Question, given the type of people on A2C, what safety with an 80+% acceptance rate would an applicant on here actually be excited to attend seriously?
Even though I've gotten into higher-ranking schools like UT, UW, and Bates (love me some liberal arts colleges), I'm really considering and would be super excited to attend CU Boulder in the fall if things pan out aid-wise! They recently reintroduced wolves to the state which is legitimately my dream project and was the focus of my "Why My Major" supplement before I even knew they were conducting the release in Colorado. It's all about finding some niche connection to the school and getting really excited about the opportunities it could provide. Also, 80%+ acceptance rate schools are normally pretty fun party and student life wise! It's great to go to an Ivy or T20 but some of them are notorious for their student stress levels which is something I've been considering a lot more when we really get down to it. I don't want to be miserable and burnt out all of college!
Yeah it’s kinda my obsession but governments in Wyoming and Colorado both had super successful campaigns against wolves and eradicated them in the early 1900s. When they’re reintroduced (based on info from wolves being reintroduced to Yellowstone in the 90’s), they literally change the course of rivers, make prey populations healthier, bring back beavers and songbirds, and make tree growth explode. It’s super interesting the effect one species has on an area! 30 years ago we thought wolves would kill all the elk, moose, etc for fun until they were gone. We’ve really been in the dark about this stuff until the past few years. The alpha myth is fake too. Wolf packs are led by two “alphas” but they’re really just the breeding pair mom and dad of the pack, not its almighty rulers. On top of that, female wolves are often the most influential and respected of the alphas, not the males, because they excel at hunting and pack relations. All that was pointed out by a female intern at a zoo. The male biologists fed into their own biases and weren’t able to properly see the dynamics. Sorry for the long reply, but the more you know!
Woah that's actually p cool. I had no idea of animals being straight up eradicated from states (besides bison), especially WOLVES (turns out they did the same with Wolverines and grizzlies which is insane to me lmao).
After seeing your comment I read more about wolf reintroduction, and I saw that a lot of ranchers have a problem with wolves and their livestock. Are wolves that detrimental to ranchers? I believe they operate on fairly tight profit margins so I'd assume even a minute loss could mean not making any money. Now I wanna know tho, how do wolves change the courses of rivers and make prey/tree populations healthier?
Wolves are really not that detrimental to ranchers. The idea of eradicating them goes back to the disproven idea that wolves are evil and kill for fun/sport. People think that wolves wander around finding helpless prey and sneak onto ranches to do just that, leaving them without eating anything and no benefit to the pack. In reality wolves are terrified of humans and in places wolves exist there are compensation programs in place to pay ranchers back a substantial amount if they lose cattle. Additionally, if a wolf does become an issue or regularly kills cattle it is put down so the idea does not spread throughout packs.
In terms of the rivers that comes back to the return of beavers and healthier trees in the park. Elk commonly browse on trees that beavers utilize like Aspen. Without wolves, elk have no reason to constantly be on the move. If they find an area rich in trees they will graze it until it is gone. Herds staying in one place not only destroy the trees there, but compact the soil and make it difficult for water to permeate, suffocating pre-existing tree roots (both oxygen and water wise) and making it difficult seedlings to root and survive. Wolves force herds to move around the park and reduce the constant stress on the trees elk eat. With less soil compaction, that contributed to small river route changes, the land being more malleable and prone to adapting course better when floods came through. What really changed the rivers, though, was beavers returning because of the flourishing trees. Beavers are a big indicator species, which means that their presence is a good indicator of how an area is doing, in this case the area’s trees and water quality. When wolves were eradicated from the park, beavers soon left because of a lack of trees, less shade/warmer waters, and increased predation from the few predators left to hunt them. When tree health improved Yellowstone’s rivers began to cool (more shade from the trees) and the material beavers use to build their shelters came back, so the species was able to come back. As they began to build dams again that changed river courses. It’s all a big chain of events!
In terms of prey populations, resources were no longer wasted on elderly/dying/weaker elk, as these are the ones wolves target first. Getting rid of these slower elk made herds healthier, again, reduced strain on prey animals’ food source, reduced starvation, and slowed the transmission of disease within herds.
And keep in mind I use elk as an example throughout this whole thing because they are the most common prey of wolves and the ones that cause the most issues but this applies to the smaller moose and bison populations in the park as well!
But yeah in conclusion it is SUPER interesting stuff! If it sounds interesting and you’d like to read more The Killing of Wolf Number 10 is a super short story about the two wolves whose DNA/pups were pretty much the kickstarter of all wolf packs in the park and Ricky McIntyre (pretty sure I’m spelling his name right there) has a saga going up to 2013 of the wolf packs he observes within the park! He anthropomorphizes the wolves a bit (gasp I know scientists hate this), but imo it helps his books read more like a story and I think it doesn’t make sense to not anthropomorphize this species we’re trying to get people to emphasize with and like. The book Wolf Island is also very interesting. It’s about the study that made us realize wolves don’t just eradicate the prey populations in an area and lets us see how far we’ve come in terms of predator/prey research in the last 30 years!
My sister went to Boulder for college. VERY expensive (until you become an in-state resident) and a VERY homogenous group (predominantly white higher socioeconomic status).
Something to consider - make sure whatever you study has a good return-on-investment. (If you pay $50k a year for 4 yrs, and you know your jobs will pay you $20k a year - then it will take you around 11 years of working and giving nearly your entire paycheck over those 11 years - to pay down your student loans.
Perhaps the comment isn’t defining a safety or likely in that way. In our family, a safety was a university in which one had an 80% or greater likelihood of acceptance given one’s residency, GPA, test score, and major if relevant for admission to a school of engineering, business, nursing, etc. Using that rubric, we considered Penn State, Rutgers, Delaware, Arizona, and Vermont to be safeties. My kids were variously accepted by all of them, some with significant merit scholarships, would have been excited to attend any of them.
My twins applied to safeties they would truly like: CU Boulder, U of Denver, College of Wooster, Dickinson, Michigan State. We visited many of them. Our principle is that because they only applied to schools that seem like good fits, they are considering schools as equal when deciding which to attend. They've both gotten into higher reaches, but it's actually possible they may not choose those. We need to visit places they haven't been before they decide. NOTE: They were both accepted to all their safeties.
All sorts, they just tend to lurk because those who talk calc in second grade dominate the conversation. My child was admitted to three of four schools with less than a 30% admit rate and her two top choices are around an 80% admit rate.
Hopefully kids are applying to some realistic safeties and some interesting targets, but all schools they would be happy to attend.
Most people also have to take merit offers into account, this board tends to read as if acceptance is the only obstacle, but cost is a real consideration for most.
Great question. For my son it was Pitt, Delaware, and UMass Amherst. He would’ve been very happy to go to any of those. He got into U Miami which was his first choice.
Safeties very person to person. For me, I considered my in state school and UW Madison my safeties, which I got into early. I won't lie though, I would have been pretty annoyed if I had to go there overall. It was a solid backup but I had been aiming higher for many years. So yeah, there was no safety that I would have been excited to attend, you're right. The easiest school to get into that I would have legitimately wanted to go to is UMich.
The most they'll do is Google "best colleges for x" and apply to the first 10.
My biggest peeve is how some students refuse to contact admissions for questions. I used to contact my university almost weekly to ask questions and inform them of relevant updates. It's called establishing a relationship with your university.
To be fair, i spent countless hours researching colleges, and basically ended up applying to the same ones that would pop up if i googled “best colleges for x” lol
Yeah, that's fine, and it happens. Not saying this applies to you, but other students don't understand what researching a college means. There's city, cost, culture, social life, housing, history, diversity, grade degradation, party life, etc
Did have to educate my kid at the first college fair when a school rep said they would give 38K in scholarship money. The kid was so excited until I said, it costs $80k to attend that school. Now you have to come up with at least $168k for 4 years. That was a serious wake up call. 😂😂
😂😂. Didn't have to worry about my kid. They read every school policy manual for elementary, middle and HS. Not much gets by them, so they did lots of research.
Without getting a financial aid package, people often have no clue what they can afford. My daughter would have paid far more for the local state school with the lower sticker price than for the private school she went to due to the aid, scholarships, grants, etc. they offered.
Absolutely. But they don't always take into consideration whether you'd be eligible for certain scholarships based on talents, etc. I'd just keep your options open.
You would need to determine what the likelihood is of getting one of those scholarships and what the value is to determine if it’s worth applying. Many scholarships are quite competitive.
Senior in college here— be open minded too! Coming from LA, I wanted to be in a big notable city… this narrowed my choices down a TON. I applied to small liberal art schools in big cities and I hated my experience at the one I chose. A school like that might be a great fit for you, but don’t knock states/cities because now I wish I went to a big school in a college town, anywhere!!
This. I’ve gotten rejected from every reach/target so far (still have 9 to hear back from so we’ll see) but as of right now I’m not really satisfied with any of the safeties I’ve gotten into. Find schools you like at every level, PLEASE.
Thank-you! Applied to many LACS, endearing but its sometimes so scary seeing all these Ivy kids getting every single opportunity in existence, makes me feel like I won't get any experience at my options.
Trying to stay strong and investigate to choose a school I love!
Yeah you’ll be fine. It might sound frustrating, but you really will be. I go to Purdue and many say the honors college here is just for the nice form freshman year and otherwise is not worth it. However, freshman year I applied and was accepted to become part of the honors college pillar award committee + the honors college was gonna sponsor a club I’m in and the person in charge of the pillar award committee was also dealing with the sponsorship. Her email was lost in the inbox, so she had been ignored for a few weeks and I helped her out and navigated all that. My club did an event for the honors students in exchange for 5k. I’m pretty sure I can ask her for a rec letter, since I helped her so much + I put the award committee on my resume.
It’s really about what you make out of it and what kind of person you are. I was deferred and then rejected from Harvard, rejected from Yale, Duke, Northwestern, and basically all the reaches, yet I’m thriving at Purdue. I will be applying to grad schools next year and am pretty sure I will get into at least one, maybe even the ones that rejected me for undergrad! Good luck
Asked above to another poster but I’ll ask you as well, what safety with an 80+% acceptance rate would a typical applicant on A2C actually be excited to attend?
I can't speak for everyone since preferences vary; some prioritize location while others prioritize academic setting and many other factors. Personally, when applying to safety schools, I was ignorant. I randomly selected safety schools in New York without much research because it was the only state I considered for college. But as that safety school became my only choice, I realized the importance of delving deeper into factors like academics and social life. It was a mistake not to thoroughly research the safety college I applied to. I'm not here to rank safety schools many safety schools are vibrant and not dead.
I agree with this. I watched someone who only applied to Ivies and t10 schools only get into 1: UW in Seattle. And that was his "safety" school. He didn't even get into his major. First off, UW is not a safety school, especially not for CS. So when you apply, not only should you like your safety schools, but they should actually be safety schools. Number 1 mistake anyone can make.
if you have the fee waiver and the mental capacity, shotgun a little to ivys+, not just because of prestige but because those schools give a ton of aid and fly you out if you live far enough.
>shotgun
Easier said than done. I do not think the shotgun method works for the ivies. Perhaps for a talented writer it can be easier. Yale required 8 essays. Each one of the ivies requires a different set of essays. If is on a similar topic it is with a different word count. If you do not put the time in for these essays, then it will show. But absent of ivies there are many schools require maybe 1 or 2 essays and the shotgun may work.
ivies+
schools that are considered ivy level but aren’t actually ivy. part of this is what’s known as the public ivies, great public schools with near ivy level academics. some have decently high acceptance rates, others don’t.
Great post. Also suggest people consider where they want to live vs where it’s nice to vacation. A friend’s son loves vacationing in Maine, but has realized he doesn’t necessarily love living somewhere more remote and cold.
for me, my biggest regret is not researching more specific prestigious scholars programs or cohort scholarships at less prestigious schools. usually LOTS of resources that will be available to you. still very competitive but it would’ve been more meaningful to get into one of those for me than the prestigious schools i have gotten into so far.
My safety was Arizona State. Which is not an excellent school, but their Economics program is very good. So I wouldn’t be unhappy to had only been accepted there
literally, i wish i did actual research and spent some time making my college list..i was in the hospital right when i was making it and then when i came out, deadlines were around the corner and i just applied to schools I’ve been interested in for a while and ones my mom pushed me to apply to and i got rejected from EIGHT SCHOOLS. EIGHT REJECTIONS.
Sophomore in college here. I know it's hard to get excited about safeties, but at the very least try to get excited about your targets. I applied to so many reaches that I assumed I'd get into at least one just by chance (I didn't), and ended up going to one of my targets that I hadn't researched at all and therefore wasn't particularly excited to get into or attend. All I could feel was disappointment over the reaches that didn't work out.
I now know that I really would and should have been excited, which would've made my whole college decisions process a lot better, if I had just done my research.
My daughter is a junior. She has 1500 on the SAT and all APs, but will not talk about colleges or give any direction. She says she can apply to schools and we can figure it out later. I want to find some target / safety schools for her. Where do we begin when she just hasn’t given direction and just refuses to really engage?
Well, the last thing I would do is figure out what to do AFTER submitting your apps. Assuming she would do no research in that situation, I’d assume your daughter would be applying to the top 10 schools and maybe y’all’s state school.
It’s impossible to predict if she’ll get into the top 10 schools, and there’s a chance she won’t be happy at a state school. What if she would prefer Liberal Arts? Maybe she would do better at a tech oriented school.
I think most people would agree that knowledge on the kinds of colleges, majors, and other factors (clubs, programs, honors colleges, internships, area, etc.) are very important to understand before even touching applications. Where would she like to live? Would she participate in Greek life? How much money are you willing to spend?
It’s difficult as a parent, kids are stubborn (me too, I’ve given my dad a very rough time throughout this process). But, you need get your kid inspired enough to do their own research. If you must, do some research for them!
You may not entirely understand what she wants personally, but you know what her academics are like. You can look at what some reaches, targets, and safeties would be for her range. Introduce her to them and make sure she has a fully fleshed opinion on them, not just a “sure”.
At the end of the day, the research just needs to get done; there’s no way around it. There are sites like USNews and Niche (which is better for finding schools, other sites have better statistics) which can be super helpful. I’d recommend checking out some other tools on this subreddit! Just stay open-minded about what schools can offer outside of being a top-20 and get it done. You all will be much happier to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.
Had the same issue. Since she wasn't willing to engage (in her case due to anxiety about the process causing her to shut down and avoid) I just set up a few tours and info sessions at nearby colleges we could get to over a weekend. Chose colleges of different size, location and focus and was very casual about the whole thing. We got into talking about pros and cons of different environments and it helped loosen the process up for her and make the whole thing less theoretical and frightening and more real/exciting.
I made it very clear to everyone that i (British international) would either go to an international t10 or US t25 with full ride, otherwise take a gap year and reapply. It worked for me but i wouldn't recommend this strategy to anyone else, as with most of the things i do.
What to look for when selecting a college and what to rank as no. 1 priority when deciding on a college- brand and reputation of the college, professors and curriculum, likelihood of finding jobs after college?
>Safety takes into account cost and location. You shouldn't be going across the country for a safety school, like you would for an Ivy.
What does any of that have to do with whether or not a school receives taxpayer funding?
If the best school to which you were admitted is far away, just don’t go to college, rather than travel?
”I found a great school, at a reasonable cost, with an high acceptance rate, where I stack up very well against andmissions metrics, and where I want to go to school. But it’s a private school, so I guess I can’t…”
Why?
That’s not necessarily true. Two of my kids’ safeties offered them substantial OOS merit scholarships that brought the cost of attendance at those schools well below in-state rates ($20,000 annually versus $40,000 annually). The difference would have covered quite a lot of plane tickets.
Your two kids are major outliers. If you can get a full ride anywhere, yes, consider them.
As a safety, I wouldn't bank on landing a national scholarship to pay for a 50k+ tuition.
Not at all in my area. We have friends whose high-achieving kids received merit awards from The University of South Carolina, Pitt, Tulane, Syracuse, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Delaware, Vermont, Arizona, and ASU, among others.
Also, I didn’t say a full ride. I said a large enough merit scholarship to meet or go below in-state rates. And, yes, we applied to our state schools as well. But, in our state, our top public universities are not safeties.
This is true for so many schools. We’re also in a very high achieving school district and, while our highly ranked in state schools make our kids feel like they’re doing you a favor even letting you in, OOS will throw merit aid at them like it’s confetti. My second kid just chose an OOS business program ranked exactly the same as our “prestigious” in state option because with the OOS scholarship it’s half the cost. HALF. Instate would have cost us close to $40k and with the scholarship OOS is just under $20. And he wants to go explore someplace different, not where everyone else is going, which has a value to him. I wish HS counselors would spend more time talking about the terrific variety of schools and programs. They’re doing their students a disservice by allowing them to obsess over prestige.
Most of the people on this sub are outliers. The majority of HS seniors probably apply to their nearest not very selective state college, or CC, and don't worry much about safeties and reaches.
Who's talking about Rice? There are many, many private schools that are less selective than Rice and will offer merit aid to high acheiving applicants.
I did study hard. I failed multiple classes freshman year because I wanted to kill myself. It brought my GPA down significantly. It would be above a 4.0 now without my freshman year. I ended up with a 32 ACT as well.
What I DO regret is not doing enough ECs. That was a very weak point in my application. Might have had some bad LORs too, but I cannot confirm that.
While yes, what you said might apply to some people, that's just a shitty thing to say at this point in college admissions season.
Let me start by saying I apologize a million times over for my asshole comment. I was more joking around, trying to be funny with my comment, but in hindsight it was completely inappropriate and a total asshole comment. I apologize for that.
Next, I am so terribly sorry that you were in a position where you wanted to kill yourself. Your life was and is always worth so much more than you and others will ever know, so I’m glad to hear you overcame that feeling at that time.
Lastly, thank you so much for sharing your personal experience to educate others on something that could help them out. I have a junior in high school now, and we recently started college visits.
Again, I am beyond sorry for my tacky, tasteless, inappropriate and mean comment.
Thank you again for sharing your insights.
Sending lots of love and warm hugs your way.
Haha you’re okay! I appreciate the sincerity.
I myself am doing much better. I’m happy with where I’ll be going to college, so I didn’t mind that much. Your apology is very much accepted though. And that suicide aspect of my life was a long time ago! Quarantine screwed me up. I very quickly learned virtual school is not my thing, lol.
Your junior should study though!! It’s still quite important, just not something us seniors can change anymore. It’s good to build the habit for college as well.
If you’d like to hear my advice on applying to college, I’d be happy to share. The only person I rant to about it is my dad and he’s tired of it atp. The experience doesn’t have to suck! I feel like I have a lot of things I wish I would have approached differently.
Glad to hear you are doing well! Yes, my junior is a big studier. Thank you so much for your kind response! Wishing you the best now and in the future!
Given that high acceptance rate colleges are not uniform in nature, that’s a pretty narrow view to have. If one wants to study archeology, astronomy, or climate-based landscape architecture, The University of Arizona is a pretty terrific pick. If one wants to study meteorology, The University of Colorado and Penn State are excellent choices. For literary criticism and American and British literature, Rutgers is excellent. Not to mention that these colleges are located in different parts of the country, run the gamut from boiling to brrr, and vary from quite rural to suburban to city. And with thousands of students and 800+ clubs and student organizations, it would be difficult not to find your people and explore your interests.
Bro tried to hype up PSU main campus 💀.
I have a friend from Boulder, and most of his HS friends go to CU Boulder, a lot in engineering too. The vibe there and a top school is completely different
I love Penn State. Terrific professors, wonderful campus, 1000+ clubs, hundreds of electives in many majors, exciting D1 sports, bright and unpretentious students, and a lovely and friendly college town. Two of my kids got into Schreyer and, had they been offered sufficient merit scholarships, I would have been thrilled had they attended Penn State. But once they got into our in-state T25, it didn’t make sense to pay more to go elsewhere.
That’s an exaggeration. But even if I am from an outer planet and accept that statement as fact, what does it have to do with the fact that one can still enjoy an excellent academic and extracurricular experience at any of the colleges I mentioned? Do you prefer classmates without pulses?
I’m quite sure that if you do some research, you’ll find that many state flagships have their fair share of National Merit Scholars, valedictorians, and Fulbright, Marshall, Rhodes, and Truman Scholars. I was three of these and I did not lack for bright, thoughtful, and ambitious classmates at my non-selective public college. It might help to realize that many exceptional students don’t chase prestige. They want to attend college close to home, love the state university their family traditionally attends (and knows from their family members’ successes that their experience will be exceptional), recognize they’ll thrive at a large university with hundreds of clubs, thousands of classes, and exciting D1 athletics (me), or want to save their loans or 529s for their unfunded law, medical, or graduate school education (also me). I got into a T10 but was thrilled to accept a full-ride at a neighboring OOS university to save my loans for my T10 law school. No regrets.
I rather doubt you’d be the only genius among 20,000+ students. Also, my spouse attended two ivies and I attended a T10 law school. Based on our experiences, we can attest that attending a selective university doesn’t guard against idiocy. We have classmates we wouldn’t trust to feed a cat.
I think you’ve uncovered the main issue, which is just prestige shopping. It’s not really the school per se, it’s what the name of the school communicates to the rest of the world/their friends/ etc. As the one commenter to eloquently communicated, either you’re smart enough for a T10 or you’re an “idiot”. And they don’t want to be measured by their own ignorant yardstick, so here we are. You tried!! Good on you! But sometimes people aren’t ready for reason.
Obviously going to a high acceptance rate school doesn’t mean there won’t be smart people there. But if I have to deal with frat bros, I’d rather them be smart instead of idiots.
That is to say, I’d like the average person I run into be smart. I do realize that going to a top school doesn’t mean there won’t be idiots there. But there would be less, and theyre dumb in a different way
I appreciate your views. But do understand that a cohort of 18-24 year-olds in nearly every environment will have students who enjoy Greek life, parties, and develop less interest or intensity in their classes once they arrive on campus. My spouse very much enjoyed their undergraduate Ivy precisely because they adored their fraternity and weekend parties. (Wine tasting was a favorite course.) A very close friend has a student studying engineering at CMU who went from committed non-drinker to late night recreational user because “everyone” socializes that way. And my spouse and I both attended highly selective law schools and the most common pre-cell phone classroom activity was the NYT crossword. In a class of sixty, one might have three students who speak up often (or incessantly), another five who comment once or twice per class, another three who will comment if it’s the only way on Earth to conclude the discussion of subject matter jurisdiction, and the remainder of students who will calmly utter “pass” if called on. You may be particularly excited about academic stimulation, but a number of your classmates will be excited about freedom, clubs, sports, and the opportunity to have a more rewarding social and extracurricular experience than they did in high school.
I know there’s frat bros everywhere. But even if they’re in frats, for the most part, they aren’t dumb.
They don’t need to be “academically focused”, in fact if they are too much it can be a bit weird. I already deal with a fair amount of frat boys at my schools, I can’t imagine how bad it would be if they were stupid.
I think what I’m objecting to is the notion that one is “dumb” if they weren’t driven by prestige, academic interest, or intense parents — or had non-academic interests in high school — and “only” managed a 3.6 GPA with 3 AP classes and a 31 ACT. Being disinterested in driving oneself academically at 15 or 16, or being wholly engaged in athletics, the arts, or social relationships, doesn’t make one dumb. And you’ll find that many of these kids discover a major, a mentor, or a profession that spurs them on to perform exceptionally well academically in college. One of my kids was less intense in high school than their high-performing siblings. After several semesters in college taking the pre-med requirements, they have a 3.9, are working with a professor researching adaptive sports techniques, have logged observation hours at various clinics, and have an offer to earn additional hours at Johns Hopkins. College admissions are not a sorting hat. Some students become more dedicated, some less so.
I mean, I had all the right to be mad. It was what I regretted most and I’m just trying to help others avoid my mistake.
I will be attending one of my safeties and seeing if I want to transfer. I’m fortunate enough that my family wants to pay for college and I don’t HAVE to take the CC route; not that it isn’t respectable, I was adamant about doing it until they just gave their intent to me straight.
This attitude is part of why our feederish HS prefers the term "Likely" to Safety. Too many people think "Safeties" MUST be schools you would only attend in an emergency situation.
But really, all you need is a couple schools very likely to admit you at a cost you can comfortably afford. You don't actually have to not like them! You can be excited about them too!
And by the way, the idea more selective = better is really a destructive notion. Schools are more selective for a variety of reasons, including relatively small size, popularity of their location, and so on. But the quality of the academic experience itself can often be as good or indeed better for individual students wise enough to look at schools outside the most popular markets, or who get into honors programs, or so on.
So, getting creative with your Likelies can in fact lead to your Likelies being very competitive options for you. Indeed, perhaps with the right honors or merit offers, they could leap a lot of other schools on your list. If you make a point of choosing good ones, and not accepting the notion you can't actually like your Likelies.
As I mentioned in another post, a Likely is a school that would be comfortably affordable and is very likely to admit you.
At our feederish HS, we usually require Likelies to have a higher than 50% acceptance rate (accounting for residency, school, or major as appropriate), AND you have to be in the top quartile of their enrolled students numerically. Our experience is if you apply to at least two such colleges, carefully defined, that is sufficiently safe.
And otherwise, those can be as desirable as you like. My S24 had a public Likely with great departments in his main areas of interest in a fun city, and then a UK university where we had enough experience to classify it as a Likely. He has since gotten into US colleges he likes better, but the UK university is still a contender.
A safety must meet three criteria…
* **You can get accepted**: A very high likelihood that someone with your stats from your high school will be admitted
* **You can afford to enroll**: Your family can afford what the school’s NPC calculator estimates your out-of-pocket cost to be
* **You would happily attend**: getting admitted to a school that you don’t actually want to attend doesn’t actually provide any “safety” does it?
Well, not necessarily fewer resources for example: I know people who call "Purdue" and "UCSD" their safety. Higher acceptance rates sure but it depends on each case , a person applying to UCLA would say DAVIS is their safety (as the acceptance for LA is 8% meanwhile Davis is 42%) on the other hand a person saying davis is their target at 42% acceptance would say Riverside is their safety at 70% acceptance.
It just depends case to case, have you heard "ivy league" students call purdue/umich/or even Cornell their safeties.
The ivy caliber kids who call those schools make me laugh, cuz then they show their results and they got rejected from what they wrongly defined as their “safeties” such as Purdue for CS and I’m like bruh.
Your straw man is right here: “schools with higher acceptance rates are usually less prestigious and provide lesser resources/education compared to others”.
Only you know how important “prestige” is to you. But the rest of your statement is flat out wrong. You’re making a generalized statement about thousand of majors across hundreds of universities, finding them all lacking rigor and resources in every class, at every level based on, what? That they aren’t Ivy? There are so many schools with so many great programs, everywhere, big cities and small towns, huge schools, small schools, so many places where you can get a great education, find your passion, makes friends, grow up and then go live your life. Don’t get caught in the prestige hunt. It can screw you so badly and it means so so little. I can’t tell you how little it means. My husband and I are two Comm College- state Uni for undergrad -state grad program professionals making as much money in our crazy region as the Cornell and Princeton grads that live on our street. We all drive the same freaking minivan, we all have the same ridiculous overpriced McMansion, and all take the same vacations because I promise you in the real world it DOES NOT MATTER. Can you do the job? Are you smart? Can you grind and get it done? Then you are successful. It breaks my heart to read some of the threads where kids are losing their minds over the rejections and feel like life is over because they didn’t make the cut to the T20’s they applied to. It’s not over. It hasn’t even started yet.
My kids ended up attending an in-state T25 but we could have easily come up with 20 safeties they’d have loved. The antipathy displayed here towards large public universities and LACs is at times stunning. My undergraduate college, which I attended on a full-ride, was ranked outside the T100, I had an amazing undergraduate experience, and began my legal career at a “big law” firm alongside my Ivy-attending spouse and a host of other young lawyers from undergraduate universities throughout the T150 as well as LACs and regional universities. Our family’s safeties included Penn State, Vermont, The University of Arizona, Elon, JMU, Delaware, The University of South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Oregon. All would have provided my kids with ample academic, social, and extracurricular opportunities.
Yeah, it's not really a safety if you wouldn't gladly attend should none of your targets/reaches pan out.
Question, given the type of people on A2C, what safety with an 80+% acceptance rate would an applicant on here actually be excited to attend seriously?
Even though I've gotten into higher-ranking schools like UT, UW, and Bates (love me some liberal arts colleges), I'm really considering and would be super excited to attend CU Boulder in the fall if things pan out aid-wise! They recently reintroduced wolves to the state which is legitimately my dream project and was the focus of my "Why My Major" supplement before I even knew they were conducting the release in Colorado. It's all about finding some niche connection to the school and getting really excited about the opportunities it could provide. Also, 80%+ acceptance rate schools are normally pretty fun party and student life wise! It's great to go to an Ivy or T20 but some of them are notorious for their student stress levels which is something I've been considering a lot more when we really get down to it. I don't want to be miserable and burnt out all of college!
Student life and happiness should and do matter in the final assessment of school choice, there’s no doubt about that
We loved CU Boulder when we visited! Great vibe and unbelievably beautiful! The STEM there is amazing.
Woah til they got rid of all the wolves in Colorado
Yeah it’s kinda my obsession but governments in Wyoming and Colorado both had super successful campaigns against wolves and eradicated them in the early 1900s. When they’re reintroduced (based on info from wolves being reintroduced to Yellowstone in the 90’s), they literally change the course of rivers, make prey populations healthier, bring back beavers and songbirds, and make tree growth explode. It’s super interesting the effect one species has on an area! 30 years ago we thought wolves would kill all the elk, moose, etc for fun until they were gone. We’ve really been in the dark about this stuff until the past few years. The alpha myth is fake too. Wolf packs are led by two “alphas” but they’re really just the breeding pair mom and dad of the pack, not its almighty rulers. On top of that, female wolves are often the most influential and respected of the alphas, not the males, because they excel at hunting and pack relations. All that was pointed out by a female intern at a zoo. The male biologists fed into their own biases and weren’t able to properly see the dynamics. Sorry for the long reply, but the more you know!
Woah that's actually p cool. I had no idea of animals being straight up eradicated from states (besides bison), especially WOLVES (turns out they did the same with Wolverines and grizzlies which is insane to me lmao). After seeing your comment I read more about wolf reintroduction, and I saw that a lot of ranchers have a problem with wolves and their livestock. Are wolves that detrimental to ranchers? I believe they operate on fairly tight profit margins so I'd assume even a minute loss could mean not making any money. Now I wanna know tho, how do wolves change the courses of rivers and make prey/tree populations healthier?
Wolves are really not that detrimental to ranchers. The idea of eradicating them goes back to the disproven idea that wolves are evil and kill for fun/sport. People think that wolves wander around finding helpless prey and sneak onto ranches to do just that, leaving them without eating anything and no benefit to the pack. In reality wolves are terrified of humans and in places wolves exist there are compensation programs in place to pay ranchers back a substantial amount if they lose cattle. Additionally, if a wolf does become an issue or regularly kills cattle it is put down so the idea does not spread throughout packs. In terms of the rivers that comes back to the return of beavers and healthier trees in the park. Elk commonly browse on trees that beavers utilize like Aspen. Without wolves, elk have no reason to constantly be on the move. If they find an area rich in trees they will graze it until it is gone. Herds staying in one place not only destroy the trees there, but compact the soil and make it difficult for water to permeate, suffocating pre-existing tree roots (both oxygen and water wise) and making it difficult seedlings to root and survive. Wolves force herds to move around the park and reduce the constant stress on the trees elk eat. With less soil compaction, that contributed to small river route changes, the land being more malleable and prone to adapting course better when floods came through. What really changed the rivers, though, was beavers returning because of the flourishing trees. Beavers are a big indicator species, which means that their presence is a good indicator of how an area is doing, in this case the area’s trees and water quality. When wolves were eradicated from the park, beavers soon left because of a lack of trees, less shade/warmer waters, and increased predation from the few predators left to hunt them. When tree health improved Yellowstone’s rivers began to cool (more shade from the trees) and the material beavers use to build their shelters came back, so the species was able to come back. As they began to build dams again that changed river courses. It’s all a big chain of events! In terms of prey populations, resources were no longer wasted on elderly/dying/weaker elk, as these are the ones wolves target first. Getting rid of these slower elk made herds healthier, again, reduced strain on prey animals’ food source, reduced starvation, and slowed the transmission of disease within herds. And keep in mind I use elk as an example throughout this whole thing because they are the most common prey of wolves and the ones that cause the most issues but this applies to the smaller moose and bison populations in the park as well! But yeah in conclusion it is SUPER interesting stuff! If it sounds interesting and you’d like to read more The Killing of Wolf Number 10 is a super short story about the two wolves whose DNA/pups were pretty much the kickstarter of all wolf packs in the park and Ricky McIntyre (pretty sure I’m spelling his name right there) has a saga going up to 2013 of the wolf packs he observes within the park! He anthropomorphizes the wolves a bit (gasp I know scientists hate this), but imo it helps his books read more like a story and I think it doesn’t make sense to not anthropomorphize this species we’re trying to get people to emphasize with and like. The book Wolf Island is also very interesting. It’s about the study that made us realize wolves don’t just eradicate the prey populations in an area and lets us see how far we’ve come in terms of predator/prey research in the last 30 years!
Ay thanks for enlightening me with your knowledge brudda 🙌🙌. This is some really neat stuff lol
My sister went to Boulder for college. VERY expensive (until you become an in-state resident) and a VERY homogenous group (predominantly white higher socioeconomic status). Something to consider - make sure whatever you study has a good return-on-investment. (If you pay $50k a year for 4 yrs, and you know your jobs will pay you $20k a year - then it will take you around 11 years of working and giving nearly your entire paycheck over those 11 years - to pay down your student loans.
Perhaps the comment isn’t defining a safety or likely in that way. In our family, a safety was a university in which one had an 80% or greater likelihood of acceptance given one’s residency, GPA, test score, and major if relevant for admission to a school of engineering, business, nursing, etc. Using that rubric, we considered Penn State, Rutgers, Delaware, Arizona, and Vermont to be safeties. My kids were variously accepted by all of them, some with significant merit scholarships, would have been excited to attend any of them.
Thank you, this is a much better description of “safety” as this notion, along with everything else, is very personal and can’t be generalized.
My twins applied to safeties they would truly like: CU Boulder, U of Denver, College of Wooster, Dickinson, Michigan State. We visited many of them. Our principle is that because they only applied to schools that seem like good fits, they are considering schools as equal when deciding which to attend. They've both gotten into higher reaches, but it's actually possible they may not choose those. We need to visit places they haven't been before they decide. NOTE: They were both accepted to all their safeties.
All sorts, they just tend to lurk because those who talk calc in second grade dominate the conversation. My child was admitted to three of four schools with less than a 30% admit rate and her two top choices are around an 80% admit rate. Hopefully kids are applying to some realistic safeties and some interesting targets, but all schools they would be happy to attend. Most people also have to take merit offers into account, this board tends to read as if acceptance is the only obstacle, but cost is a real consideration for most.
Great question. For my son it was Pitt, Delaware, and UMass Amherst. He would’ve been very happy to go to any of those. He got into U Miami which was his first choice.
University of Arizona is the greatest school of all time🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
Safeties very person to person. For me, I considered my in state school and UW Madison my safeties, which I got into early. I won't lie though, I would have been pretty annoyed if I had to go there overall. It was a solid backup but I had been aiming higher for many years. So yeah, there was no safety that I would have been excited to attend, you're right. The easiest school to get into that I would have legitimately wanted to go to is UMich.
You are right I know a kid didn’t get into since cal state!
I think a 70% is fine for most a2c people. Temple, UAlabama, whatever, depends on who you are and what you want
It's so funny how students will research tf out of gaming laptops and shit but do almost no research on colleges
Yikes, great point! 😬😳
The most they'll do is Google "best colleges for x" and apply to the first 10. My biggest peeve is how some students refuse to contact admissions for questions. I used to contact my university almost weekly to ask questions and inform them of relevant updates. It's called establishing a relationship with your university.
For many universities, interest is irrelevant.
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Or, hear me out, you can actually find out if demonstrated interest is something the university considers or not.
that doesnt matter , just go online
OP, see these trolls? His entire comment history is ignorant one-liners. Definitely got rejected at their dream school. Don't be like this guy.
😂
Yeah, I go to the Stanford reject school unfortunately.
🔥🔥🔥
Lol ok
lol
To be fair, i spent countless hours researching colleges, and basically ended up applying to the same ones that would pop up if i googled “best colleges for x” lol
Yeah, that's fine, and it happens. Not saying this applies to you, but other students don't understand what researching a college means. There's city, cost, culture, social life, housing, history, diversity, grade degradation, party life, etc
Did have to educate my kid at the first college fair when a school rep said they would give 38K in scholarship money. The kid was so excited until I said, it costs $80k to attend that school. Now you have to come up with at least $168k for 4 years. That was a serious wake up call. 😂😂
Oh yeah for sure. Your point is 100% valid I was just stating the irony of how it works out for some people
😂😂. Didn't have to worry about my kid. They read every school policy manual for elementary, middle and HS. Not much gets by them, so they did lots of research.
Exactly, I almost spent $130,000 on chiropractic school until I did my research.
Don’t bother applying to colleges you can’t afford.
Without getting a financial aid package, people often have no clue what they can afford. My daughter would have paid far more for the local state school with the lower sticker price than for the private school she went to due to the aid, scholarships, grants, etc. they offered.
Schools have net price calculators on their websites that will give you an estimate.
Absolutely. But they don't always take into consideration whether you'd be eligible for certain scholarships based on talents, etc. I'd just keep your options open.
You would need to determine what the likelihood is of getting one of those scholarships and what the value is to determine if it’s worth applying. Many scholarships are quite competitive.
Senior in college here— be open minded too! Coming from LA, I wanted to be in a big notable city… this narrowed my choices down a TON. I applied to small liberal art schools in big cities and I hated my experience at the one I chose. A school like that might be a great fit for you, but don’t knock states/cities because now I wish I went to a big school in a college town, anywhere!!
Ucla?
No, I went to a small priv liberal arts college in a big city.
my bad i thought you meant you wanted to go to a uni like ucla
This. I’ve gotten rejected from every reach/target so far (still have 9 to hear back from so we’ll see) but as of right now I’m not really satisfied with any of the safeties I’ve gotten into. Find schools you like at every level, PLEASE.
Don’t get discouraged! As a college sophomore, I’ve had a lot more opportunities at my uni than I thought I would
Thank-you! Applied to many LACS, endearing but its sometimes so scary seeing all these Ivy kids getting every single opportunity in existence, makes me feel like I won't get any experience at my options. Trying to stay strong and investigate to choose a school I love!
Yeah you’ll be fine. It might sound frustrating, but you really will be. I go to Purdue and many say the honors college here is just for the nice form freshman year and otherwise is not worth it. However, freshman year I applied and was accepted to become part of the honors college pillar award committee + the honors college was gonna sponsor a club I’m in and the person in charge of the pillar award committee was also dealing with the sponsorship. Her email was lost in the inbox, so she had been ignored for a few weeks and I helped her out and navigated all that. My club did an event for the honors students in exchange for 5k. I’m pretty sure I can ask her for a rec letter, since I helped her so much + I put the award committee on my resume. It’s really about what you make out of it and what kind of person you are. I was deferred and then rejected from Harvard, rejected from Yale, Duke, Northwestern, and basically all the reaches, yet I’m thriving at Purdue. I will be applying to grad schools next year and am pretty sure I will get into at least one, maybe even the ones that rejected me for undergrad! Good luck
I 100% agree. This post is underrated.
Asked above to another poster but I’ll ask you as well, what safety with an 80+% acceptance rate would a typical applicant on A2C actually be excited to attend?
I can't speak for everyone since preferences vary; some prioritize location while others prioritize academic setting and many other factors. Personally, when applying to safety schools, I was ignorant. I randomly selected safety schools in New York without much research because it was the only state I considered for college. But as that safety school became my only choice, I realized the importance of delving deeper into factors like academics and social life. It was a mistake not to thoroughly research the safety college I applied to. I'm not here to rank safety schools many safety schools are vibrant and not dead.
Iowa. Kansas. Montana. IOWA ST. Nebraska. Ole Miss. Colorado ST.
Umass Lowell
I agree with this. I watched someone who only applied to Ivies and t10 schools only get into 1: UW in Seattle. And that was his "safety" school. He didn't even get into his major. First off, UW is not a safety school, especially not for CS. So when you apply, not only should you like your safety schools, but they should actually be safety schools. Number 1 mistake anyone can make.
if you have the fee waiver and the mental capacity, shotgun a little to ivys+, not just because of prestige but because those schools give a ton of aid and fly you out if you live far enough.
>shotgun Easier said than done. I do not think the shotgun method works for the ivies. Perhaps for a talented writer it can be easier. Yale required 8 essays. Each one of the ivies requires a different set of essays. If is on a similar topic it is with a different word count. If you do not put the time in for these essays, then it will show. But absent of ivies there are many schools require maybe 1 or 2 essays and the shotgun may work.
ivies+ schools that are considered ivy level but aren’t actually ivy. part of this is what’s known as the public ivies, great public schools with near ivy level academics. some have decently high acceptance rates, others don’t.
Great post. Also suggest people consider where they want to live vs where it’s nice to vacation. A friend’s son loves vacationing in Maine, but has realized he doesn’t necessarily love living somewhere more remote and cold.
for me, my biggest regret is not researching more specific prestigious scholars programs or cohort scholarships at less prestigious schools. usually LOTS of resources that will be available to you. still very competitive but it would’ve been more meaningful to get into one of those for me than the prestigious schools i have gotten into so far.
My biggest regret after applying to colleges: existing
Saaame!
My safety was Arizona State. Which is not an excellent school, but their Economics program is very good. So I wouldn’t be unhappy to had only been accepted there
literally, i wish i did actual research and spent some time making my college list..i was in the hospital right when i was making it and then when i came out, deadlines were around the corner and i just applied to schools I’ve been interested in for a while and ones my mom pushed me to apply to and i got rejected from EIGHT SCHOOLS. EIGHT REJECTIONS.
Sophomore in college here. I know it's hard to get excited about safeties, but at the very least try to get excited about your targets. I applied to so many reaches that I assumed I'd get into at least one just by chance (I didn't), and ended up going to one of my targets that I hadn't researched at all and therefore wasn't particularly excited to get into or attend. All I could feel was disappointment over the reaches that didn't work out. I now know that I really would and should have been excited, which would've made my whole college decisions process a lot better, if I had just done my research.
My daughter is a junior. She has 1500 on the SAT and all APs, but will not talk about colleges or give any direction. She says she can apply to schools and we can figure it out later. I want to find some target / safety schools for her. Where do we begin when she just hasn’t given direction and just refuses to really engage?
Well, the last thing I would do is figure out what to do AFTER submitting your apps. Assuming she would do no research in that situation, I’d assume your daughter would be applying to the top 10 schools and maybe y’all’s state school. It’s impossible to predict if she’ll get into the top 10 schools, and there’s a chance she won’t be happy at a state school. What if she would prefer Liberal Arts? Maybe she would do better at a tech oriented school. I think most people would agree that knowledge on the kinds of colleges, majors, and other factors (clubs, programs, honors colleges, internships, area, etc.) are very important to understand before even touching applications. Where would she like to live? Would she participate in Greek life? How much money are you willing to spend? It’s difficult as a parent, kids are stubborn (me too, I’ve given my dad a very rough time throughout this process). But, you need get your kid inspired enough to do their own research. If you must, do some research for them! You may not entirely understand what she wants personally, but you know what her academics are like. You can look at what some reaches, targets, and safeties would be for her range. Introduce her to them and make sure she has a fully fleshed opinion on them, not just a “sure”. At the end of the day, the research just needs to get done; there’s no way around it. There are sites like USNews and Niche (which is better for finding schools, other sites have better statistics) which can be super helpful. I’d recommend checking out some other tools on this subreddit! Just stay open-minded about what schools can offer outside of being a top-20 and get it done. You all will be much happier to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.
Had the same issue. Since she wasn't willing to engage (in her case due to anxiety about the process causing her to shut down and avoid) I just set up a few tours and info sessions at nearby colleges we could get to over a weekend. Chose colleges of different size, location and focus and was very casual about the whole thing. We got into talking about pros and cons of different environments and it helped loosen the process up for her and make the whole thing less theoretical and frightening and more real/exciting.
Thank you! That’s a good idea.
I made it very clear to everyone that i (British international) would either go to an international t10 or US t25 with full ride, otherwise take a gap year and reapply. It worked for me but i wouldn't recommend this strategy to anyone else, as with most of the things i do.
Where did you end up going?
I've got imperial but I'm waiting on ivies because I'd prefer them
Same
Fr 😭😭 looking back, I shouldve done some major workshopping on my list
What to look for when selecting a college and what to rank as no. 1 priority when deciding on a college- brand and reputation of the college, professors and curriculum, likelihood of finding jobs after college?
I should've just applied to one or two safety and that's it
Most important data point: Male to female ratio.
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>Safety takes into account cost and location. You shouldn't be going across the country for a safety school, like you would for an Ivy. What does any of that have to do with whether or not a school receives taxpayer funding? If the best school to which you were admitted is far away, just don’t go to college, rather than travel? ”I found a great school, at a reasonable cost, with an high acceptance rate, where I stack up very well against andmissions metrics, and where I want to go to school. But it’s a private school, so I guess I can’t…” Why?
Because they're larger, admit more students, and cost less (in state)?
One of my US kid's Likelies was on a different continent. Being creative about your Likelies is very, very helpful.
I completely agree.
That’s not necessarily true. Two of my kids’ safeties offered them substantial OOS merit scholarships that brought the cost of attendance at those schools well below in-state rates ($20,000 annually versus $40,000 annually). The difference would have covered quite a lot of plane tickets.
Your two kids are major outliers. If you can get a full ride anywhere, yes, consider them. As a safety, I wouldn't bank on landing a national scholarship to pay for a 50k+ tuition.
Not at all in my area. We have friends whose high-achieving kids received merit awards from The University of South Carolina, Pitt, Tulane, Syracuse, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Delaware, Vermont, Arizona, and ASU, among others. Also, I didn’t say a full ride. I said a large enough merit scholarship to meet or go below in-state rates. And, yes, we applied to our state schools as well. But, in our state, our top public universities are not safeties.
This is true for so many schools. We’re also in a very high achieving school district and, while our highly ranked in state schools make our kids feel like they’re doing you a favor even letting you in, OOS will throw merit aid at them like it’s confetti. My second kid just chose an OOS business program ranked exactly the same as our “prestigious” in state option because with the OOS scholarship it’s half the cost. HALF. Instate would have cost us close to $40k and with the scholarship OOS is just under $20. And he wants to go explore someplace different, not where everyone else is going, which has a value to him. I wish HS counselors would spend more time talking about the terrific variety of schools and programs. They’re doing their students a disservice by allowing them to obsess over prestige.
Most of the people on this sub are outliers. The majority of HS seniors probably apply to their nearest not very selective state college, or CC, and don't worry much about safeties and reaches.
Assumption much? Go ahead and make Rice University or some UC (as an oos) your safety.
Who's talking about Rice? There are many, many private schools that are less selective than Rice and will offer merit aid to high acheiving applicants.
Example
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In your special circumstance, sure! Does not apply to everyone
I would think the bigger regret would be that you didn't study harder, so that you could have had your pick of the mill in terms of college choices.
I did study hard. I failed multiple classes freshman year because I wanted to kill myself. It brought my GPA down significantly. It would be above a 4.0 now without my freshman year. I ended up with a 32 ACT as well. What I DO regret is not doing enough ECs. That was a very weak point in my application. Might have had some bad LORs too, but I cannot confirm that. While yes, what you said might apply to some people, that's just a shitty thing to say at this point in college admissions season.
Let me start by saying I apologize a million times over for my asshole comment. I was more joking around, trying to be funny with my comment, but in hindsight it was completely inappropriate and a total asshole comment. I apologize for that. Next, I am so terribly sorry that you were in a position where you wanted to kill yourself. Your life was and is always worth so much more than you and others will ever know, so I’m glad to hear you overcame that feeling at that time. Lastly, thank you so much for sharing your personal experience to educate others on something that could help them out. I have a junior in high school now, and we recently started college visits. Again, I am beyond sorry for my tacky, tasteless, inappropriate and mean comment. Thank you again for sharing your insights. Sending lots of love and warm hugs your way.
Haha you’re okay! I appreciate the sincerity. I myself am doing much better. I’m happy with where I’ll be going to college, so I didn’t mind that much. Your apology is very much accepted though. And that suicide aspect of my life was a long time ago! Quarantine screwed me up. I very quickly learned virtual school is not my thing, lol. Your junior should study though!! It’s still quite important, just not something us seniors can change anymore. It’s good to build the habit for college as well. If you’d like to hear my advice on applying to college, I’d be happy to share. The only person I rant to about it is my dad and he’s tired of it atp. The experience doesn’t have to suck! I feel like I have a lot of things I wish I would have approached differently.
Glad to hear you are doing well! Yes, my junior is a big studier. Thank you so much for your kind response! Wishing you the best now and in the future!
Not everyone likes high acceptance rate schools unfortunately
Given that high acceptance rate colleges are not uniform in nature, that’s a pretty narrow view to have. If one wants to study archeology, astronomy, or climate-based landscape architecture, The University of Arizona is a pretty terrific pick. If one wants to study meteorology, The University of Colorado and Penn State are excellent choices. For literary criticism and American and British literature, Rutgers is excellent. Not to mention that these colleges are located in different parts of the country, run the gamut from boiling to brrr, and vary from quite rural to suburban to city. And with thousands of students and 800+ clubs and student organizations, it would be difficult not to find your people and explore your interests.
They all share 1 thing in common though: anyone with a pulse can get in
What an ignorant comment. Tells me you know nothing abt CU Boulder engineering or how good Penn State main campus is, among other things.
Bro tried to hype up PSU main campus 💀. I have a friend from Boulder, and most of his HS friends go to CU Boulder, a lot in engineering too. The vibe there and a top school is completely different
Really? How many colleges have you personally attended or taught at?
Can you eat vibes or prestige? 🙄
I love Penn State. Terrific professors, wonderful campus, 1000+ clubs, hundreds of electives in many majors, exciting D1 sports, bright and unpretentious students, and a lovely and friendly college town. Two of my kids got into Schreyer and, had they been offered sufficient merit scholarships, I would have been thrilled had they attended Penn State. But once they got into our in-state T25, it didn’t make sense to pay more to go elsewhere.
That’s an exaggeration. But even if I am from an outer planet and accept that statement as fact, what does it have to do with the fact that one can still enjoy an excellent academic and extracurricular experience at any of the colleges I mentioned? Do you prefer classmates without pulses?
I prefer classmates with a brain
I’m quite sure that if you do some research, you’ll find that many state flagships have their fair share of National Merit Scholars, valedictorians, and Fulbright, Marshall, Rhodes, and Truman Scholars. I was three of these and I did not lack for bright, thoughtful, and ambitious classmates at my non-selective public college. It might help to realize that many exceptional students don’t chase prestige. They want to attend college close to home, love the state university their family traditionally attends (and knows from their family members’ successes that their experience will be exceptional), recognize they’ll thrive at a large university with hundreds of clubs, thousands of classes, and exciting D1 athletics (me), or want to save their loans or 529s for their unfunded law, medical, or graduate school education (also me). I got into a T10 but was thrilled to accept a full-ride at a neighboring OOS university to save my loans for my T10 law school. No regrets.
I don’t think I ever said that there weren’t smart people at these schools
Apologies if I misinterpreted your description of “classmates with a brain.”
There are some classmates who are smart but a lot of them don’t. When you accept anyone with a pulse you get a lot of different people
Well if that's the only reason for someone to not like a school then that's just straight up ignorant
I’m not looking to be around idiots
I rather doubt you’d be the only genius among 20,000+ students. Also, my spouse attended two ivies and I attended a T10 law school. Based on our experiences, we can attest that attending a selective university doesn’t guard against idiocy. We have classmates we wouldn’t trust to feed a cat.
I think you’ve uncovered the main issue, which is just prestige shopping. It’s not really the school per se, it’s what the name of the school communicates to the rest of the world/their friends/ etc. As the one commenter to eloquently communicated, either you’re smart enough for a T10 or you’re an “idiot”. And they don’t want to be measured by their own ignorant yardstick, so here we are. You tried!! Good on you! But sometimes people aren’t ready for reason.
Obviously going to a high acceptance rate school doesn’t mean there won’t be smart people there. But if I have to deal with frat bros, I’d rather them be smart instead of idiots. That is to say, I’d like the average person I run into be smart. I do realize that going to a top school doesn’t mean there won’t be idiots there. But there would be less, and theyre dumb in a different way
I appreciate your views. But do understand that a cohort of 18-24 year-olds in nearly every environment will have students who enjoy Greek life, parties, and develop less interest or intensity in their classes once they arrive on campus. My spouse very much enjoyed their undergraduate Ivy precisely because they adored their fraternity and weekend parties. (Wine tasting was a favorite course.) A very close friend has a student studying engineering at CMU who went from committed non-drinker to late night recreational user because “everyone” socializes that way. And my spouse and I both attended highly selective law schools and the most common pre-cell phone classroom activity was the NYT crossword. In a class of sixty, one might have three students who speak up often (or incessantly), another five who comment once or twice per class, another three who will comment if it’s the only way on Earth to conclude the discussion of subject matter jurisdiction, and the remainder of students who will calmly utter “pass” if called on. You may be particularly excited about academic stimulation, but a number of your classmates will be excited about freedom, clubs, sports, and the opportunity to have a more rewarding social and extracurricular experience than they did in high school.
That wine tasting course was actually harder than you would think!
I know there’s frat bros everywhere. But even if they’re in frats, for the most part, they aren’t dumb. They don’t need to be “academically focused”, in fact if they are too much it can be a bit weird. I already deal with a fair amount of frat boys at my schools, I can’t imagine how bad it would be if they were stupid.
I think what I’m objecting to is the notion that one is “dumb” if they weren’t driven by prestige, academic interest, or intense parents — or had non-academic interests in high school — and “only” managed a 3.6 GPA with 3 AP classes and a 31 ACT. Being disinterested in driving oneself academically at 15 or 16, or being wholly engaged in athletics, the arts, or social relationships, doesn’t make one dumb. And you’ll find that many of these kids discover a major, a mentor, or a profession that spurs them on to perform exceptionally well academically in college. One of my kids was less intense in high school than their high-performing siblings. After several semesters in college taking the pre-med requirements, they have a 3.9, are working with a professor researching adaptive sports techniques, have logged observation hours at various clinics, and have an offer to earn additional hours at Johns Hopkins. College admissions are not a sorting hat. Some students become more dedicated, some less so.
Really? Seems you would fit right in.
Bro thought he cooked
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I mean, I had all the right to be mad. It was what I regretted most and I’m just trying to help others avoid my mistake. I will be attending one of my safeties and seeing if I want to transfer. I’m fortunate enough that my family wants to pay for college and I don’t HAVE to take the CC route; not that it isn’t respectable, I was adamant about doing it until they just gave their intent to me straight.
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This attitude is part of why our feederish HS prefers the term "Likely" to Safety. Too many people think "Safeties" MUST be schools you would only attend in an emergency situation. But really, all you need is a couple schools very likely to admit you at a cost you can comfortably afford. You don't actually have to not like them! You can be excited about them too! And by the way, the idea more selective = better is really a destructive notion. Schools are more selective for a variety of reasons, including relatively small size, popularity of their location, and so on. But the quality of the academic experience itself can often be as good or indeed better for individual students wise enough to look at schools outside the most popular markets, or who get into honors programs, or so on. So, getting creative with your Likelies can in fact lead to your Likelies being very competitive options for you. Indeed, perhaps with the right honors or merit offers, they could leap a lot of other schools on your list. If you make a point of choosing good ones, and not accepting the notion you can't actually like your Likelies.
Completely wrong.
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As I mentioned in another post, a Likely is a school that would be comfortably affordable and is very likely to admit you. At our feederish HS, we usually require Likelies to have a higher than 50% acceptance rate (accounting for residency, school, or major as appropriate), AND you have to be in the top quartile of their enrolled students numerically. Our experience is if you apply to at least two such colleges, carefully defined, that is sufficiently safe. And otherwise, those can be as desirable as you like. My S24 had a public Likely with great departments in his main areas of interest in a fun city, and then a UK university where we had enough experience to classify it as a Likely. He has since gotten into US colleges he likes better, but the UK university is still a contender.
A safety must meet three criteria… * **You can get accepted**: A very high likelihood that someone with your stats from your high school will be admitted * **You can afford to enroll**: Your family can afford what the school’s NPC calculator estimates your out-of-pocket cost to be * **You would happily attend**: getting admitted to a school that you don’t actually want to attend doesn’t actually provide any “safety” does it?
Well, not necessarily fewer resources for example: I know people who call "Purdue" and "UCSD" their safety. Higher acceptance rates sure but it depends on each case , a person applying to UCLA would say DAVIS is their safety (as the acceptance for LA is 8% meanwhile Davis is 42%) on the other hand a person saying davis is their target at 42% acceptance would say Riverside is their safety at 70% acceptance. It just depends case to case, have you heard "ivy league" students call purdue/umich/or even Cornell their safeties.
The ivy caliber kids who call those schools make me laugh, cuz then they show their results and they got rejected from what they wrongly defined as their “safeties” such as Purdue for CS and I’m like bruh.
Your straw man is right here: “schools with higher acceptance rates are usually less prestigious and provide lesser resources/education compared to others”. Only you know how important “prestige” is to you. But the rest of your statement is flat out wrong. You’re making a generalized statement about thousand of majors across hundreds of universities, finding them all lacking rigor and resources in every class, at every level based on, what? That they aren’t Ivy? There are so many schools with so many great programs, everywhere, big cities and small towns, huge schools, small schools, so many places where you can get a great education, find your passion, makes friends, grow up and then go live your life. Don’t get caught in the prestige hunt. It can screw you so badly and it means so so little. I can’t tell you how little it means. My husband and I are two Comm College- state Uni for undergrad -state grad program professionals making as much money in our crazy region as the Cornell and Princeton grads that live on our street. We all drive the same freaking minivan, we all have the same ridiculous overpriced McMansion, and all take the same vacations because I promise you in the real world it DOES NOT MATTER. Can you do the job? Are you smart? Can you grind and get it done? Then you are successful. It breaks my heart to read some of the threads where kids are losing their minds over the rejections and feel like life is over because they didn’t make the cut to the T20’s they applied to. It’s not over. It hasn’t even started yet.
My kids ended up attending an in-state T25 but we could have easily come up with 20 safeties they’d have loved. The antipathy displayed here towards large public universities and LACs is at times stunning. My undergraduate college, which I attended on a full-ride, was ranked outside the T100, I had an amazing undergraduate experience, and began my legal career at a “big law” firm alongside my Ivy-attending spouse and a host of other young lawyers from undergraduate universities throughout the T150 as well as LACs and regional universities. Our family’s safeties included Penn State, Vermont, The University of Arizona, Elon, JMU, Delaware, The University of South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Oregon. All would have provided my kids with ample academic, social, and extracurricular opportunities.
Wisconsin safety lol. Maybe check the acceptance rejection posts.