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2006 Davidson Fellow, who was a frequent poster on CC (numerous national awards including Intel STS Top 10 winner) was not admitted to Harvard (deferred EA, then waitlisted) or Stanford.
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<p>Oh, yeah, I know that case. Natural sciences was his area. He did end up with some good choices of colleges.</p>
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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.
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<p>Besides being a complete stereotype with little founding in reality, taking this viewpoint towards LACs is not going to make them "safeties" by any stretch. Like other colleges, some LACs are easier to get into than others. However, from most of the kids I talked to at LACs, they applied because of the small classes/environment of the school, not because the schools were "easier" than Ivies. I personally don't want to attend a school like Harvard because I wouldn't be able to get the intimate attention there that I could at the LAC at which I'm matriculating. (My dad went to Harvard and told me about his experiences there, so I'm not basing this on a stereotype or anything). I value small classes, individual attention, etc. over the "name brand" prestige of ivies. I didn't rule them out when I was applying to schools, but the only Ivy on my list was one that I felt would be a good school for my personality/personal preferences. The other thing is that a lot of LACs are looking for kids who they feel would be a good fit for their school. since they have a smaller student body and smaller applicant pool, they can take the time to really read an application in detail. If it seems like the only reason a kid wants to apply to a school is as a backup for Harvard, then that kid isn't necessarily going to get in. (note, I'm sure that if a kid is a super genius who wins national awards, etc, this might not apply, but for a lot of kids who think they're great enough to use Amherst as a safety, this is probably wrong.)</p>
<p>Sorry, end of little rant, but I really dislike the idea that LAC students are inherently weaker or less intelligent than Ivy students. I think that for many people its all about the environment.</p>
<p>^ I agree, which is why I said in the following paragraph:</p>
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Still, the same can be said of Ivy League admissions (in terms of the strength of the applicants), so it's hard to judge.
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<p>oh, sorry, never mind then. :-)</p>
<p>I see there was a suggestion of SUNY Stony Brook as a reasonable safety school for international students, because even out-of-state tuition there is not terribly high. The expense of undergraduate tuition must matter a lot to applicants from some countries. What would be some other reasonable "safety" colleges for an international applicant who will also submit an applicatino to Harvard?</p>
<p>tokenadult, Michigan does not superscore, so comparing SAT averages is a bit skewed IMO.</p>
<p>The scores are reported section-by-section, are they not? (That is the Common Data Set methodology, consistent with NACAC rules.) </p>
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Besides being a complete stereotype with little founding in reality, taking this viewpoint towards LACs is not going to make them "safeties" by any stretch.
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<p>The Amherst admissions office and other sources have confirmed that high numerical statistics alone are a near-guarantee of admission at the LACs.
A large number of candidates who are 50-50 shots for admission at the top Ivies fit that profile and can, one assumes, recycle some essays for the LAC applications. For them, applying to two or more LACs nearly guarantees admission to at least one. That's a safety, just as for people with stellar objective credentials Caltech is close to being a safety, even if Harvard or Princeton or even MIT might reject them for unpredictable reasons. </p>
<p>Safety doesn't mean a lesser school, it means a school (or a group of schools) where applications similar to yours are very likely to succeed. </p>
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I really dislike the idea that LAC students are inherently weaker or less intelligent than Ivy students.
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<p>There is no denying that the ability distributions are different for the LAC and Ivy populations, as the statistics indicate. That is no different from the fact that Harvard or MIT students come from a more favorable distribution than Princeton or Brown students. Some students at Grade Z Community College would make great students at top Ivy or LAC schools, as we know because some of them transfer there successfully. But we also know that in general the Grade Z students are worse.</p>
<p>As populations that's true as a consequence of the statistics, though there is some overlap of lower Iv
While there are always people at school A who are smarter than people at school B, it's certainly true that the Ivies are statistically stronger than the LACs. Some of the bottom Ivies may be indistinguishable from the top LACs statistically (or not, I don't pretend to have checked). But the higher Ivies certainly have a statistically stronger group of students than any of the LACs.</p>
<p>tokenadult, Michigan reports their SAT averages differently than most schools. Michigan does not mix and match your best sections to achieve the highest possible score from multiple sittings. Only your best OVERALL score from one sitting is considered, even if you might have scored higher in one section during another sitting. For UM, The averages from collegeboard for math and CR all come from the same sitting, whereas WUSTL mixes and matches, making their total SAT average substantially higher than that of Michigan.</p>
<p>Hi, CCRunner123, </p>
<p>I understand the point you are trying to make, but I think you are overestimating the effect size of that difference in determining the top score of a student who submits more than one test as part of a college application. Is it your claim that if WUSTL and Michigan used the same methodology (whichever methodology that was) that they would then have the same score ranges? </p>
<p>Here is a College Board chart about test-takers in a recent graduating class and how many took the SAT more than once: </p>
<p>I agree with you that the difference in Michigan taking best single-sitting scores, and WUSTL taking section-by-section best scores, would result in section scores for each student being reported at the highest possible level at WUSTL, but I would have to see "more work," as a math teacher might say, to be convinced that the reported difference in section score ranges between Michigan and WUSTL is a result of that only. Many applicants to each of those schools take the SAT only once. Some who take it more than once find their highest scores for each section in the sitting for which they have the highest single-sitting score (so that "superscoring" or not makes no difference). I think the overall picture is that students who actually enroll at each school (that is what is counted by the College Board figures, enrolled students) differ, somewhat, GENUINELY in their SAT ranges, with WUSTL having the higher range. The ACT composite score ranges for each school serve as a reality check on that. </p>
<p>P.S. This is not at all to say that Michigan is a bad college. I think very highly of Michigan, having visited its campus on business trips, and I was actually rather startled to see it mentioned as a plausible "safety" school for anyone except an outstanding Michigan in-state student. But comments by other parents in this thread have convinced me, changing my mind, that if an applicant has some decent shot at being admitted to Harvard, the same applicant has a very good shot indeed at being admitted to Michigan. And that was the question I was raising in this thread: what's an indisputably good college that might deserve a place on the application list of an applicant to Harvard?</p>
<p>My absolute safety was the University of Vermont. I also had the University of Rochester and Boston College as match/safeties.</p>
<p>The key to applying to Michigan is to apply EARLY. Since admissions are rolling, spots are filled quickly and kids who apply later are at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>Besides, it's terrific to have a great rolling school acceptance "in your pocket" iif possible.</p>
<p>I find this thread interesting. </p>
<p>If I understand the OP correctly, he's looking for schools that would be considered safe for someone whose numbers are competitive for Harvard. </p>
<p>It would seem to me, that for a school to be considered "safe", the admissions process must be primarily numbers driven. I don't think that schools with holistic admission processes like Michigan or Tufts, or those that rely on essays like UChicago can ever be considered truly safe. Some schools are notorious for rejecting applicants they feel to be overqualified. This has been referred to as "Tufts syndrome". I've seen cases on this board like that for Michigan too, which really surprised me. </p>
<p>So I think that safeties for the top student can include
1) Top Canadian schools - McGill, Toronto, Queen's - all totally numbers driven
2) Top instate flagship public
3) Large Big 10 schools with rolling admissions like Wisconsin, Ohio State, Illinois, or Minnesota that are primarily numbers driven. Even Ohio State's honors program is safe for someone competitive for Harvard. </p>
<p>Its interesting to go onto collegeboard.com and compare the admissions factors for Michigan and Wisconsin. </p>
<p>For Michigan:
Very important admission factors:
* Rigor of secondary school record</p>
<p>Important admission factors:
* Character/Personal Qualities
* Application Essay
* Racial/Ethnic Status
* Recommendations
* Standardized Test Scores
* State Residency
* Talent/Ability
* Academic GPA
* First generation college student</p>
<p>For Wisconsin:
Very important admission factors:
* Class Rank
* Rigor of secondary school record
* Academic GPA
Important admission factors:
* Recommendations
* Standardized Test Scores
* State Residency</p>
<p>It seems like for Wisconsin, if your numbers are good enough, they don't bother even reading your essay or looking at ECs. Does this theory hold?</p>
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It would seem to me, that for a school to be considered "safe", the admissions process must be primarily numbers driven. I don't think that schools with holistic admission processes like Michigan or Tufts, or those that rely on essays like UChicago can ever be considered truly safe.
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<p>That is indeed the source of my interest in this issue. I'm pretty confident that my state flagship university, which also claims to practice "holistic" admission, will never deny an applicant with the stats my son already has. (Some of his friends have gained early matriculation there, strengthening that confidence.) The honors program at the state flagship is just being restructured, and I don't know for sure what its admission criteria will look like a couple years from now. But on the whole, I think an in-state application to my state's flagship research university is "safe" for an applicant with certain attainable characteristics, holistic admissions process or not. </p>
<p>On Wisconsin, a state which has a tuition reciprocity agreement with my state, I have heard that class rank is so important that an A- student from a suburban high school here of VERY good reputation (on the Newsweek list of top United States high schools) was doubtful of being able to get into Wisconsin, because his class rank was only about in the middle of his graduating class. Ouch. Class rank as a major part of a college admission formula can be nasty at some high schools.</p>
<p>From Collegeboard.com</p>
<p>Minnesota:
Very important admission factors:
* Class Rank
* Rigor of secondary school record
* Standardized Test Scores
* Academic GPA</p>
<p>--yup, seems numbers driven.</p>
<p>I've read that Wisconsin is actually easier to get into from out-of-state because they depend on the out-of-state tuition money for their operating budget. In that case, because of the tuition reciprocity agreement I wonder if they put you in the in-state pool making it more competitive.</p>
<p>To clarify, I would never tell someone that a certain school is definitely a safety for him/her. And I do agree, schools such as Tufts are not safeties for anyone. In fact, a Harvard stats applicant may be rejected.</p>
<p>From my own experience, I believe that Michigan is largely numbers driven, despite the description above. However, most solid Harvard applicants are going to have excellent ECs anyhow, and most likely strong recommendations.</p>
<p>Remember, no one should have just one safety anyhow.</p>
<p>Alas - I wish I lived in California - in state residency would have been nice... Cal would have been so nice... </p>
<p>Sorry, this is completely random.</p>
<p>"The Amherst admissions office and other sources have confirmed that high numerical statistics alone are a near-guarantee of admission at the LACs.
A large number of candidates who are 50-50 shots for admission at the top Ivies fit that profile and can, one assumes, recycle some essays for the LAC applications. For them, applying to two or more LACs nearly guarantees admission to at least one."</p>
<p>I find this quote from the Amherst admissions office somewhat surprising. There are perfect SAT scoring valdictorians who are not admitted to the elite LAC's. </p>
<p>And who has a 50-50 shot at admission to the "top ivies"? They reject over 85% of the applicants.</p>
<p>^ Agreed. Seriously, have you looked at the average ranges for the LACs recently? Not like it matters of course. Unlike other colleges, Swarthmore has chosen to increase diversity. Class of 2011 will have 50% non-white students. Yay. </p>
<p>Another useless post by me. Ahhh.</p>
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I find this quote from the Amherst admissions office somewhat surprising.
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<p>It is from a Businessweek article last year, linked many a time in CC. The article and the graphic accompanying were quite revealing.</p>
<p>The LACs put themselves under what might be called "stats pressure", by pushing to admit large numbers of low-income and URM applicants in addition to their football teams. The smaller population of the LACs and their lower yield relative to Ivies (especially on the best applicants) intensifies the effect of these policies on their SAT profile. As a result, they have little choice but to put a premium on applicants with a monster stats profile. The latter are more or less what was referred to by "50-50 odds of Ivy admission", and it does not take much extra work for somebody in that category to send out a few additional applications to LACs as (collectively) a safety strategy.</p>
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There are perfect SAT scoring valdictorians who are not admitted to the elite LAC's.
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<p>But they are rare. Have a look at The Gatekeepers. It is amazing how low the SAT threshold was to put an applicant near the top of the pool at Wesleyan. (See the case they profile, of the heavily recruited URM from the Los Angeles prep school). If you apply with topnotch statistics to several LACs, any given one or two might reject, but some other factor would have to be seriously wrong for there not to be a very high chance of acceptance from at least one of them.</p>