@Knowsstuff , there may be other factors leading to safeties being harder. Here in CA, there were always a few UCs that were safeties for local kids. D’s counselor, after looking at last year’s admit stats, said “no UC is a safety anymore”. It’s partly due to increased volume of applications and partly due to the UCs being (I believe) the highest OOS admits out of all the state systems. She told us about a kid who got rejected from UCSD and admitted at Cornell…