<p>By the end of this year, a lot of class of 2008 high school students will have applied to Princeton under Princeton’s new single-deadline admission system. </p>
<p>As you look at Princeton’s low base acceptance rate, and consider the unknown effects of its switching to a single-deadline system, what “safety” colleges are you planning to apply to, to be sure you get in somewhere if you don’t get into Princeton? What’s a good fit, with good admission probability, for a student for whom Princeton looks like a good fit? Where, if anywhere, will you apply in the early round, now that Princeton doesn’t have an early round of admission consideration?</p>
<p>If I was applying this year and Princeton was my definite first choice, I’d probably apply to the University of Chicago early action, knowing that I’d probably just get deferred from either Yale or Stanford.</p>
<p>Chicago is terribly underrated in my opinion.</p>
<p>Yeah Chicago was my number 2 choice after Princeton. It’s definitely underrated. I like Chicago’s intensive academic focus, something you don’t find even at some of the very top schools. My safeties were Emory and Vanderbilt. I’ll be interested to see if Yale or Stanford (or maybe MIT) gets the biggest boost in early applications this fall. Probably Yale but you never know.</p>
<p>Are you saying that you won’t be applying to ANY sure-bet colleges that you can count on being admitted to? Props to you if you are admitted to Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and MIT, but if those colleges were on my application list, I would also want to apply to some “safety” college. What sure-bet for admission college would be a good fit in your case?</p>
<p>Unless you are truly something special, you’re nuts if you only apply to HYSM. Admisions decisions are extremely hard to predict for well qualified but non-hooked applicants. Don’t risk it.</p>
<p>@tokenadult: Vandy doesn’t play the overqualified game, and our school has a good track record with them. My GC said I was a lock, so I didn’t bother applying to state schools.</p>
<p>i’m sorry, I was just joking to lighten up the atmosphere in this thread…</p>
<p>on a more serious note, my safety schools would be probably be LACs like Grinnell, Haverford etc. i think small liberal arts colleges are terribly underrated.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt and University of Richmond…nowhere near Princeton’s level but nonetheless solid, fun schools. I have my fingers crossed for Princeton, however</p>
<p>I’m actually applying early to U of M, ND, MIT, and UChicago. First two because our school has a very good record with them, and the last two because I’d love to attend either, and so far everyone who’s applied to UChicago has gotten in (granted, only 3 that I know of…).</p>
<p>Then I’m going Princeton and Harvard during the regular round- should be an interesting April, at least.</p>
<p>my reaches are: princeton, yale, duke, williams
my targets are: (this is according to my GC, who claims dartmouth is a target. whatever) dartmouth, uchicago, rice, cornell, swarthmore
my safeties are: william and mary, reed, uva</p>
<p>I think the whole “what qualifies as a safety if I am ‘qualified’ for Princeton” question is really valid and incredibly confusing. When I applied to colleges, I had absolutely no idea what was a good safety/fit/reach/target/whatever for me, and so I applied 11 places. I know you might read this 100 other times on this site, but it is TRULY TOO MANY. If you want to apply to the 10 hardest schools to get into and you are truly not qualified for them, then no, I guess it’s not a long enough list. I don’t mean to sound arrogant or boa****l in any way, but I applied way too many places and ended up feeling really guilty mailing decline cards to 9 of the 11 schools. It also made my decision in April a million times harder, because while Princeton had always been my number one choice, a lot of the other schools I visited/was accepted to were extremely lucrative. </p>
<p>Basically, I know it’s impossible to truly evaluate your chances (and yes, no matter how many What Are My Chances? posts you make, you know that nobody can TRULY predict them), but I’m just suggesting to all of you '08-ers that you apply to Princeton and have fun with it, but also to be realistic in your other applications, whether you realize that you really don’t need to apply to 4 state schools where you are pretty confident of your admission (like I did) or whether you realize you need to apply to one school where you are confident (unlike some of my classmates, who got rejected from 10 or more places). Just my two-cents! If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.</p>