<p>Will you be ELC (Eligible in the Local Context) for the UCs – I think that that’s the top 9% in your school? If so, then if you apply to at least one of the UCs and you don’t make it into the one that you applied to, you will be diverted to another UC – even if you didn’t apply to it. It could be UC Riverside or UC Merced, but it will be a UC admission. Thus if you are ELC and submit a UC app, you will have an academic safety. (Not sure about the financial safety part though.) Of course, if you’re unwilling to attend, then it’s not a true safety – that’s why it’s better to apply to more of the UCs (or shotgun apply to them as UCBalum has said), so that you can increase your likelihood of getting an acceptance to a UC that you’d actually be willing to attend. And I wouldn’t consider UCSD a safety. They also now use “holistic” admissions, thus again creating a level of uncertainty.</p>