Is my college list viable?

TheGreyKing
Sat, 15 Sep 2018 20:04:40 +0000

I agree that Northeastern is an unreliable safety. They rejected a number of students from our local high school last year who had scores both within and above their 25-75% range.
When you are looking at highly selective colleges, high scores do not make someone a shoo-in.
And certain colleges seem to fear being used as a safety and reject some top applicants from a high school in favor of applicants with lower scores and GPA’s. The term is “yield protection”- accepting students more likely to attend.
Northeastern is becoming a very popular safety for students applying to colleges like Harvard and MIT, as well as a top choice for some students within its own right as its reputation has grown, which means that it is becoming more competitive and ceasing to be a reliable safety.
By all means apply there if you like it and are excited by its internship focus. Just do not count it as a safety. Two kids I know well, at the top of their high school class with good scores, considered it a safety but did not get in and are going to their bottom choice super-safeties.