DI can be shown by requesting material, talking to college reps at high school, talking to college reps at those traveling college fairs, signing up for emails and opening them and clicking on links to the school website, emailing admissions to ask a question, watching their videos, and attending their virtual events and/sample classes.
An in-person visit isn’t necessary.
It depends on how likely your daughter is going to end up at one of her safeties. We all have finite amount of resources and life is about making a series of (hopefully optimal) decisions under various constraints. If there’s a reasonably high probability (based on her list) then resources should be allocated accordingly. Likewise if the chance is remote.
There are three big components of the college search process: 1) affordability, 2) likelihood of acceptance, and 3) desire to attend. To me, a kid should look for affordable schools that they would like to attend. That’s the basis of the college search. If they like an affordable school, why does the time spent on it matter if it has an 80% acceptance rate or an 8% acceptance rate?
I’m not a big fan of the term safety because it has a negative connotation, like a school of last resort. To me, a safety is an affordable school that a kid likes that is highly likely to accept them. In reading about others’ college searches, it reminds me a bit of the Grouch Marx quote that essentially says, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.” If a school is highly likely to accept them and want them to enroll, then some students/families don’t think that well of the institution.
The only reason why I think of a school as a safety is that you don’t want all the affordable schools that your kid likes to have low to moderate odds of acceptance and then get shut out. You want a sure thing. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not a quality school. Also, you may want to think about the message your kid receives by which schools your family values enough to tour, and which ones it doesn’t. There is certainly no requirement to do tours of all schools. But if only the “reachier” schools are toured, then it may end up creating certain feelings in your daughter toward the “safeties,” particularly if she ends up at one.
I agree in some ways… but I was surprised that my son seems to like the term, and has warm feelings towards the schools where he feels confident about being accepted. I think “safety” has a warm and fuzzy connotation for him, like a security blanket. Maybe my kid is not typical, though.
I understand. I guess I don’t really have an issue with the term “safety.” I have an issue with how a lot of people use the term. But a safe, welcoming spot is a great way of thinking about a safety!
I would call that a likely school. I would reserve the term “safety” for assured admission and affordability. Too many students seem to overestimate how likely they are to get admitted and get unpleasantly surprised.
The problem with this definition is that most students wouldn’t have anything but community college. In my state there is no guaranteed admission anywhere except community colleges which are open enrollment. Even a valedictorian has no guarantees though of course many schools are highly likely. I think that highly likely and affordable work as a good definition for most students.
Agree with you. In my state, although they aren’t “guarantees”, as the flagship has become much more competitive, the only sure/safe option seems to be the CC system and the state directionals. Totally fine BUT- limited range of majors, not great launching pads in the sciences (fine for someone who wants to teach HS biology, but not right for someone interested in Nanotechnology or Chemical Engineering). It’s a conundrum for sure.
Wouldn’t it be better for such a student to describe such a school as “highly likely” rather than “safety”?
We never used the term safety - I do think it has negative connotations. We looked for schools that our kids would be successful at and enjoy. We then looked at admission statistics purely to determine the likelihood of admissions and did use terms such as likely or highly unlikely to describe percentiles. We worked hard to really separate a school’s admission statistics from actual fit of the school. It actually helped a lot for narrowing down the list - a ton of unlikely schools came off the list when they realized they really liked some of their likely schools more.
We didn’t use the term safety either, we said ‘strong likelihood you’d get admitted’ (yeah, it was a mouthful but we were saying this, not typing it so easier than it might sound on paper).
We also looked for schools where we thought D20 and D23 would be successful and happy. Because budget was the most limiting factor, we spent a lot of time making sure schools would be affordable before looking for the fit. Maybe we just have super easy kids (ha!, they can be very picky) but neither found it all that hard to find schools they liked within the group of schools we determined we could afford.
I know it can be hard to figure out budget but, seriously, having a firm budget and sticking to it really did remove a lot of the angst of college searching for us. There were plenty of great schools that didn’t even make an initial list because we couldn’t afford it. In some ways, it was like saying to the kids, “Hey I know those Porsche, Audi and Ferrari models look incredible and the reviews say driving them is super fun…but we have the money to buy you a decent Toyota, Honda or a really nice Hyundai. Which one has the most features you think are important?”
I’ve been using the term “likely.” 
I’ve tried to have D23 spend the same amount of time investigating each school on her list, regardless of where it falls on the likelihood scale. Every school had to have something genuinely appealing about it—some program or feature she could look forward to—or else it got cut from her list. I didn’t want her to feel like she was “stuck” going to a school that was only applied to as an afterthought.
Currently she’s got 8 schools, 4 of which are very likely, 2 are toss ups because they’re unpredictable, and 2 are reach/unlikely. She’s visited 3 of the likely, and one each of the toss up and reach. Not sure if she’ll have the chance to get to the others before decisions.
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