I am a rising senior, and I read somewhere that a safety school is where you have a 60+ percent chance of getting in, a target is one with a 30-60 percent chance, and a reach school is one with a less than 30 percent chance of getting in. Now for some info…
SAT: 1590
ACT: 35
GPA (unweighted): 3.99 (out of 4). (weighted) 4.49 (out of 5)
SAT Subject: US History 800, Math II 800
AP: US History 5, BC Calculus 5, Physics C Mech 5, Language & Comp 5, World History 4
EC: Classic film club (3 years, current VP), newspaper (2 years, current exec editor), quiz bowl (3 years, won conf. championship), Choir (3 years).
Other: National Honor Society, regular community service, won some awards for poetry & writing
Now, I know that based on the stats alone, I am better than the average applicant (not to sound arrogant or anything), so in terms of these percentage guidelines (for reach, safety, and target), looking at the regular admissions percentages wouldn’t be the most accurate. For example, UVA has an admission percentage of 30%, but I feel that I would have a somewhat (hopefully) higher chance of getting in than that.
What would be recommended in terms of percentages for a student similar to me? I would really appreciate any help I can get!
A safety school is one where you have a 99% of being admitted and it is 100% affordable. Many colleges with a high acceptance rate will reject you for yield protection.
For many high stats students their in-state flagship is a safety. If you are in a state with VERY exclusive flagship (such as CA or MI or VA), then a lesser in-state might be a safety. For my kids they had additional safeties in Canada (Canadian schools accept students primarily based on grades and aren’t so stressed out about protecting their yields) but we live in New England so Canada is not very far away.
If I look at our school’s Naviance, everyone with a 4.6 weighted GPA and a 1100 SAT or 26 ACT got into Denison. The total number admitted in five years was about 30 students. Only about five didn’t get in and they are below these stated GPAs and SAT/ACT scores. If S19 has a 5.5 weighted GPA with 10 AP classes and most likely an SAT above 1480 but maybe as high as 1550, isn’t Denison a safety? The overall school acceptance rate is 56% but it’s obviously way higher from our high school.
One thing you can do is apply to a safety school with non binding early admission or rolling admission in the Fall. If you get in, you have at least one college you can go to, if you don’t get in, you can adjust accordingly and apply to additional safeties during the regular application period.
Safety schools should be 100% chance of admission (including to major if applicable) and 100% chance of affordability. This means for the applicant, not the school’s overall admission rate.
As you look at your application strategy, it’s ideal if you can can find a safety or two that can provide you with an early admit, allowing you to spend your efforts really targeting your high matches and reaches.
If I look at our school’s Naviance, everyone with a 4.6 weighted GPA and a 1100 SAT or 26 ACT got into Denison. The total number admitted in five years was about 30 students. Only about five didn’t get in and they are below these stated GPAs and SAT/ACT scores. If S19 has a 5.5 weighted GPA with 10 AP classes and most likely an SAT above 1480 but maybe as high as 1550, isn’t Denison a safety? The overall school acceptance rate is 56% but it’s obviously way higher from our high school."
No it doesn’t need to be 100%, the Naviance info you posted is very helpful in this because it just analyzes your high school and looks like you have a good sample. I would still recommend as others have said that an in-state public is a best bet for safety.
As was mentioned earlier, you want to find 1-3 safety schools with an early action admission program so you can know that you’re safe. Your stats on paper are good enough to have your application looked at by every school. If you feel very confident in your essays, I think you could apply to more reach schools than the average person. Perhaps the best advice is just apply to wherever you know you’d enjoy the next four years at.
The school’s overall admission rate is largely irrelevant – what matters is whether the specific applicant has a 100% chance of admission and affordability for the school to be a safety. For example, a student in Texas with top 7% rank in the required college prep curriculum intending a non-oversubscribed major can assume that UT Austin is a safety based on its automatic admission policy for top 7% rank Texas students, even though UT Austin’s overall admission rate is something around 40% (in contrast, applicants not qualified for automatic admission should consider UT Austin a reach, since the admission rate outside of automatic admission is probably around 15%).
With respect to Denison specifically, an “overqualified” applicant should be sure to show a high level of interest, since that is “important” to Denison: http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=349 . Colleges using level of interest usually do not want to be low-choice “safeties” for yield protection reasons.
We just visited Denison and S19 really liked it! Of course we will continue to show interest but it is actually a place he could see himself enrolling. As for a total safety, I still think that’s hard for lots of kids. UIUC is our state flagship and S19 doesn’t belong there. Way too big. If he was interested in engineering or business then he would apply but, as an undecided liberal arts major, a large flagship isn’t the best choice. And not many states have an auto admit thing like TX. I think it’s a little harder to find a true safety for a student who wants a liberal arts college.
I think a safety for a student wanting an LAC experience will be a somewhat imperfect fit. The student needs to be thinking, Suppose I don’t get into any of my favorites? Or what if I get accepted but can’t afford to go? Would I be OK not going to college at all? Taking a gap year? Would the community college be better than nothing at all?
Many flagships and directional U’s have honors colleges that try to mimic an LAC within a larger university. Our local community college has a very small, personalized honors program that most fairly good students would be accepted into.
Some oos U’s may be smaller, easier to get into, and even cheaper than your in state option. Take a look at Univ. of New Mexico. It has all of those qualities as well as an honors college. Be sure to check out the automatic scholarships.
My D originally thought a gap year would be her backup plan but when I pointed out the realities such as no money to travel or enroll in some cool gap year program, more likely just working at some crummy job, she agreed to a less than ideal safety (where she not end up).
I agree that Naviance can help you find more personalized safeties, reaches, etc. The college D is attending could be viewed as an admission safety based on Naviance but financial aid was a wild card.
Ultimately I think there is no substitute to having an affordable, acceptable, EA admission in hand in Sept or Oct of senior year.
Another tool to better predict your chances is to consult the Common Data Set, a document released by most colleges and universities that provides a lot of statistics about admitted students. It’s easy to Google. You can find out the average GPA/test scores for admitted students and see where you fall. Chances are if you are in the 75% or above for a given school, you will be admitted UNLESS 1) the school has a low acceptance rate (less than 20% or even 30%) and/or the school is very small and the admitted pool will be very small. Finally, if your stats make you seem “overqualified,” it’s possible a school might reject you for “yield protection,” that is, they don’t think you’re serious about your application and are using it as a fallback for something better. This is what is meant by “Tufts Syndrome.” A way to counteract this is to “demonstrate interest” - visit the school, make contact with your regional admissions officer, arrange for an alumni interview, etc. The Common Data Set will also tell you if “demonstrated interest” is considered at a given school or not.
If your stats put you in that top 25% and the acceptance rate is 50% or higher, I’d say that’s a reasonably safe bet.
If you are seeking merit scholarships, you want to be in that top 25%
There are easier ways to get to this basic admissions data than the Common Data Set - there are some college search websites that will consolidate the data for you or you can get it from US News and World Report rankings.
As others have mentioned, Naviance will provide more school specific data. Just remember that the college admissions landscape changes rapidly and the experience of students from five or even three years back may no longer be current.
Your stats look great and I’m sure you will have many choices. As others have mentioned, applying to a rollling admissions or non-binding EA school can take the stress off of waiting for those other acceptances to come in.
Maybe Truman State for high stats students (who would get automatic scholarships there)?
However, many private liberal arts colleges do not want to be anyone’s “safety” and use level of interest against “overqualified” applicants who do not go out of their way to show interest beyond applying. Also, a top-end student at a small school that is mostly populated by less accomplished students may find that there are too few students like him/her for the school to offer suitable academics for top-end students (at a large school, there may be enough top-end students for there to be honors or other more rigorous options to be worth offering).
@ucbalumnus Yes, that’s all true. We did find two kids at Denison (our tour guide and his girlfriend) who chose Denison over more selective schools. Our tour guide turned down Chicago and his girlfriend turned down MIT because the financial package was better at Denison. I think that’s a thing going on there now with the merit they offer.
@alooknac I agree on the honors college at public schools. We are looking into that at Vermont, Delaware, and Wisconsin. I wish I felt better about the safety options in the Big Ten for honors programs but I don’t hear overwhelmingly good things about Iowa, Iowa State, Michigan State, or Indiana for liberal arts majors. Obviously, Michigan and NU are reaches for anyone.