@peachActuary73 ooh do tell about why you dropped a Bucknell!
It must be exciting for your D to look forward to hanging out with fellow stem kids! Many times kids don’t get to choose their high school so it’s great that they get to search for a better fit college. I know S19 wouldn’t have picked our high school but he found places he fit and made it work.
@homerdog - you got us to # 11,000 on this thread! Wow!
What this all comes back to me is that a true safety needs to simply be a school that you know you child will get into, that they would love to attend and that it is affordable (or at least an amount you are willing to pay as heaven knows affordable is subjective!).
Where I have concerns for many kids, is at a certain point, because they “know” they will get in…they start to believe that it must mean that they may not have peers (or as many peers) there, than a more difficult admit. I mean…if it’s easy to get into then there must be a lot of less smart or ambitious kids there…right? Well then, if that’s the case, no I don’t want to go there. I deserve better.
No. I don’t agree with that.
I think kids are falling into the prestige seeking game. Prestige isn’t just names that people know, it is also low admit rates and many other things (best xyz program, cool location, other unique factors), even if the larger public doesn’t have a clue. So often kids get sucked into this mentality, and assume that of course they will get into at least one match so either have zero safeties or really aren’t willing to attend the ones they do have.
We see it every year on CC and many think “oh but not MY kid” I am not saying this is true of anyone here specifically…but it is very prevalent on CC overall and it’s a beast that feeds itself very quickly.
There are lovely lovely LACs out there with medium or even high acceptance rates that draw very focused very bright kids. Check out what schools have high med school admits and you may be very surprised where those kids come from. Big state schools (and many LAC’s as well) have honors colleges so like minded can be together in small seminar settings and push each other.
Yes, all students should find their fit. However, what looks perfect on paper or one tour, or even on overnight or deeper experience could be totally different that first year and no one, no one, can really predict how that will go.
I feel far too often they are too narrowly focused on what they think would/should fit, either by peer, community, family pressure/views or frankly by getting caught up in their own press that it can be hard to be open to things that don’t fit their self created ideal.
The application season can be very humbling if one isn’t careful and if the student really wouldn’t love to attend the school…it is not a safety. And…Tufts syndrome is real, colleges can smell the match/safety game if those schools are on the more competitive side to be sure. Getting in is only one part of the equation.
So can someone answer this question - how does one find a safety school that a student loves? I suppose that’s the million dollar question for college bound seniors and their parents.
I was on board to only visit safeties and that’s what we did for our first trip. And we found two. I think I made a mistake when we decided to keep seeing schools. Even matches or high matches looked better to S19 than the safeties we found. And then forget about it once we saw a couple of reaches. We only saw the reaches that look for interest and suggest interviews. They looked even better to him. We stopped touring before we got to the biggest reaches. They don’t care about interest and I don’t want him getting his hopes up, so we didn’t go.
I don’t see how the safeties can be loved after seeing more match and reach schools. I must be missing something. If I knew how to remedy the situation, I would. We always talk about how he will be fine wherever he lands. I think he believes that as well. But love his safeties he does not. I guess we could spend more time there and have him dive deeper into what his life would look like there. Again, I think that’s harder when you’re undecided on major.
Well said @eandesmom
Short answer: It’s going to vary by student.
Which, admittedly, isn’t a very satisfying answer.
But it’s especially hard when one’s pushing against surrounding culture. To take your specific example, @homerdog, you said that no high-stats students from your kid’s school go to safeties. That’s a heck of a weight to push against, you know? On the other hand, kids at my D17/D19’s high school only very rarely go to hyperselectives—last year they had a graduate go to Wellesley, but that was a bizarre outlier that people are still talking about. (My D17 went to the most selective from her graduating class, a LAC that’s often described on CC as a low match or even a nearly-safety, not a reach, for non-tippy-top high-stats types.) Because part of what defines adolescence is the need to fit in—so adolescents (well, and let’s admit it, us adults too, it’s just not usually as intense) are constantly working to define themselves in relation to their peers’ norms.
I think one thing that helps, though, is figuring out what moves a student. So my D19 has one astonishingly easy to get into school on her list—seriously, the 25–75% ACT range is **19/b to 25—her deep safety, that remains on her list because she’s absolutely in love with the way they’ve crafted their gen-ed curriculum. Yeah, it’s inside baseball and nerdy in an odd way, but it’s what’s important to her, and so if she ends up going there, she’s got a hook that makes it all the easier to see the other good things about the place.
It’s also important to know a kid’s turnoffs. My D17 was very interested in Alabama—until she saw in person the centrality of sorority life, which was a big no to her (in the same way it’s a big yes to others). And I’m still convinced that she would have thrived there—but that was a big negative to her, and it made it really, really hard for her to see all the positives (that, to my mind, would have outweighed the negative). Okay, fine, so that’s a safety she wasn’t happy with. So knock that one off the list and move to the next idea, you know?
So I really think it’s the hook. We talk about that on the part of the applicant, but I think it’s important for the school. For my D17, the hooks are things like gen-ed curricula, compactness of the campus, and what I can best describe as a “relaxed” vibe. For other students it’s Greek life, or the football team, or the lab facilities, or even—and yes, this is a hook in this sense—perceived prestige. And like I said from my D17’s example, once a hook has clicked, it makes it easier to see what else is good about the school. And any given student (important caveat: any given student who’s engaged in the process) will have multiple hooks that would work for them, I suspect.
Anyway—I got longwinded, but hopefully it makes sense. And, of course, as with any advice on this sort of forum, you individual mileage may vary. But I think this at least gets close to the reality.
@homerdog I’m not sure that my answer is going to help you in particular, but I believe that finding a safety/match that a student loves is far easier for kids looking for big schools and willing to travel (such as my D). Then the student (if their stats are high enough) will have there pick of larger land grant institutions, many of which will provide auto merit scholarships.
I agree that it is far more difficult to find a safety/match among the smaller schools/LACs and this appears to me to be a functional of the size/numbers which makes any predictions suspect.
Again, just my rambling thoughts this am.
@homerdog I think “love your safety” is a big ask if one of the student’s criteria is to be surrounded by only high achieving, smart, intellectual kids. Maybe you could find that at one of the lesser known, but still amazing LAC’s. In fact, that is what my D has found at a couple. But if I kid wants a decent sized university filled with studious, brilliant kids like himself, that is going to be hard to come by. At best, I think the student would have to make peace with a safety school with a great honors program. He might not love it at first sight and thats understandable, but it should at least be acceptable.
The only other suggestion I have is to search for safeties outside of the geographic area so that the kid isn’t faced with going to the same school as the people he couldn’t stand in high school. At least that way, he won’t have to wonder why he is ending up at the same place as “them.” All my daughter’s safeties are relatively unkown at our high school. It helps.
The average excellent term is used to describe high stats, high rigor, multiple ec student leaders w/ strong recs and strong essays, but because they do not fill an institutional need and do not have any really wowzie national level ecs, are really just a dime a dozen at Ivies and top LACs and uni’s. Now your S and the Op’s D are pretty spectacular, but in the world of competitive admissions they become ‘average excellent’ - strong enough to be seriously considered, but without the extra something that makes getting over the last hurdle a given.
A lot of the stories last season on CC were not of kids with stats below the 25th mark lamenting not getting in, but really strong ‘average excellent’ kids with top level stats not getting in. Which means there are a lot of spectacular kids at safeties and low matches… We do as parents sometimes think, well that won’t be my kid, my kid is special, better, has the edge…but sometimes it does happen.
That being said @homerdog has a good list and I think will end up with options.
Sophomore year, due to the logistics of class scheduling, my kid was stuck in his one and only non-honors course. It was awful. He loved the subject and loved the teacher but hated every other kid in the class who would derail discussions of interesting things to yell at each other across the room. One of the big attractions of challenging colleges is the concept that all the other kids in the class will be capable of learning the subject matter. That’s one of the big attractions of open curriculum, too, come to think of it.
My kid is average excellent. I went through agonies looking for a safety. We live in a neighborhood that’s colored orange on the socioeconomic red-to-green scale, and our school quality and average SATs and expectations after high school tracks with that. Maybe 25% go to 4 year institutions, maybe 5% go out of state for college.
So we knew from the beginning that kiddo would be looking at schools that were very different from his peers. This means his guidance counselor wasn’t going to be very helpful. That realization brought me to CC, and I am glad it did. I feel lucky to have “met” all of you, virtually, and all of your bright and exciting kids.
It also helps if your child knows students who attend the safety and like it there. There are several older students who my daughter respects that are currently attending the flagship public (mostly attending because of cost) and they love it, which made her realize that she’d be OK there. While she may initially be disappointed if other schools don’t work out, she can at least now see herself there, which is a huge relief (for me).
First, thank you @dfbdfb for your very thoughtful answer. If I use your process, S19’s current safeties are perfect. His priorities are small class size, a cute town with a few food options, a wooded campus maybe with an arboretum, and a feeling of community. His no-nos are big hotel like dorms, large classes, large campuses that require taking busses to class. I tried very very hard to find state schools with honors programs that fit some of his criteria and came up with Vermont and South Carolina early on in the process. He decided just to stick with the LAC safeties but maybe he could revisit that decision just to confirm.
@gallentjill you describe the wants of most of his classmates. Medium sized university with bright kids. Their lists all look the same. Duke, Vandy, NU, Chicago, Wash U, Georgetown, BC. Then they throw in an Ivy or two and have a state school as safety. Since it’s the same 50 kids with pretty much the same list, they get varying results. Obviously, these schools aren’t taking 50 kids from one high school. On average, each takes around ten. A fraction of these kids will end up at a state flagship but, honestly, not that many. Most of these kids are engineering majors, comp sci majors, or business majors and the state school does well by them in those majors so they end up pretty happy.
@wisteria100 I guess I misunderstood what average excellent is. D21 will end up with pretty much the same unweighted GPA as S19 but isn’t taking honors science. Honors everything else though and is some steps behind him in math so will finish with AB Calc instead of BC junior year and multivariable senior year. Her ECs will be just as impressive but I think her scores will end up being a bit shy of S19’s. Unless something magical happens, she won’t be NMSF.
Believe me, I am not sitting around thinking S19 is special. If I was doing that, I wouldn’t be so concerned about safeties. He’s the one who can’t see why he won’t get into his matches and Naviance supports his hypotheses. As these deadlines get closer, I want to make sure he’s good with his safeties. And all the talk about “loving” them was freaking me out.
^^^. I agree that if your kid has another friend considering the same “safety or match” school it can wipe away any stigma or negative thoughts regarding that school. It just takes one friend!
This is when the kids are really hashing out their lists with other kids at the lunch table or in class as they work on essays or attend college app prep sessions with counselors. The kids start getting feedback from their friends and they all want to be reassured that applying to and attending a safety/match is OK, especially if they like it and a few of their friends like it too.
We are fortunate that two schools that my son should get into are also being considered by 2 of my son’s good friends. He’s more open to attending them and realizes that they might actually be a decent financial deal too. The workload wouldn’t be as demanding, there might be some free time for fun and exploration, and plenty of stuff to get involved with on campus.
@homerdog - I’m sure you’ve talked previously about possible schools for S19 so forgive me if I’m off base or redundant. But reading his safety description, I would say Drew University. It’s a small suburban school with small classes, in the quaint little town of Madison, NJ. It’s a wooded campus (“University in the forest”) and they have an arboretum.
My D does the same thing about checking who went to the school previously. GC suggested a certain LAC as a safety. It’s a good school, talked about on CC often. But a couple years ago, a girl from her school who spent a semester or two on academic probation got in and is now attending. That was enough for my D to banish it from her list.
@ed23282 My D loves Drew and it is one of the tops on her list. Its gorgeous. It offers amazing opportunities in science and especially in research and seems to be full of very motivated and welcoming kids. On the downside, its not just small, its tiny and it is having some financial troubles. I’m not sure how worried we should be about that. It also has great food in a lovely dining hall. It is one of D’s top three choices outside of the “reachy reach” programs.
Our niece is a freshman at UIUC and making it work. Rushed and ended up in a sorority already (that seems early to me but that’s how they do it there), joined a business fraternity, and a club sport. She and S19 are close and he’s glad she’s making the most of her experience. I don’t think it would convince him to apply though.
His friends do have schools like Miami of Ohio and Wisconsin as safeties. I should ask him which other safeties seem to come up during the notorious discussions at the lunch table. Good point. Everyone has to choose at least one!
I’m going to look through the list of where kids went to school from the class of 2018. He knew a good handful of those kids. Maybe some of them had good safety ideas and ended up there. If anything else, it will help me with D21’s budding list since she seems to like the same things as S19 so far.
I can understand this this fear, but from my D’s experiance at a “safety,” it doesn’t play out that way. Most of her gen-ed classes were either taken through the honors college or she was exempt because of AP classes. She did have to take a few intro classes and there was a group of students who were uninterested and contributed little to the class, but never disruptive. I think by the time you get to college, you are at least no longer throwing paper airplanes across the room. All the upper level courses (which she moved into very quickly) have been filled with motivated, mostly excellent students. I thnk by the time you move into the higher levels, the kids who really don’t give a damn have been weeded out one way or another.
@homerdog, I guess I would also question the need to “love your safety” now. Like, yes. Love, might be asking too much (especially when, as you say, the kids then go off and like at other bright, shiny objects in the form of reach schools). With my oldest, he didn’t even go look at safeties, just applied to some that fit his general criteria and figured he’d worry about which of them to go to if it became necessary (he was awfully flattered, though, when Grinnell have him a huge amount of merit aid!). With D19, that laissez-faire attitude wouldn’t be in her comfort zone, so she’s wanted to go see all the schools that she’s thinking of applying to. For her, she knows that she’s not going to love a safety as much as she loves her dream reach school, she just wants to know that she has a school or two on her list that she’s very likely to get into that she can see herself attending. Her approach was to identify the characteristic that was most important to her out of all the attributes that she’s seeking, and then look for a school that was really strong on that. For her, that’s study abroad (not just that it exists, but that lots of kids really do it, so it’s culturally mainstream), so she would be perfectly happy to attend Dickinson, which has upwards of 60% of kids studying abroad. Does she love it as much as Brown? No, but she also knows there’s about a 0% chance she’ll get into Brown, so her love for Brown is also kind of tempered.
@soxmom Dickinson is S19’s other safety. We haven’t visited but it checks every single box for him. I found it on CC.
Did you consider Grinnell a safety for your S? I’ve been getting a little push back on doing that from friends since the acceptance rate is low but, according to our Naviance, it’s pretty darn safe. And he liked it there.