Obviously. There’s always some chance (however small) of rejection by a safety school (other than those colleges that guarantee admissions, which OP may not have viewed them as academically suitable).
“Safety” would best be used to describe assured admission and affordable colleges. Those with a very small chance of non admission would better be described as “likely”.
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Also what could be viewed as safety based on test scores and gpa could end up as a rejection if there was a negative LoR, counselor report or something very off in an essay.
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Now we’re back to the questiion of what a “safety” is. By your definition, a “safety” must accept 100% of its applicants. I don’t subscribe to that view.
Not to get off topic, but I don’t necessarily think it’s a good idea to encourage applying to public universities out of state. An OOS kid trying to get into UNCCH, or UVA, or UMichigan is not going to be a shoe-in. OTOH, a high stats kid applying to a good school such as U Madison Wisconsin or IU Bloomington might get in with some nice merit aid. Bottom line, do your research.
I hope your older D has a good experience. Lots of kids are very happy at safety schools.
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I’ve stated above that a “safety” must be less holistic (i.e. more formulaic) in its admissions. Things like essays should be a minor consideration, if considered at all, in its admissions. If a student gets an explicitly negative LoR, s/he has a bigger problem.
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Some out-of-state flagships seek non-residents. Schools such as the University of South Carolina Honors, Univ. of Alabama Honors, & Univ. of Mississippi Honors all offer generous scholarships to non-residents.
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@tboooe College admissions is such an experiment with the first one. I can look back and see a few things we could have differently over the past 3 years that could have made a tremendous difference in S‘21‘s odds for a T20 school. But in the end, he chose schools based on fit for him individually (none of those schools are Ivies or the like and I was not surprised-even if he could attend, those are not a fit for him, despite a 3.92 UW). His sincerity of choice must have come through in his applications because he has many great options. I compare our experience to asking someone out on a date. You kind of already know if the other person might also be interested in you.
@Lindagaf I should have been more clear. I will be encouraging my kid to not focus on “top” schools like the ones you listed. Also, for us in California most other OOS schools (aside from the “top” ones) have much higher acceptance rates.
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A safety does not have to admit 100% of its applicants, but it must be assured to admit the specific student in question (by stats or transparent criteria that the specific student has).
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I could’ve written your post, the first paragraph word-for-word, except my second child already wrapping up his college search having approached it drastically differently, and, as you note, not just strategically, but also psychologically.
Besides insuring admission, we also wanted to be awarded maximum merit, as we don’t think full-tuition OOS or private college is worth in the investment for an undergraduate degree. This was heartbreaking with my firstborn who wanted so badly to go to UNC Chapel Hill.
My second child faced some rejections/waitlist this year, but also got acceptances combined with solid offers from non-top-20s out of state. On paper, he’s top performer who is worthy of ivies, but the chances of getting into them were minuscule, we knew, and prepared mentally for this scenario (still waiting for those results).
I wish we didn’t learn all these lessons with so much anguish and disappointment (my firstborn is thriving in our flagship uni and applying to grad school one year early), but ultimately I’m so grateful to be smarter and more realistic now.
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@ucbalumnus I agree. My daughter’s safety school was University of Pittsburgh, definitely not a 100% admission school.
Few colleges can be considered “safeties” by this defintion because few of them give students their explicit formulae for admissions.
I would hazard a guess that any college with a 70% admit rate would certainly admit applicants with 3.9+ GPA and 1500 SAT scores. That’s what we’re talking about in this example, students focusing on T30 universities.
When these students fail to get accepted to a “safety” school, it’s not because safeties are rare creatures. It is because the families did not understand how to identify safeties. Some families think “We’re targeting Top10 Unis, so obviously 11-25 are safeties for us. Just to be extra safe, we’ll also apply to UT and UNC.” That is a recipe for disaster, but it happens every year.
Another safe guess is that there are probably more 70% admit-rate schools than any other category. These schools are not hard to find.
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Probably more than you think. For example, public universities in Arizona, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas list their stats-based admission criteria.
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Agreed. I am sad that my oldest had to go through this but also grateful we can use this experience to help my youngest. We are very blessed that through it all my kid was accepted to a “top” school though in retrospect, at least for us, it wasnt worth the emotional stress she had to deal with all these years.
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College admissions is becoming more difficult each year. Some advice fro a student to a parent:
Your student is under immense pressure…be thrilled for them when they get into their first few safeties. My mom was acting so excited about my first acceptances/ safeties (lol) I know she was trying to make the entire process less stressful.
Help your student (if they want help) choose true safeties and sit and discuss options, location and finances. No one wants to get into their “dream” school and have to turn it down for $$$.
I know parents who think their students schools is a reflection on them. Like they failed if their student doesn’t get into a top 20. It’s so much more than that. Fit is much more important.
Finally, my good friend is Asian. His mom would not allow him to apply to any school that was not a top 20. He was a mess for almost two years…from SAT prep to admissions. She was really upset when he was getting denials…was actually mad at him. (all T20) are reaches for everyone even with perfect scores. Ps he did not get in…luckily went to another then transferred in to a T20 in Soph year…but it was always stress…and he’s a great person/student.
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I posted the following in the other thread by the OP.
It seems that the mom mentioned really doesn’t understand the numbers and motivating factors of many American colleges. There also seems to be a blindness about LACs and other types of schools by some people. As if a school isn’t ranked among the top few US News National Universities, they don’t exist.
To an extent, that type of thinking may be due to the fact that in many countries, there’s not much that differentiates schools besides prestige (and geography). Then they carry that mindset to the US, but American higher ed is very different and much more differentiated.
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One big thing is that many people just don’t have a good grasp on the numbers. Nearly all of the privates in the top 25 have relatively small undergraduate student bodies and the US is a big country. The privates in the top 25 added together take in roughly a little over a percent of all American HS grads, but when you consider that close to or even half the class at Ivies/equivalents are hooked and that they fill roughly half their class via ED/SCEA and they all admit holistically and they generally want a balanced class (while a ton of kids want to study a hot major like CS), well, your chances at nearly all of them may be close to zero if you are unhooked and looking to major in CS. Meanwhile, for something like CS, the top publics may be as difficult to get in to as the Ivies/equivalents if you are OOS. UNC’s OOS acceptance rate is around Cornell’s, for instance, because UNC is forced by their state to cap the OOS enrollment at 18% of the freshman class.
These days, if you are an ORM guy looking to get in to a good CS program, there aren’t too many avenues where you’d have a decent chance even if you’re top 1% in everything . I’d say UW-Madison, UMass-Amherst, definitely McGill/UBC/other Canadian schools (besides Waterloo, which is holistic and also very difficult to enter). UW-Seattle as a possibility but not for CS (but they have some CS-adjacent majors that are easier to get in to. Possibly one of CMU’s many CS-adjacent majors (but not CS). But places like CMU and UW-Seattle would still have all the top tech companies come to recruit.
And there would also exist the CC route. UVa automatically takes you as a transfer if you manage a 3.7 GPA at a VA CC for 2 years (but they don’t guarantee CS). Many of the UCs participate in TAG. And it seems to be easier for OOS with a stellar CC GPA to transfer in to engineering at some top publics like UMich compared to straight out of HS.
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It doesn’t have to be a choice between either ED or unrestricted EA. Most ED schools permit students to apply to an ED first choice in addition to EA not first choice. I agree that even if the latter is not a first choice, it take a load off to have an acceptance during the early round. It also can make the RD round far more simple, allowing the student to only focus on what may be the small handful of schools he/she would choose over the EA acceptances.
The most FA generous ones tend to be the ones with the highest endowments, which tend to be the most highly USNWR ranked colleges. For example, HYPS have better financial aid than nearly any “top 100, but not in top 25” school.
One should certainly be aware of the primary/secondary school system quality when deciding where to live, particularly if attending public schools, but relocating to other states seems extreme.
There are only a very small handful of fields where are likely to get a major big boost based on school name, such as “elite” investment banking & consulting. Students who are well qualified for highly selective colleges likely have opportunities for large merit scholarships at not certain not as highly selective colleges that are high quality.
I agree about being aware of total in costs, including travel. But travel expenses are often just a drop in the bucket compared to the overall cost of tuition + room & board + … Location is also important for various other reasons. For example, if you want to work in a certain location, there are likely to be a larger portion of recruiters from at career fairs of colleges in a similar area.
Don’t assume a good test score means you are getting admission, or a good GPA, or a good nearly any one single factor. All of these things are correlated with admission, but do not guarantee admission based on that one factor alone. Interview is also well correlated with admission, but does not guarantee admission. For example, the Harvard lawsuit data sample found the following:
Unhooked Asian Applicants – 41% received high 1-2 interview rating, 13% received low rating
Unhooked Asian Admits-- 90% received high 1-2 interview rating, 0% received low rating
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The schools with the highest endowments are most generous with FA but lower-ranked school are more generous with merit money.
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