<p>Your California schools (UCSB, UCDavis, SLO) are probably safeties though others may be in a better position to evaluate this; I can’t speak to the OOS schools. A true safety is one you would be happy to go to, will almost certainly be admitted to, and can afford. Would you be happy going to your safeties? Have you visited them?</p>
<p>I still consider UCLA a reach and not a high match. I have known straight A students with many AP classes and strong ECs be waitlisted or deferred. It’s just very, very competitive to get into UCLA.</p>
<p>Assessing safeties at many of the UCs and SLO for an engineering major is difficult, since they may admit by major, particularly in engineering. Unfortunately, only SJSU out of the California publics that are more selective than CSU baseline lists the admission thresholds by major for all to see (though only after running the admissions process, since the thresholds depend on the popularity of each major that year, so even that cannot be completely relied on to find whether a major at SJSU is a safety since popularity can change).</p>
<p>Does your high school have Naviance plots of recent classes’ college admission results, so that you can tell if your stats are solidly in the admit range? Note that some colleges (e.g. SLO and some other more selective CSUs like SJSU) may not have a clear dividing line between the admit range and reject range, due to varying selectivity by major.</p>
<p>You need to be able justify why you want to apply to each school on your list. And it better not be the nebulous “prestige” answer. If you don’t have a good reason, you probably won’t get in anyway.</p>
<p>OP - Don’t know how long ago your brother went through this, but be sure you actually run NPC for all the schools you pick and don’t depend on what happened with brother. Your parents may not be aware how much some colleges go up in cost or how much they cut back in aid/scholarship. Even in-state in a lot of places is a lot more competitive than in previous years with people staying closer to home in this economy. That may mean that stats that got merit money in the past are no longer enough.</p>
<p>calla1: Out of my safer choices, I have only visited Cal Poly. Unfortunately, I have not had the chance to visit any other of my safety schools. I am hoping I can visit a few more before application time but it may not be possible. We’ll see.</p>
<p>After seeing admission decisions for UCLA this round, I think you are right. UCLA is a reach for me. Many great students at my school got waitlisted.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus: Yeah, engineering makes it much more difficult to predict chances. Sadly, my schools does not have Naviance.</p>
<p>hopebrinn13: I do have many reasons for each of the schools I have on my list.</p>
<p>vinceh: Because they are not true safeties, as calla1 pointed out.</p>
<p>scmom12: My brother was class of 2012/2016, so he went through the process very recently. Granted, admissions do seems to be getting even more competitive year by year and we are looking at very different ranges of colleges. My brother only looked at west coast schools and UCSB and UCD were his reaches (he was rejected from both). He ended up at an expensive OOS private school with very little aid (my parents are basically paying full price + travel costs). So, the process is a bit different for us, but at least my parents are familiar with the basics.</p>