1) Having A Bad Idea of What a Safety School Is
What is a “safety school?” It’s a college you apply to because you’re basically guaranteed to get in. There are safety schools, and there are safe-ish schools. A true safety is a school where you have over a 90% shot of acceptance. True safeties should never have acceptance rates below 70%.
But your safeties are not meant to rack up acceptances. Don’t apply to 5 safety schools. You want 2-3 well-chosen safety schools that do the job you need and that you would be proud to attend.
If you do apply to safety schools, be careful when picking which ones. Here’s why:
No one should call a school below 50% acceptance rate a pure safety.
Some colleges that were once safe may be less predictable, unless you demonstrate interest*.
Selective public universities have misleading acceptance rates. The published rate is for all applicants. In general, out-of-state applicants have a lower acceptance rate than in-state applicants.
*We’re in the era of yield. We saw some crazy things this year—students getting massive merit scholarships from very selective (20%-30% acceptance rate) schools and getting deferred/waitlisted from schools in the 70% range.
2) Thinking college admissions rates add up
I apply to 20 colleges with an average acceptance rate of 20%. Therefore, I should get into four. After all, 20% + 20% + 20%… equals a 400% chance. Right?
Wrong.
Not to get too mathy on you, but acceptance rates are not independent probabilities. You send every school the identical transcript, activities, and test scores. Your chances of impressing schools don’t increase by applying to more places.
College admissions is a subjective process, and winning applications tend to win more often. Applying to more colleges almost always means spending less time on each college’s application. Apply to too many, and you’re shooting low-quality shots.
It’s always a balance. You need enough schools of different acceptance levels to have robust options and maximize your odds, but the list needs to be reasonable. Otherwise, you risk shooting garbage shots.
3) Thinking you’re competing against the general population
You’re not being compared to Jessie from Iowa. You’re being compared to James, who goes to the high school across town and plays on your travel soccer team.
You compete against people who look like you on paper: racially, economically, and regionally. That demographic may be way more (or less) competitive than the overall rate.
This includes in-state vs. out-of-state for competitive public universities (UVA, UMichigan, UC Berkeley), which have acceptance rates that can be misleading for out-of-state students. At most competitive public universities, half of accepted students come from a smaller instate pool. A good rule of thumb is to halve the acceptance rate when applying out of state.
So, for example, if you live in Indiana and are applying to UMichigan, think half of 34%, UMichigan’s acceptance rate: in other words, roughly 17%.
Your activities in high school, majors, and career plans can matter too. This is especially true where you apply directly into a program, but it can be true for any college. Computer science, biomedical engineering, neuroscience, and finance are all much more competitive.
Philosophy may not be as selective.
You might be exceptional on a national level, but colleges want to see if you are outstanding among kids with similar resources and circumstances.
This is why in our college counseling program, we work heavily to create a holistic picture of an applicant’s life and find ways to convey what a resume might not.
4) Using the safety-fit-reach system, to begin with
I hate the safety-fit-reach system. It’s too vague. It’s too arbitrary.
It’s not clear enough. So we’re creating a detailed calculator to help you figure out where you stand. Stay tuned.
