<p>I don’t want to speak for citygirlsmom, but let me re-state her position in other terms. The USA has literally thousands of colleges…big/small, urban/rural, private/public, hard/easy, etc. I think what she’s saying (and I agree with her) is that with all of those options, how can you possibly end up having a safety which you don’t want to go to? Her main concern is that people end up attending a college that is at least ok for them (even if it’s not their dream college), and to that end, wasting an application on a college you know ISN’T at least ok with you seems silly and actually detrimental to your future (because you could have used the same time and money applying to a college that actually WOULD be ok for you). </p>
<p>I think that is her MAIN concern. The second concern, which I think is shared by all of us over the age of 35 and apparently none of you under the age of 20, is using the whole college admissions process as a sort of parlor game…applying to colleges just for the hell of it even if you have not intention of going there. That’s a strange trend, sort of harmless in a way, except when it gums up the whole process for the admissions people, or when it results in people getting rejected from that portion of the colleges which they applied to which ARE ok, and they end up having to go to one of the parlor-game throwaway colleges that they applied to on a whim.</p>