<p>Thanks for all the interesting comments. Living as I do outside of North Carolina, I wouldn't necessarily rate UNC Chapel Hill (which I have had the pleasure of visiting, on a business trip to the Research Triangle) as a safety for an out-of-state student. I'll have to check the stats and other details. Michigan (which I've also visited before) of course has quite a national reputation, and a very strong commitment to "holistic" (here, = unpredictable) admissions, so I'm not sure if an out-of-stater could count that as a safety college either.</p>
<p>Maybe one of the other Boston schools? BU perhaps? Is WUSL too suburban? I haven't seen the campus.</p>
<p>Tokenadult: I disagree with you about Michigan. From my understanding, admissions are very stats based as long as the application is received early. I know countless kids who have used the school as a safety, including my own out-of-state kids. I also know many kids who attend Michigan and absolutely love it. </p>
<p>Of course, I am of the camp that everyone should have a few safeties.</p>
<p>GADad - Along the lines of MathMom's thoughts ... Tufts seems to fit the bill ... not a safety though.</p>
<p>WUSTL is not a safety for anyone. Trust me!</p>
<p>Thanks, twinmom; now I'll have to do some detailed reading about Michigan and WUSTL.</p>
<p>Tokenadult: I never realized how terrific Michigan is until I started reading about it during my kids' college searches. Michigan is really tops in many fields, both undergraduate and at the graduate level. Unfortunately, it is very expensive for out-of-state kids and its financial aid is not comparable to that of private colleges and universities.</p>
<p>USC is a good safety for economics.</p>
<p>These are all really interesting suggestions. Ann Arbor's not what you'd call urban, but for the activity level on the streets surrounding the campus, it's got a similar college life vibe. Twinmom, is that what you feel is missing at Miami, or do you think it's the intellectual environment?</p>
<p>LOL. I do trust you, but still somewhat less reachy than Harvard.</p>
<p>It's actually a bit of a conundrum, I think. For kids for who Harvard is a top choice it's hard to know what to use as a safety. Especially if you'd like a research university that is also relatively urban and of a similar size.</p>
<p>Everything seems to be a reachy-match. For my science/math kid it was a little easier - he wasn't convinced that he wanted the sort of well-rounded education Harvard excels in in the first place. There were lots of good safeties for him, but really only one other school that was a match - Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<p>Returning to a question asked earlier in the thread, what would be a reasonable "safety" university for an international student who also plans to apply to Harvard?</p>
<p>WUSTL isn't a safety for anyone anymore. They're likely to waitlist you if it seems as though they are your backup as there are plenty of kids with Harvard-like stats that have WUSTL as a top choice.</p>
<p>ok WUSTL point has been established.</p>
<p>how about some LACs?</p>
<p>Post number 28:</p>
<p>
[quote]
I would argue that safeties for students interested in Harvard should often be small LACs. Beyond HYP/MIT/Caltech/Dartmouth, which are all very difficult to get into, the top schools in the USA in terms of overall quality of undergraduate education are all top LACs - Wellesley, Wesleyan, Trinity, Amherst, Haverford, CMC, Pomona, etc.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What's so funny though, is that Dartmouth is no more difficult to get into than Pomona. For some reason, people believe that the Ivies are so much harder to get into than LACs, but it is quite the opposite. For the class of 2011, Dartmouth accepted 15.27% of its applicants while Pomona accepted 15.8%, CMC accepted 16.2%, Swarthmore accepted 17%, Williams accepted 17.4%, and Amherst accepted 17.5%. Furthermore, according to Hernandez College Counseling services (<a href="http://hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/resources/early2007statistics.html)%5B/url%5D">http://hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/resources/early2007statistics.html)</a>, the average acceptance rate for the Ivies was 13.33%. Are these elite LACs really safeties for top 'Ivy applicants' when top LACs are accepting only around 2 to 4 percent more applicants than the Ivies? I don't think so.</p>
<p>^ very good point</p>
<p>But maybe the people who apply to LACs are "weaker" in terms of their grades/SAT/EC because they may perceive LACs to be easier to get into than Ivys. Plus, most LACs are much smaller than the Ivy League schools, making their selectivity go up with fewer applicants than Ivys.</p>
<p>Still, the same can be said of Ivy League admissions (in terms of the strength of the applicants), so it's hard to judge.</p>
<p>If anything, apply to your state school - most of the time, that's the best bet. </p>
<p>Or you can try out foreign schools in Canada or the UK. It may be much easier to get into their top colleges than to Harvard. ;)</p>
<p>Has any smartass here said Yale yet? ;)</p>
<p>Personally, I think any HYPS aspiring student should have their in-state public school as a safety.... because sorry, but everything else is probably not a SAFETY safety.</p>
<p>Why are you guys forcing me to post this again? :)
<a href="http://www.safetyschool.org%5B/url%5D">www.safetyschool.org</a></p>
<p>Or even funnier, Jon Stewart calling Harvard Medical School: "safety medical school."</p>
<p>To take up the Southern school cause, what about Vanderbilt? Emory? (though perhaps that's a bit too close to home for gadad's child).
And let me clarify on UNC: For in-state students with the stats to consider Harvard, then yes, UNC could be considered a safety. For many in-state students, admittance is not a sure bet. Even though those students are probably not on this thread, readers beware: in-state, UNC is not a safety for any student with less than a 1350 or 1400 math-verbal SAT score and grades to match. For out of state, competition is tougher than that.
But for someone considering Harvard, those stats are probably not a problem.</p>