<p>Envious of those where school is over. We still have two full weeks left + finals. D was up late last night (well past midnight) working on a report that was due this morning. She was up again about 5am. Keep telling her to hang in there - three more weeks and she can take a break!</p>
<p>She doesn’t have a “true” safety on her list yet. I did post another note here and have done some digging - but we are yet to find a school that would qualify as a “safety” that she would be happy at. She is planning on applying EA to a couple of schools and depending on those results, tweaking the rest of her list. So easy to find the match/reach schools - so hard to find the true likeable safety.</p>
<p>I agree. Anyone else reading the “Were you rejected/waitlisted at a safety”? Very interesting conversation about what a safety is, and what that’s all about.</p>
<p>I live in fear that my D is just m-hm-ing me about the safeties on her list. But to many schools she says “No way” so maybe she really does like them. I’ll feel better when we’ve visited and looked more closely (or maybe when she hits “send” on the application!). She just hates the idea of doing anything “typical.” That’s one of the biggest hurdles about state school safeties. And private safeties are usually either very small, or in the middle of nowhere, or primarily pre-professional schools with mostly business, nursing, and education majors, not so much liberal arts. It’s tricky.</p>
<p>The funny thing is how regional it becomes: my D has a school high on her list that’s not exactly a safety - the theater program has a fairly competitive audition process, but the academics are pretty safe for her, likely an honors college admission and merit aid as well. It happens to be a local college in an area that where people think of it as a “whatever” school, lots of commuters, probably the “boring” safety that kids there refuse to apply to. But my D, from 1000 miles away, thinks it seems pretty exciting and saw it objectively as having really great programs and being very attractive. Ah, well. We’re only human.</p>
<p>Conversely, we do have some lovely colleges here that are safeties for many kids, but not on the national radar. Recently on CC I saw someone not from the midwest say her son was very excited about going to Carthage College, which is in between Milwaukee and Chicago, a very nice school. Many kids around here would shrug their shoulders or roll their eyes, but only because they’re so used to it. Carroll University outside of Milwaukee is also worth looking at. Many schools in rural WI and IA are wonderful (several are actually pretty selective). So if your kid wants “different” maybe those of us in other parts of the country can help you find a safety among the local schools our kids won’t look at because they’re too familiar.</p>
<p>I was about to post that all the schools on D’s list are either matches or safeties, because I can’t pay for a reach…but then I realized that a few are OOS Publics that might let in only a small percentage of OOS applicants. So maybe she does have some reaches.</p>
<p>SlitheyTove just wrote something great on the “safeties” thread, about how exactly to “love thy safety.” My D in her maturer moments is able to see how the “typical” schools also have great attributes. I do know a girl who went to the state safety, stayed unhappy, transferred, but now sees that maybe the state school probably wasn’t really so bad after all. So much of this is maturity. It’s too bad the lessons sometimes are so expensive.</p>
<p>Missypie, sometimes I wish the world would just make up its mind! Some publics LOVE OOS students for their stats (and some also charge them up the wazoo for the privilege), and then there are the ones you mention who feel their mission is to provide spots for the in-state kids. I wish they’d say this up front! My D is interested in SUNY New Paltz. I hope they aren’t the kind that frown on OOS students…we haven’t gotten that impression. I don’t think any of the WI publics are like that. You do run into the problem at small publics of the “suitcase” issue, or just a general feeling of being an outsider, though. I’ve heard kids say they felt more connected to the foreign students at some of these schools than to the kids from the local state! Ah, we’ll never win. Might as well just keep looking at the good side.</p>
<p>D was just asking the other day - why would anyone pick an OOS public? Why not go to the instate public? We live in MA - UMass Amherst is the default destination for several kids from my high school. For D, it could be considered a safety (both admissions and financial), but I don’t think she’d want to consider going there. OOS publics could be a “safety” admissions-wise and would likely be a bit cheaper than the privates, but we are trying to decide if these would be “worth” it - would a UVM or U of Richmond be better than UMass?</p>
<p>arisamp, My S is looking at OOS publics. Even at OOS prices they are a lot cheaper than some privates. But, cost isn’t the big concern, fit is. If they have a program S is interested in and the school is a good fit, he will consider it. We are in MA also, and UMASS just isn’t very appealing to S.</p>
<p>Emmybet - I’m trying to get my d1 to drive out and take a look at Carroll. She thinks its too far away (about 8 hours), but I’m hoping she’ll change her mind and at least want to see it.</p>
<p>Jumping intot he safty conversation (I’ve been following that thread with interest), all my d1’s schools are “safties”. She doesn’t want to go far from home and her area of interest is not a typical one. Her stats will put her in the top quarter of the incoming freshman classes at all 3 schools she’ll apply to, and all are members of the cic, so I can apply for exchange. Wish I could get her to look at a few more, farther away, but doesn’t look like acceptance will be an issue.</p>
<p>RWIW, we’ve got one OOS public college that is cheaper than the local cc (too bad they don’t have what d1 wants). I told d2 to put it on her someday list. Wouldn’t it be nice to graduate without loans?!</p>
<p>mamom - I completely agree with you about the “fit” of the school. While OOS publics might come a bit cheaper than privates, most of these don’t fit D’s criteria of size. She wants a school in the 3000-8000 students range and most publics have way more than that. That’s part of the reason we are thinking of UVM and U or Richmond - the smaller publics.</p>
<p>She told me the other day that she thinks her list is pretty much <em>set</em>. Set?? Where’s the safety? Oh, yeah - I don’t have one of those!! Duh!! She has a couple of low matches that she really likes and some of them are EA. So, if she gets into one of these, it doesn’t matter too much that she didn’t have a “safety” on her list. But I don’t want to be scrambling around in Dec trying to find a reasonable safety for her to apply to if the initial results are not good! So, we are still on the hunt for that elusive safety…</p>
<p>I have been lurking here for a few months, and have just started to post.</p>
<p>I am trying to do my part of the college search process for S2, class of 2011. My wife and I are both products of a small quality LAC, and have always planned on paying for each of our sons to attend similar schools. But we set that goal when they were $10k/year, not $50k. So we told the boys they had get good enough scores to get merit money; our EFC is north of $20k, depending on what calculator you use. S1 never quite buckled down (3.85 uw,3 AP, 32 ACT, 2170 SAT) and is at a mid-tier LAC costing us about $25k/yr. And while that is a lot of money, we can manage that.</p>
<p>S2 is the reason I am spending time on College Confidential. He is turning in huge numbers (4.0 uw, 10APs, SATI TBA, SATII:780 MathII, 740 Bio, 740UHst, PSAT 222 (18 point above state cutoff for NMSemi; 36 ACT, won a prestigious national fellowship, president of 4 ECs next year). Now I have no idea what constitutes a reach or match for him. The very well intended, but absolutely overwhelmed GS at his large public HS are really of little value. They are excited about his 36 on the state-mandated ACT; the first in about 4-5 years at this HS. But in terms of helping to develop and implement a strategy for a top performer, they have neither the time, resources or experience. </p>
<p>Welcome to the forum UT! CC is a treasure trove of info for kids with your kids stats. If you have in mind an area of the country and a potential major you’ll get lots of suggestions. </p>
<p>arisamp, UVM is on my son’s list too but with his stats, it’s probably a reach. He will probably look though when we visit Champlain and St. Mike’s. We all love Burlington! Part of son’s problem with finding a safety state school is that his brother and sister graduated from small private LAC’s and that’s what we tend to think schools should look like. The one state school that both of his siblings applied to is one that doesn’t offer his major.</p>
<p>I guess our state flagship is either a safety (for the top 8% of the class that are auto admits) or beyond a reach (for everyone out of the top 8% who are not recruited athletes.) I’ve heard that to get into the business school instate the '11s need to be closer to the top 2%. So yes, a number of OOS publics look pretty good to those of us from Texas.</p>
<p>In terms of region of the country, we know he will need to travel a considerable distance. There are no premier LACs in UT, and BYU is not a fit. S1 is two timezones away, and we are fine with that. The only thing that is probably out is hugely urban schools (e.g., UChicago or Columbia); I think he needs a little space and something green.</p>
<p>S2 has been no help whatsoever narrowing school choice. In terms of major, he wants to do it all–from biochem to env.studies to philosophy of religion. The difficulty is that college visits are a major expedition and expense. I took him on a trip to NC and visited Duke and Davidson, ostensibly to see if we could narrow to national university v. LAC. He liked them both, for very valid reasons.</p>
<p>We had kind of been targeting mid/upper end LACs (Whitman, Kenyon, Macalester, Oberlin, Grinnell etc.) I am now wondering if drifting up to the Pomona, Williams, Dartmouth, Middlebury strata makes sense, and even if throwing at the Yale/Stanford/Princeton dartboard is worth doing. But then we run into no merit aid (not even a NMF scholarship) at some of them.</p>
<p>Of the schools he has visited, the “outs” are Oberlin (too funky), Reed (too intense) Davidson (too jock) and Rice (just didn’t feel the vibe). Still “in” are Kenyon, Duke, Whitman. Pomona holds real appeal, and Dartmouth is intriguing.</p>
<p>We’ve treating all the schools on The Big List as either safeties or reaches. No “matches.” They are either schools where he’ll get in (based on either auto-admit or stats, as in way at the top of the pile) or schools with low admittance rates (25% or lower).</p>
<p>UT, hi! I lived in SLC as a kid when my dad taught at the UofU. I so miss the mountains. Just imagine me moving from Utah to New Jersey!!! I remember standing outside the new house, looking at the horizon and not seeing anything I’ve lived in 5 states since then but nothing compares to the beauty of Utah.</p>
<p>My guy has pretty good stats No NMSF, living in a high cutoff state, but everything else. We do need merit aid so are mainly targeting universities instead of LACs. There are some LACs still on The Big List, those known for giving good merit aid where he is comfortably above the 75% line. I do see him at a uni instead of a LAC, partly based on his interests. He is also not <em>entirely</em> settled on a potential course of study, so I figure a uni with many many offerings might be better for him.</p>
<p>UT84321 - wow! A huge congrats to your S2 on his 36 ACT. Per the ACT website, only 1/10th of 1% of kids score that high.</p>
<p>Has anyone talked about a deadline date for finalizing their list of schools? I am thinking that before the week before school starts sounds realistic.</p>
<p>Seeing as how D is more likely to subtract from, rather than add to, the List, no deadline from me, other than the deadline the GC sets. But I am going to insist on a November 1st or 15th deadline (whatever it is for EA or rolling) for completing the apps. By Christmas break, Son had acceptances from all 8 schools to which he applied and it was nice to have that time to reflect and narrow the list.</p>
<p>Speaking of which…I may have mentioned this already, but lots of the schools have specific scholarships - church denomination, alumni, etc. Over Christmas break we looked at the list of scholarships son was interested in and one had January 15th deadline. We had to beg people for quick turnaround on rec letters!</p>
<p>missypie - are you talking of scholarships offered at the different universities (as opposed to the high school/town)? If so, what’s the best way of compiling a list of these for a given university? Is the university website the best place? Even there, is there usually a single page that lists all of them or do you have to dig for this department by department?</p>
<p>kajon–Thanks for the kind comment re the 36; it certainly was grounds for the family happy dance. I have seen the .1% stat on the web; I do not know if that is for a pure 36 (36 on every sub section) or 36 composite, which allows rounding up (he got 36/36/35/36).</p>
<p>There may be a bigger lesson in the 36. He took the test as a state requirement in the midst of AP and SATII tests. Since it was ACT w/out writing, we figured it was of little value in terms of college applications because they all want ACT with writing. We didn’t even list schools to send the results to. So he took it completely relaxed, and that may have made a difference.</p>
<p>The smaller scholarships that require separate applications and recommendations are usually on one page on the university’s web site. Virtally all of them had deadlines before April 1st, so if you applied regular decision and hadn’t found out yet, you’d have to decide whether to go to the work of doing extra apps and letters for a school you might not even get into.</p>
<p>I was going to send a link to the page for Austin College, a CTCL LAC. Son applied for three specific scholarhips there and received two. That was the school with the Jan 15th deadline. HOWEVER, when I went to their website, the scholarship page said, “The deadline for applying for scholarships has passed. Please check back in the fall.” Big help that is, huh?</p>
<p>Here was my method for '09 son: Over Christmas break, I told him he had to narrow down the 8 schools to 4, for second visits and scholarship applications. He was able to do that pretty easily. Then I got on the computer and ferreted out all the possible scholarships at those four schools (he was trying for non-major music performance as well as academic,etc.) and put them on a spreadsheet with deadlines, requirements, etc. (additional rec letters, auditions, etc.) I considered that all MY job since I was the one wanting to scrounge for every thousand dollars that the school would give him.</p>
<p>I think you can only do this with a limited number of schools. If you tried to fill out apps for 2 scholarships at each of 12 schools you’d either go nuts or the student would flat out refuse.</p>
<p>Random note on scholarships: A few schools give a small scholarship to Eagle Scouts and University of Evansville gives a *big scholarship *to Eagle Scouts.</p>
I’ve lived in 5 states since then but nothing compares to the beauty of Utah.</p>
No NMSF, living in a high cutoff state, but everything else. We do need merit aid so are mainly targeting universities instead of LACs. There are some LACs still on The Big List, those known for giving good merit aid where he is comfortably above the 75% line. I do see him at a uni instead of a LAC, partly based on his interests. He is also not <em>entirely</em> settled on a potential course of study, so I figure a uni with many many offerings might be better for him.</p>