I need to find some safety schools, but the only problem is that I’m not sure exactly how much of safety school one should be chosing. For example, someone who did really well throughout high school may not need to apply to the local community college. In essence, how do I go about finding the balance between a school that I would almost be guaranteed to get into and a school where it’s more 50-50?
IMHO you should have at least one safety with guaranteed admission for your stats, affordable either by NPC need based aid or guaranteed for stats merit, where you would be happy to attend if it were your only acceptance.
Your state flagship is a common place to start.
My kids picked schools where their stats were above the 75% mark, acceptance rates were above 40%, and we knew they were affordable. My kids made a point to show interest. Both had two safeties, since they weren’t guaranteed admission. Also, you must be 100% willing to attend your safety. It isn’t a safety of you wouldn’t want to attend.
Make sure it’s a school you really like. Don’t be full of yourself or feel that you’re over it. Visit the campus if you can to see if you’d actually want to attend.
Be careful to make sure that you look at acceptance rates for the program you want and not just for the school as a whole. D1 applied to one school with a 60% admit rate, but her particular school had a far lower admit rate. It looked like a safety on Naviance but it really wasn’t. In fact one of the schools we looked at had an extremely high overall admit rate but her program was less than 10%.
For high stats students near where I live, the in-state flagship is the most common safety school. For lower stats students, other lower ranked (but still very good) in-state public schools might be an appropriate safety.
If you give your stats, home state, and preferences (what you are looking for in a university) folks here on CC can suggest appropriate safeties. You might get a lot of suggestions and have to filter the list according to your preferences.
A state flagship isn’t always a safety, though, depending on your stats. And even with good stats, schools like Michigan, UVA, UT Austin (unless autoadmit), etc. can’t be counted on.
In California, high achieving high school students routinely use the community college option as their primary safety strategy. Don’t rule that out if your state has a good CC program and your best fit public universities aren’t safeties for your major.
I’m new to this website, so I don’t know if there’s a way for me to edit the thread details, but since it seems like I can’t, I’ll write about my stats and preferences here.
SAT: 1330 (I’ll be taking it again in about 5 months and am aiming for a 1400 though.)
ACT: 27 (also going to be retaken, but I’m going to try and avoid sending in my ACT scores unless colleges want that instead of the SAT.)
SATII: World History:71; APUSH and English subject tests to be taken this May.
AP courses: World History:4; Micro/macro econ., APUSH to be taken this May.
Overall average: 93%. My high school recently changed the way our GPAs are calculated, so I’m not completely certain what my GPA is at the moment, but I’ll be getting ahold of my transcript soon to find out. My estimate would be that it’s in the 3.6-9 range.
In terms of extracurriculars, I started a philosophy club at my school, I am student senate president for senior year, and I volunteer regularly helping immigrant children improve their reading and math skills.
Location: I go to a private, college prep school in New Mexico, but I would like to get out of state for college.
I will be applying to various political science/IR programs for college as my major. If I were to have to chose a particular major today, I would chose PPE (philosophy, political science, economics), but unfortunately not many US schools offer this type of degree.
My top two priorities for college is that they have good education (obviously), and secondly that they have a good sense of community on campus. By this, I don’t mean that there need to be really small schools, but that I want the college to ideally be large in population (UCLA is what I loosely have in mind) and in a large city. I don’t feel the need to be connected with everyone at the school, but basically I just want to be able to find my own community within the school. As such, I really would prefer not to go to a small, liberal arts college in a rural area.
I hope this helps, and I appreciate your giving me some suggestions.
The important factor you left out when trying to assess whether a college is a safety is what your parents can afford to contribute for your college costs, and whether you are likely to get financial aid to bring the price down enough (if necessary).
Truly Safe: as described by @allyphoe above in #1. Find at least one of these, even if it is just your local community college. In some states, the public Us guarantee admission for residents with certain stats, so check yours. There also are threads on autoadmits in the financial aid and college admission forums.
Almost Certain To Be Safe: places that have accepted every applicant like you from your high school in recent years - ask your guidance counselor for a list. But these might turn out to be unaffordable, so run the costs past your parents. If the numbers look like they will work, add one or more of these to your list too.
My kids both applied EA and rolling to a few schools where their stats were above average in order to have an acceptance or two in have by December.
D1 also applied EA and rolling and it was one of the best things we did. Its so comforting to have those acceptances before Christmas!
One word: Affordability
You would apply to UNM and it’d be one safety. If you don’t like it, find two others thzt you really like and where your odds are 90%, both within budget.
If you don’t know your budget, talk with your parents about what they can afford from income and savings.
(50-50 is a match, not a safety).
Look at the large universities offered through WUE.
For those asking about finances, there isn’t enough money to pay for tuition for places charging around 40,000 per year for all 4 years, but I will be applying for scholarships, and may take out student loans need-be. Other sources of money would be through summer/during school year jobs. I don’t think I qualify for financial aid unfortunately.
You can only take $5,500 in federal direct loans the first year. Colleges assume that a student can realistically earn up to $3,000 to $5,000 in summers and part time in the school year. So add that to your parents’ contribution to get your net price limit.
If you are hoping to win outside scholarships to pay for college, your safety school must be very affordable. Outside scholarships are highly competitive and almost never guaranteed for four years.
You need to find an in-state school you can pay for. If your budget is really limited, perhaps you do start at community college and save up for your last two years while attending.