What is your favorite safety college?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>I'm going to make the wild guess that many current high school students who read this forum in the Northern Hemisphere summer are interested in applying to Harvard this year or next. Harvard has a lot of great characteristics that attract applications from all over the world. Because Harvard receives so many applications, </p>

<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/03/29/getting_into_harvard_gets_even_harder/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/03/29/getting_into_harvard_gets_even_harder/&lt;/a> </p>

<p>many fine applicants to Harvard will not find themselves admitted when they apply under Harvard's new single-deadline admission system. That's just a hard mathematical fact. Every year on College Confidential, a lot of participants vanish from this forum in April when Harvard announces its admission decisions. </p>

<p>But the end of the application process at Harvard doesn't have to be the end of your college dreams. Anyone applying to a cool college like Harvard ought to be applying also to a "safety" college, a college you can count on being admitted to. In previous CC posts, I have defined a safety college as a school that</p>

<p>1) is pretty much certain to admit my kid, based on its known behavior in acting on admission applications,</p>

<p>2) has a strong program in an area my kid is interested in,</p>

<p>3) is affordable based on its known behavior in acting on financial aid applications,</p>

<p>and</p>

<p>4) is likeable to my kid.</p>

<p>The state university honors program in my state fits those characteristics for my oldest son. It now practices "holistic admissions," which means that in principle it could reject any applicant for any reason or no reason at all, but in practice admits mostly "by the numbers," and is not known to reject applicants who are successful in the accelerated secondary math program my son is now enrolled in there. We know quite a few very smart and curious young people who thrive there. </p>

<p>What college fits the "safety" definition for you? What do you like about it? </p>

<p>Good luck to the members of high school classes of 2008 and 2009 who are putting together lists of colleges to apply to.</p>

2

<p>Our safety (for both kids) was Bard. This was based on several factors. !) Kids eally liked it. 2) Stats lower than other colleges kids were applying too. 3)Is need blind and promises to meet 100% of financial need (aid package almost 2X Vassar's). 4) EA which eliminated need for other safeties.</p>

<p>Both kids were admitted with generous aid packages and it was with true sadness that neither matriculated there (accepted at schools they oreferred with even better aid).</p>

3

<p>Thanks for the example of a safety school that fit your family.</p>

4

<p>Dear tokenadult and any other Sir or Madam to whom this may concern, </p>

<p>GET A LIFE, Chap !!! You posted like over 3000 posts. What the ****. </p>

<p>Also, Cornell ED is a good safty school (50% acceptance) </p>

<p>Thanks
Hello!</p>

5

<p>How is Cornell a safety school? You're joking me right? Hello!, just because it has a 50% acceptance rate doesn't mean its easier to get into. It's because the applicant pool is stronger.</p>

6

<p>50%? wouldn't call it a safety, more like a match, if that</p>

7

<p>My safety was UC San Diego! Woohooo, go Tritons!</p>

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<p>Cornell ED!? You do know that if you're accepted, you have to attend? Hardly the best safety school, even if you assume you will most likely get in.</p>

9

<p>Troll, troll, troll your boat.</p>

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<p>Reasonable minds are welcome to disagree, but to me the definition of "safety" has to include "is pretty much certain to admit my kid, based on its known behavior in acting on admission applications," and while that standard varies from one student to the next, it rarely includes colleges with a base acceptance rate of only about 50 percent. </p>

<p>Thanks for the other comments. I'd love to hear about other safety schools of interest to students also interested in Harvard.</p>

11

<p>Dear Sir or Madam to whom this may concern, </p>

<p>The term safety school is relative. I do admit that I was tipsy, chaps, when I said that Cornell was a safety, though. Just like winning a Nobel prize-- some people expect to win it, you know, chaps? But you wouldn’t expect to win it, now would ya lad? Same thing with college-- the premium have Cornell or even Yale as a safety. It's not my safety, and it's not your's, but it's the chap's whose safety it is, ya know. </p>

<p>That's all this lad meant. I am no troll or whatever the **** you call a poor chap like me. </p>

<p>It's who you are, ladies and lads,</p>

<p>Sincerely,
Hello!</p>

12

<p>
[quote]
I am no troll or whatever the **** you call a poor chap like me.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>On the contrary.</p>

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<p>the word chap reminds me of charlie chaplin</p>

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<p>My safety is UNC-Chapel Hill. I'm in-state and a lot of people from my school are accepted each year. I think it's a really great college in general...with amazing sports teams too! :p</p>

15

<p>UCSD was my safety despite the <50% acceptance rate. As an ELC, class valedictorian, and CA resident... there's really wasn't a chance that they'd reject me (they work with a point system). Thus, safety.</p>

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<p>Yes, I'm especially curious to hear how many participants here regard their state university as a suitable safety. In a few states, I suppose there is some risk of not being admitted. And in some other states, perhaps the state university doesn't offer appropriate programs. What does a student do if the state university is not a good safety school?</p>

17

<p>I'd like to see the applicant who has Yale as his safety...</p>

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<p>Dear virtuoso_735 and any other Sir or Madam to whom this may concern, </p>

<p>Those ladies and lads who have Yale as a safty are the chaps who win 1 st in the entire nation at the Seimens competition, or even in the world at the olympads. To see such talented chaps, you'll have to turn on the TV, lad. In fact, for such people, I bet that every college they apply to is a safty. </p>

<p>They have it made, baby chap, have it made...</p>

<p>Sincerly,
Hello!</p>

19

<p>Just to add to my previous post: for my daughter the state u. was the safety, particularly a financial safety. When my son applied we knew aid would be adequate so we didn't consider state u. </p>

<p>New York has so many private schools and no real flagship campus that none of the options is that appealing. The architecture is disheartening. We kind of like Stony Brook , but it is only four miles away; the kids did many musical and scientific activities there, performed there, and my daughter took a course. It was "old hat". Geneseo might have been an option, but it has no Classics Dept., something eaxh kid wanted to pursue in some way.</p>

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<p>hello!, it still wouldn't be wise for those kids to consider yale a safety. admissions at yale, harvard, princeton and the like can be awefully capricious... and you just never know sometimes. they might like the personality of the second place guy more than the kid who won the whole thing (maybe he was a complete a-hole)... small things like that. there have literally been kids of that caliber who've been screwed over b/c they only applied to the elite colleges and for one reason or another were rejected by all of them.</p>