anyway. Also, as a humanities major, I ought to be conscious of my peers–a seminar discussion inevitably falls to the lowest common denominator.</p>
<p>Your approach is so enticing, but for a certain type of student–not just “me,” because usually the elite schools did something right to get there–I think the same method (ignoring prestige) would likely result in a dangerously unbalanced list.</p>
<p>Keilexandra, you don’t have to feel bad it’s quite obvious from your posts that you aren’t just going after the big names for the same of their prestige. We were in your same shoes for our oldest. He’s a kid who thrives when he’s challenged. As a techie guy, I think it was little easier to find safeties, but he was still looking at the usual suspects for the most part.</p>