Safety Schools for me?

College Search & Lists
1

<p>Biracial Female
GPA: 3.8 Weighted, SAT: 2200 (looking to bring it up to a 2250)
Top Public School in the State, with 8 APs at the end of senior year.
5’s on all taken AP tests
Above 700 on 3 SAT II
Self Study in AP human geography</p>

<p>Concentration in the humanities, ap histories and english and languages
Intended Major: Poly Sci and Creative Writing/Journalism</p>

<p>ECs (shortened for the sake of time):
Published poet
Freshman Mentor
VP of Junior State of America
Peer Tutor
Advisory Panel leader
Started a Non-Profit organization
Finalist for multiple national writing competitions
Model UN (two gavels)
Mock Trial (made it to states, best witness award)
In Muptiple select singing groups</p>

<p>800 hours in volunteer work to prevent bullying of disabled kids.</p>

<p>Worked at a law office over the summer, about 16 hours/week, besides taking multiple art courses and a poly sci course, as well as volunteering at a camp for disabled kids.</p>

<p>Anyone have any good Safety Schools for me?</p>

2

<p>Price limit?</p>

<p>State of residency?</p>

<p>A safety must be assured for admission and definitely affordable; the above questions are relevant in determining what schools fit the criteria.</p>

3

<p>Depending on money, Rhodes might be a safety. GPA is average, SAT is above 75th percentile. Wonderful poli sci department and a decent creative writing concentration with some successful alumni authors. Mock Trial team is legendary, and if you want to continue community service, we get consistently recognized for that (president’s award finalist, newsweek #1, etc.).</p>

4

<p>Your stats are great, so finding schools that will accept you won’t be hard.</p>

<p>However…for a school to be a SAFETY, it also has to be AFFORDABLE and you have to LIKE it.</p>

<p>What state are you in?</p>

<p>How much will your family pay? Will your family pay whatever a school expects them to pay? $55k per year? More? Less? </p>

<p>Will your family qualify for the need-based aid that it needs? Is it low income? (like under 50k? ) Middle income (like $50k - 100k?) , High income (like over $100k)?</p>

<p>If you need financial aid, then safeties are harder to find, since MOST do NOT give much aid. However, some will give big merit for stats. So, if money is an issue, your safeties would have to give big merit.</p>

<p>What mix of bi-racial are you? If you’re white/asian, then you may not get an advantage. if you’re Black/white, then that may help.</p>

<p>Are you a likely NMSF?</p>

5

<p>If you tell us what your reach and match schools are, we can suggest similar schools that are less selective. And of course, your budget is critical here - it’s only a safety if you can afford to attend.</p>

6

<p>Re: Rhodes</p>

<p>Rhodes considers “level of interest” in admissions, so it presumably does not want to be used as a safety (such schools are likely to reject or waitlist very high stats applicants who have not had “shown interest” by having visits and other expressions of interest recorded before applying).</p>

7

<p>Rhodes does consider level of interest, though it is superceded by GPA, high school quality, SAT/ACT, essay, and letters of rec. </p>

<p>It is categorically incorrect that Rhodes rejects or waitlists very high stats applicants who have not shown interest. </p>

<p>No school likes to consider itself a safety; it hurts our egos, which are substantial. But the yield for high-stats students is low because those students have other options; if we want to keep the profile of our classes high, we have to accept as many of those high stats students as possible. To reject them would be self-injurious.</p>

<p>In fact, no college I know of will reject high stats applicants to protect admission rate or yield. If you have any references to schools exercising such admission policies, I’d love to see them.</p>

8

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<p>Never seen the term “Tufts syndrome” used here?</p>

9

<p>

Many things [constantly</a> stated here](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum]constantly”>Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia) have little basis in reality. Few of us have ever worked in college admissions, let alone at a selective college - though that doesn’t prevent rampant speculation and authoritative statements. </p>

<p>Colleges have far more to gain from admitting high-performing students than by rejecting “overqualified” ones. Test scores and class rank account for 13.5% of the USNWR ranking, whereas admit rate - a variant of yield - accounts for a mere 1.5%. </p>

<p>The fact that Rhodes considers “level of interest” is not in itself indicative of yield protection. Brown considers level of interest one of the most important factors for admission, for example, but I think few students would consider it a safety school. “Level of interest” is often used as shorthand for looking for a good fit with the college.</p>

10

<p>“Never seen the term ‘Tufts syndrome’ used here?”</p>

<p>I have. What I have not seen, to warblersrule’s ad populum point, is any evidence that Tufts actually does that. I’m not saying it is untrue, I’m saying I’ve never seen any actual indication of it being true.</p>

<p>"Brown considers level of interest one of the most important factors for admission, for example, but I think few students would consider it a safety school. "</p>

<p>Not to mention that at Ivies, their entire pool is high stats kids. They’re looking at level of interest because they have fewer factors on which to differentiate individual applicants.</p>