Well maybe not exactly a “sure thing,” but all of these schools have a 66% or higher acceptance rate, and many offer merit aid to the above average student. I like the fact think that Mr. Schifrin has cross referenced his list with Princeton Review’s 379 Best Colleges, and has included the 50th percentile ranges for both the SAT and ACT to see where one falls.
And for anyone who is still in the hunt to get their kid off to college by this Fall, check this list out:
Just be aware that these lists are a year old. Some might be taking students this year as well, but it would be best to check.
And the figures for public universities are for instate students, at least the costs are and it looks to me like the acceptance rates are too.
This is silly. Many kids can’t afford these schools. Many kids can’t even afford to attend various instate publics.
Sarah Lawrence doesn’t fill? Don’t they have WL? I know it is nosebleed expensive, but…
The surest safety is one the student is accepted to, can afford, and is willing to attend. I had both of my kids apply EA/rolling to one or two affordable safety schools where they were accepted by December – then we could all exhale.
I love your realism, @happy1.
So often on CC, people insist that a safety has to be a school that the student “loves” or is “happy to attend” while also meeting the other criteria. For some students, this is not realistic. But “willing to attend”? Yes, that makes sense.
Yep, if you can afford to pay anything, getting in to a decent college isn’t all that hard.
This year’s list of schools still accepting applications.
However, there are some students who seem to have criteria for “willing to attend” that exclude all possible safeties. E.g. they want to go to a prestigious school, where their definition of “prestige” implies a selectivity level that makes all such schools to be reaches for them.
The list includes many attractive colleges … but would be more useful if it included more information about costs (in-state v. OOS) and aid. Many of these schools are public institutions that are relatively affordable for state residents, or for upper middle income OOS students who can afford the full sticker prices. Cross-walk it against the Kiplinger’s lists of “best value” colleges to reveal schools with relatively low sticker prices (like Truman State) or schools that award many fairly substantial merit discounts (like Centre College).
Some years there are surprises on the list of schools that didn’t fill their class.
I thought Mr Schifrin’s articles, including the one posted by Slackermom, were somewhat enlightening given the emphasis that this forum places on HYPS type schools and the number of kids that get shut out from them every year. The point being is that there are a lot of great schools out there actively looking for students well after the 1 May deadline.
Not to be the master of the obvious, but chances of being accepted and being able to afford a school are a conversation that needs to happen early on in one’s search. These articles address the chances of being accepted part of the conversation. What one can afford is dependent on many individual factors, however I think that it is safe to say that if one’s standardized test scores are near the 75th percentile mark (maybe even lower in some cases) for some of the private colleges listed, you will probably receive a fair amount of merit aid in addition to any need based aid that you may have. Let’s face it, these schools need students and will probably discount tuition as much as they can in order to do so.
As the author suggests, I highly recommend future parents of applicants to encourage their kids with high expectations to research and add a couple of these schools to their list just to give them a few more options in case their “dream school” doesn’t pan out. YMMV
If you breath, you can get in. ASU, UAZ, UOR, UCO are all popular schools in the west coast. UW-Madison is a surprise, as well as Texas A&M. It’s great that these schools can be inclusive yet at the same time have good academic reputations.
I’m surprised that there aren’t more kids at StJohns, with all the posts about wanting LACs and small class room discussion. Maybe CC need to promote it more.
Surprised to see Wisconsin on there - can that even be right?
@DrGoogle, note that CC isn’t the world. Many people on CC may say they love small classroom discussions, but the popularity of LACs relative to universities has definitely fallen over the past few decades.
@ReadyToRoll, does that list differentiate between regular admissions and transfer admissions? A good number of schools aren’t accepting straight out of HS but are accepting transfers (because they keep the transfer window open late).
Surprised to see Wofford on there; that’s a good school.
Well, I was curious about the University of Florida appearing on that list. If you look at the original source, it is only accepting transfer students. According to UF’s info for transfer admissions, there are a few degree programs with a June 1 deadline for transfer applicants. So it is on the list because it is still possible for a few transfer students in a few degree programs to be accepted for fall. But the Forbes article was a bit misleading, imo. I haven’t looked it up, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find a similar situation at Wisconsin.