<p>What colleges are your safeties? List them, with the percentage of acceptance.
I'd like to know the range of safeties. I know some geniuses say 20% is a safety or 30%;and others say 50% is a safety.
My safeties are in 50% range. State schools...</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>My son’s safeties were in the 70% range for in-state California schools.</p>
<p>Safeties should always be above 40% even for geniuses. And for common mortals (ie, not Olympic champions or Science Olympiad Medalists) they should be 50-80%. 
Note that some excellent schools have high acceptance simply because their applicant pool is self selected or because they’re located far from “exciting” places - this is especially true for Midwestern schools.</p>
<p>Getting accepted is only half the battle. A safety must also be affordable. If you need aid, then that can be a problem since most safeties do not have much aid to give. </p>
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<p>Acceptance rate is not a reliable indicator of admission selectivity. For example, the [list</a> of 100 lowest acceptance rates](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate/page+4]list”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate/page+4) includes some Mississippi public universities with acceptance rates lower than 40%, but Mississippi public universities auto-admit students with a 2.50 HS GPA with 20 ACT or 940 SAT CR+M (and lower minimums for Mississippi residents). Of course, cost and financial aid is another dimension to consider.</p>
<p>I suppose our daughter’s safeties are </p>
<p>Penn State - 52% (hopefully Schreyer Honors College, but that’s no sure thing)
Pitt - 56% (my understanding is that the Honors College here is strictly numbers driven so she should be fine)
Catholic University - 63% This is probably her first choice in safeties colleges, but they’ll need to come through with some serious merit $.
St. Joe’s - 78% We feel pretty confident that she’d get at least 20k of merit aid here based on other students we know. She could commute if she had to.
Drexel - 75% They will probably give her some merit money, but even if they don’t, it’s a safety if she commutes.
Temple 67% (Honors College) This is her true, least favorite safety. I doubt she’ll apply if she hears back quickly from any of these others. Based on her test scores and GPA, Temple would have no tuition and she could commute if she had to.</p>
<p>As I said, CUA is probably her top choice and probably where she’ll end up going. It’s also the least “safe” simply because she may not get enough merit money to make it feasible for us. She also has a couple of top tier schools that she likes very much but she’s playing the merit money lottery at them and we don’t want her to get her hopes up too high. She should get into most (all?) of them, but depending upon the school, only 15 to 30 freshman receive any kind of merit money and so the odds are very, very slim that she’ll be chosen. </p>
<p>ucbalumnus is right, acceptance rate is not the best indicator of whether a college is safe. A safe college should be one where you KNOW you will be admitted and you KNOW you will be able to afford.</p>
<p>My safety has a 50% acceptance rate. I knew it was safe because my stats granted me a guaranteed merit scholarship, which would make the school affordable. I had a couple safe, low-match colleges with acceptance rates around 60-70%. However, these weren’t true safeties as they practiced holistic admissions and had no guaranteed scholarships.</p>