Recently, a friend of mine said that a school with a 50% acceptance rate was a safety school for her. I was confused because I thought that 50% was pretty low for a safety school. But she said it was a safety for her because her stats are significantly higher than the averages at the school. That makes sense but, I always thought a safety school was a school with an admit rate so high, it would be nearly impossible for someone with even mediocre stats to not get in (so at least 75%). In my eyes, a 50% acceptance rate (regardless of scores and GPA) indicates that there is a 50/50 chance of getting in. So more of a match than a safety school.
Am I going about it the wrong way, or is she? I’ve always assumed that safety, match, and reach schools were universal rather than individualized. After all, schools like the ivy league are reaches for everybody.
This thread might exist already. If it does, sorry!
A safety school is one you are (virtually) assured of getting into, can definitely afford, and would be happy to attend. Someone with a 4.0 and 1600 SAT would have a different safety list than someone with a 3.0 and 1100. Schools that have low acceptance percentages shouldn’t be considered safeties. Also, the more a school values a whole person evaluation for admission the less chance of being a safety.
Agree with , @Erin’s Dad, with a caveat. Safety schools for someone with very high stats can be tricky. Someone with a 4.0 and 1600 SAT may actually face a high chance of rejection from a school with much lower average student stats. This is because the school assumes a high liklihood that the student will get into (and accept) a more selective school, and schools want to protect their yield (the percentage of accepted student that actually attend). Colleges/Universities don’t like to be used as a safety! So any high stats student who prefers a lower-ranking school (and plans to attend if accepted) should make their intent clear!
Leaving aside the issues of affordability and fit, the main factor in determining whether or not a school is a safety or not are the qualifications of a particular applicant. The fact that a school has a 50% acceptance rate does not translate to an across the board 50/50 chance of getting in. For a high stat kid, the chances of getting into that school might be close to 100% while they may be close to 0% for a low stat kid. Now, once you get below a certain acceptance rate, a school cannot be considered a safety no matter what kind of stats you have, but for a high stat kid, a safety school could easily have an acceptance rate below 50%. For example, a kid whose stats make him/her competitive for MIT might choose WPI as a safety, which has a 42% acceptance rate.
We used Niche to see where DS fit in the accepted applicant pool. If he was better (GPA and test score-wise) than 80% or more of the people accepted we felt pretty confident on it being a safety school. That was pretty much all our state schools except the flagship. At that one he’s only “better” than about 30% of the accepted applicants into the college he is applying to. We figure it’s borderline Target/Reach.
Safety schools meet 2 criteria. First, it’s a school you would have no problems getting into based on your grades/scores. Second, it’s something you know you can afford. Third, it has to be a school you’re going to take seriously. All 3 criteria have to be met for it to count as a safety. A lot of smart students apply to all the snooty schools then put 1 or 2 random in-state schools on their list, because they KNOW they’ll get into the BIG school. When the rejections come in, all they have left is an offer from the “never heard of”-state university they applied to.
I agree with you OP. 50% acceptance rate isn’t a safety school, especially if it’s a state flagship and a student is applying to a popular major. I had a fairly high stats kid and her two safeties had 70% acceptance rates. One was rolling admission. Her match schools were 25-50% acceptance rates and the reaches were under that 25% number. She had 2 safeties, 4 matches, and 2 reaches.
The acceptance rate of the school isn’t always the best statistic to use when categorizing it as a safety (I prefer calling it “likely”) or match. The “Public Ivies” are examples of schools with mid-to-high overall acceptance rates, but for applicants to engineering or CS, the acceptance rates drop considerably. UIUC or Purdue could indeed be a safety for someone who wants to study the humanities, but could be a reach for his/her friend with identical stats, but who wants to go into engineering.
How can we calculate (in advance) if we can afford it? Since we don’t know the financial aid reward (if it applies) or how closely a school will meet the need.
I would call a school a “safety” if it is 100% assured for admission, affordability, and academic fit, and “likely” if there is no stated assurance, but every externally visible measure indicates that the applicant being rejected or not getting enough financial aid would be an extreme outlier.
But I agree that admission rate without any other context does not give much information that would let a potential applicant call the school reach/match/likely/safety.
If it matters, the school I’m referring to is UW-Madison. It has a 53% acceptance rate but I didn’t see it as a school that anyone has a 100% acceptance rate. Maybe like 80% if you are 4.0/1600. But I guess I might have been misinterpreting acceptance rates.
I think UW Madison is a great example. It matters if you are in state/out of state and what major you are applying for. I’ve seen stats that for direct admit engineering, the acceptance rate is less than 20%.
I would consider an 85% chance or higher to be safety, if it includes a 100% chance of affordability.
Another thing which ties into “safety” is the high school. For example, for kids from D19’s high school, UMN (45% acceptance rate) was a safety for any kid with 3.8/1450 or higher, since nobody with those stats from the HS had been rejected in the previous 3 years, according to Naviance. However, according to Niche, there were students in this stats range who were rejected.
What make a school a safety for a kid is the percent of applicants from that kid’s HS, with those stats, to that college, who were accepted. If is more than roughly 80%, that college is a safety for that kid. It it is roughly between 85% and about 40%, it’s a match, if it’s less, it’s a reach. Of course, if fewer than 20 or so students from a high school apply to a college every year, these number are even less reliable.
In order to be a safety a school has to be affordable. It can be difficult for students whose parents are divorced because Net Price Calculators might not be accurate. Some schools will just consider your mom’s ~$99k income (but not that she supports family in her home country or that she’s paying tuition for your cousins and can’t afford to pay for your education), but others will count her income and your dad’s ~$40k income. Colleges that are academic safeties for you may not be financial safeties. Make sure your list includes affordable options.
We used Naviance (I know not all schools have it) as a guide for safety schools. This also helped us see how students from my daughter’s school did at the out of state publics - so it takes account of the instate/out of state dilemma that way. When all the stats in her vicinity were green, including solid green below for a ways on both GPA and test scores, we considered those safeties for her. It so happened that none of these appeared to practice yield protection (no red/waitlist at high stats - we did see a couple of private schools that did that). Obviously finances would be worked out separately.
As you can see by the number of definitions CC posters have there is no definitive answer to your question. There is no authority that can define it, it is a product of social interaction for those seeking admission to a University. Having said that (I won’t use percentages) a safety is simply a school that will very likely admit you given your stats.