<p>Title says it all, whether it's your own definition or a definition from a site, tell it please. I'm not particularly sure if I understand the credentials for a safety/target/reach other than a school that has average gpa/SAT 20% below mine being a safety.</p>
<p>Safety: American University in DC, Rider, Ursinus, blah blah blah</p>
<p>Match: Colgate, BU, NYU, Wesleyan, Tufts, BC </p>
<p>Reach: Ivies, the more competitive LACs (Amherst, Bowdoin, Williams etc etc)</p>
<p>^ not true. it depends on the student. someone’s reach could be another’s safety</p>
<p>for most top 10% cali students, the lower uc’s are safties. UCD, UCI, UCSB, UCR, and UCSC</p>
<p>Are you asking for definitions or are you asking for examples?</p>
<p>Super Reaches - the ivies (since no one can EXPECT to get accepted - unless Malia or Sasha were applying this year.)</p>
<p>Reaches - Vandy, Duke, Georgetown, ND, and some top Flagships like Berkeley, UVA, etc - Schools where a high stat student can expect that he has a good chance of being admitted.</p>
<p>Matches - Often are lower ranking flagship schools or similar - Schools where a student’s stats match up with the middle of higher of the school population.</p>
<p>Safeties - Often regional state schools or lesser known privates who need students. </p>
<p>Financial Safeties - schools that you’re certain of acceptance…AND… that are either affordable out-of-pocket …or are affordable because your stats merit an automatic scholarship which makes them affordable.</p>
<p>Son’s high school now uses the term “likely” rather than safety. “Safety” is a perjorative.
And of course your likely/target/reach schools will vary from your classmates’.</p>
<p>True Safety:</p>
<p>1) Has to admit you based on your statistics. Please note “has to” rather than “is likely to”. For most students this will be a community college or an in-state public university that clearly states minimum requirements for guaranteed admission on the website. </p>
<p>2) You can pay for without any financial aid other than federally determined (FAFSA) financial aid. Again, for most students this will be a community college or an in-state public university.</p>
<p>3) Offers the major(s) you are interested in, or in the case of a 2-year school, offers the first two years of the major(s) with a formal articulation agreement guaranteeing transfer in the major(s) to at least one 4-year college/university.</p>
<p>4) You are happy to attend if you aren’t admitted to any other place that you can afford.</p>
<p>Apply early so that you are in line for any goodies that might be available such as preferred registration for classes, preferred housing selection, merit scholarship money, better choice of on-campus jobs/internships. Then, with this school safely in the bag, you can devote your energy to your other college/university applications.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t go so far as to say a true safety has to be one that has to admit you–I would say that it’s enough that it has historically admitted all applicants like you from your school. If you have Naviance, you can see this pretty easily.</p>
<p>A definition I have posted several times here on CC: </p>
<p>A safety college is one that </p>
<p>1) is pretty much certain to admit the applicant, based on its known behavior in acting on recent admission applications,</p>
<p>2) has a strong program in an area the applicant 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 the applicant. </p>
<p>I don’t think the “match” concept is useful for students with highly competitive statistics (strong grades in tough courses and top test scores) because such students will be applying to colleges with very low base acceptance rates. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/377882-how-do-top-scorers-tests-fail-gain-admission-top-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/377882-how-do-top-scorers-tests-fail-gain-admission-top-schools.html</a> </p>
<p>So for some applicants, the only useful categories are “safety” and “reach,” and once one has one true safety, one may as well apply to as many “reach” colleges as seem desirable to apply to.</p>
<p>That’s a really interesting definition Tolken. I agree with it, too. I was trying to think of any “match” schools D applied to, but past a certain point, she only had three schools she would definitely get into and want to attend and then reaches because with statistics like that? Who knows.</p>
<p>token, for me the match category is largely dependent on the admittance rate. The SAT range may be similar to a reach, but it has an admittance rate of 30%, 40% or more whereas a reach only accepts 25% or less.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t go so far as to say a true safety has to be one that has to admit you–I would say that it’s enough that it has historically admitted all applicants like you from your school. If you have Naviance, you can see this pretty easily.”</p>
<p>A True Safety is one that HAS to admit you. This is what makes it absolutely, unequivocally, truly safe.</p>
<p>A place that has historically admitted all applicants like you classifies as a Very Good (rather than True) Safety, because there can be unfortunate surprises if/when the unpublished guidelines that the admissions officers follow change.</p>
<p>Well, maybe having two Very Good Safeties equals having a True Safety.</p>
<p>Make sure the student would like to attend the college. Assurance of getting in and affordability are not enough.</p>
<p>I usually think of these categories in terms of admit rates, score and rank bands, and costs. If a school’s admit rate is below say ~20%, it should be considered a reach for anyone. Schools with rates this low do reject many students with very high stats. Otherwise … </p>
<ul>
<li><p>If the school is selective (does not guarantee admission) and your rank and scores fall below the median for enrolled students, it’s also a “reach”. Even if your numbers fall within the 50th - 75th percentile, it may still be a reach depending on other factors as the admit rate moves down toward 20-25% (bearing in mind that the stats for admitted students may be significantly higher than the stats for enrolled students). </p></li>
<li><p>If the school is selective but your rank and scores are higher than 75% of the enrolled students, then it should be a “match” if ECs, LORs etc also are good. Even if your rank and scores are only in the 50th-75th percentile band, it may still be a match if the admit rate is relatively high, your ECs are especially strong, or other advantages (e.g. geographic diversity) are in your favor. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>*If the school virtually guarantees admission for someone with your stats, cost (without aid) is not a major issue, it meets your educational goals, and you’d be happy to attend the school, then it’s a “safety.”</p>
<p>These are rules of thumb not laws of nature. Thresholds slide up and down a bit depending on one’s tolerance for risk. And bear in mind that identical admit rates do not necessarily have the same implications at all schools (because two schools with the same admit rate may not attract equally qualified applicant pools.) School A with a 25% admit rate may enroll a class with lower average stats than school B with a 40% admit rate and a highly qualified, self-selecting pool. Then there are art schools and military academies …</p>
<p>Safety: You’re almost certain to get in. They’d have a really tough time rejecting you. I’d say SAT scores way above the 75th percentile, as well as the rest of the package. Bonus points for EA or rolling admissions. You MUST like it and must be happy if you would attend. Acceptance rate is also a factor - nothing with less than a 40% acceptance rate is a safety, with a rare few exceptions (Tulane, for example).</p>
<p>Match: A school at which you are in in 50% spread (preferably slightly above) for SAT with an acceptance rate of (at least) 25% to 40%. Of course, this is for strong applicants only, for which recs, ECs, and rigor/GPA are above average to very good. Beware of schools with slightly higher acceptance rates but a self-selecting group. This explains why Tulane has a low acceptance rate yet is a safety for many strong applicants.</p>
<p>Reach: Any Ivy or school with an acceptance rate less than 20%. Any school at which the applicant falls toward the bottom half or under the 25 percentile of SAT scores, GPA, etc. Any school which focuses on aspects of the application that are not strong. Arguably, any top 20 school for which the applicant is unhooked. Those schools are probably high match rather than reaches. I say this because admissions at those schools is very unpredictable, therefore an applicant may get into all of them or none of them.</p>
<p>I generally err on the side of caution. Some people are a little more liberal view of things. As a well-hooked, generally well performing applicant, I will NOT consider Rice/Chicago/WUSTL anything less than high matches.</p>
<p>happymom - The problem with your True Safety definition is that sometimes it leaves a student with NO safety–and having convinced themselves that it’s impossible to find a true safety, they will proceed to not bother searching for a safety at all. </p>
<p>What about an EFC=0 (or EFC=10k and parents can pay 0) student who wants to major in engineering, living in a state with a poor flagship? Community college is not a good fit because of the highly structured engineering curriculum. And only a handful of state schools guarantee to meet full need. </p>
<p>What about a merit-aid-needing student who wants to major in linguistics or Latin Education or [insert obscure major here]? In some cases, full-tuition merit aid might be necessary for the school to be affordable. And many “guaranteed” admission schools don’t offer the less popular majors.</p>
<p>Or–a more common situation on CC–what about the high-achieving student who doesn’t “like” any of his/her guaranteed + affordable admissions options for valid reasons? I’ll use myself as an example. I’m looking for 1) an LAC, and 2) strong departments in English, Computer Science, Linguistics. Try cross-referencing the list of guaranteed-admission schools with <10k enrollment (being generous with size) and offering at least CS major, linguistics minor. As far as I know, the list is null and void. And I don’t think academic interests + size is too narrowing in “likeability.”</p>
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<p>0.o Many states do not have “guaranteed” acceptance programs at their 4-year schools. </p>
<p>My “reaches” are those where my GPA and SAT scores fall around the 50th percentile. </p>
<p>My matches are those where my GPA and SAT scores are near the 75th percentile. </p>
<p>My safeties are where my SAT scores are 100-300 points above the 75th percentile.</p>
<p>safety= state schools, guarunteed acceptance due to lower quality,
Match=about 50% you seem competitive for the school
REach=a little out of range, more competitive</p>
<p>LOL @ bu and nyu being equivalent “matches”</p>
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<p>So, now, a campus of buildings gets its feelings hurt??? What???</p>
<p>I guess now people better watch what they say about Wal-Mart…</p>
<p>LOL</p>