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Consolation
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| Joined: | Mon Apr 9th, 2007 |
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 03:38 pm |
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I have been engaged in trying to find a true "safety" for my son to apply to next year--thanks for everyone's advice  -- and it occured to me that perhaps I needed to forget about a safety and refocus on schools that would offer him what he really needs out of college, rather than ones that would be almost certain to admit him.
This is a kid who has really come alive only in the most challenging educational situations with the brightest fellow students: CTY, certain AP classes a few other classes where he has been able to work very independently.
I guess what I'm saying is this: should he really consider attending a safety if we are fairly sure that it would not offer him the intellectual climate he really needs to thrive? Would it be preferable to take a year off and pursue something that would actually inspire him during a gap year, and then reapply to schools he really wants to go to? (All this in the eventuality that he doesn't get in to any of his top choices, of course.)
I'm thinking that maybe it is just as well to go into this without a net, so to speak. Has anyone else made that choice, or considered it?
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WestrnMom
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 03:45 pm |
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You have a misconception about safety schools. They should not be schools that are not going to challenge him or provide a good education. Just because a school is easy to gain admission to (lower GPAs or large enough that they accept most applicants) doesn't mean it's going to be too easy. In California, for example, many of the Cal States are considered "safeties" but they all have honors programs where bright, motivated students can be challenged and receive excellent educations.
Besides, a student like your son is not going to be turned down from match schools if he selects carefully. What I noticed from reading the data given out at CC is that students who end up with no viable options to choose from have aimed too high. If they apply only to schools that are reaches for everyone, then they will be disappointed. If they have a realistic list, then just about every school on it can be an academic match, even if they are safeties.
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mackinaw
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 03:45 pm |
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Consolation, you're discovering what many here would contend: a safety is only a safety if it's a school that your son would willingly attend.
Thus the minimum criteria for defining a safety are:
(1) Is admission almost certain, given the applicant's record and the admission rates and stats of admitted students at a given school;
(2) Is this a school that the applicant would really like to attend (not necessarily a first choice, of course, but one he or she likes)?
Additional criteria for defining a safety, might be:
(3) Is this also a school that the applicant can afford (given likely costs and financial aid)? (Some would refer to this as a "financial safety.")
(4) Is this a school with rolling admission or early admission, so that it can serve as a true "backup" during the high season of admissions, thereby allowing both student and parents to breathe a bit easier?
Last edited on Mon Apr 30th, 2007 03:47 pm by mackinaw
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mominva
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 03:50 pm |
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Consolation,
There are many schools which have special programs such as Honors, Scholars, Fellows, etc., which offer challenging environments for bright students who are statistically above their average. Students in these programs thrive and often receive merit scholarships.
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jocelynDAD
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 04:29 pm |
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Consolation:
Although we as parents 'feel' we are closely aware of our child(ren) potential and capabilities, it really is important for the child to establish her/his perferences as to challenges and what 'fits' best for him/her.
Colleges come in all sizes, shapes, locales, and student bodies.
Giving your child a good and varied look via visiting a variety of schools will allow him to establish the atmosphere and such that will best suit him.
That said Mac and WestrnMom's advice is on the mark IMO.
It is very hard for a parent to loosen the strings as we have been so involved in protecting and 'clearing the way' for our child as they grew. However, as they get close to college days, IMO we have to rely on our past efforts in advicing and guding to have created in our child the awareness to develop their own ability to decide what is best for them.
Framing the discussion, guiding the child to good choices and supporting them are our priorities, but we can only go so far, after than they must IMO walk on their own.
BTW, children tend to find their levels and friendships to meet their interests and needs. Colleges, even smaller LAC's, have hundreds of students, larger schools have thousands. Challenges and interests tend to go hand in hand.
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entomom
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 04:34 pm |
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We would never have considered going without at net. Actually, my D loved her safeties, at times more than some of her matches and reaches. One of the schools she had the hardest time turning down was UWisconsin.
I guess my feeling is that most kids are not "hot house" flowers, but rather will bloom where ever they land. And of the 3000 colleges out there, a safety within the top hundred or so will provide excellent soil to nurture most plants.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 04:54 pm |
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I hear this from a lot of highly qualified students and their parents. What I tell them is: Your goal is to have GREAT colleges to reject next spring.
I prefer not to call them "safety schools" because that implies that they are "lesser." Just because a school would find your admissions profile highly desirable, it doesn't automatically mean it won't be challenging or offer contact with other talented and motivated students. And, selectivity doesn't automatically translate into challenge either. So, be careful in thinking "any school that would have me is not one I'd want to attend" like the old Groucho Marx joke.
My son has similar stats to your son. Like your son, he feels that he is only intellectually alive when he is at CTY and in a few select classes at school,. He is chomping at the bit to get somewhere where he'll be around others who "think like him." He has a top choice school that fits him like a glove, but he knows that he may not get in.
In looking for other schools, his rule of thumb is whether he feels a school is on the same "continuum" as his top choice school - in other words, is there a similar academic and social culture, even if it is not quite on the same level of intensity? Are students interested in learning? Are students interested in ideas? Is he going to find faculty that will help him achieve and encourage his intellectual interests and goals ? Are there similar opportunities for intellectual challenge, even if he might have to be a little more persistent at finding them? He's actually found plenty of schools that might work, and has three "safe bets" that he thinks would work really well.
There are 2,600 colleges and universities in the U.S. You and your son just haven't given the first 500 or so a chance yet. 
Finally, also keep in mind that what's considered a "Safe bet" for a top student is going to be VERY different than a "safe bet" for a more mid-range student. You don't need a school that admits 100% of students to call it a "safe bet." You just need one that would find what your son is offering very desirable in a candidate.
But, every college list needs a firm foundation, a safety net in case all else fails. Especially if you're aiming at the most competitive schools. Without a safety net in place, restful sleep will be hard to come by next year. While I'm not opposed to gap years for the right reasons, I would never use it as a "Safety net" because there are no guarantees of a different outcome reapplying the following year, especially given the way applications to the most selective schools keep rising each year. The only "safety net" in a gap year is having "safe bets" in the mix when you apply again. So, why not just put them in place to begin with? Then, if necessary, your son can choose a gap year, if need be, rather than having one forced on him.
Last edited on Mon Apr 30th, 2007 05:17 pm by CarolynLawrence
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HImom
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 05:28 pm |
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One other thing to consider is your child's major. For example, engineering and architecture as pretty challenging in nearly all schools. My S originally labeled the school he's now attending as his "safety," because it admits a lot of NMFs & gives them substantial merit awards (so we could afford it). He's very happy there, as are the 10% of his senior class that also matriculated there. (I strenously argued with him that with an admit rate of less than 25% & a pricetag approaching $50K/year, it can't really be considered a safety, but turns out he was right that for him as a NMF, it was a financial & admissions safety, or as their HS likes to say "likely.")
It is so important for us & our kids to find how kids like ours would fit in whatever schools they're applying to. A safety is worthless if the child would refuse to go even in accepted (save the app fee in such a case). My S really didn't want to apply to two schools that I thought he should, "just in case." To humor me, he went thru the motions but unknown to me did NOT request the HS send a transcript. I should have saved the app fees & fees for sending his scores & not bothered since he was totally disinterested in their generous acceptances with full-ride offers.
I believe he COULD have made the full-ride schools work if he wanted to, but he is very happy where he CHOSE to attend. It is not necessarily the most academically rigorous school, but its engineering department is well-respected & more rigorous than the Arts & Letters, and everyone has remarked at how he appears to be "thriving." He too has trouble when he can't find intellectual peers and folks to discuss things he thinks are interesting & important (world events, politics, WHY things are the way they are, etc.)
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Alumother
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 05:44 pm |
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I have an example of what I believe is a great safety. My son is a junior, GPA of whatever 50% A and 50% A- gets you when the school doesn't give A+, has taken all Honors and AP. Plays varsity soccer on his team that won their little league, writes for the newspaper, plays several instruments but none in public, expert handicapper of NCAA basketball.
SAT was 800V/720M with 3 hours of study, he wants to take it again because his Math PSAT was 760 and he thinks he can do better.
Has a shot at most places, although unlikely at HY, no go at MIT but that's not his interest. He is a legacy at Princeton where his sister is attending.
His safety? UMiami. Yes, ranked #54 on the US News etc. BUT. One of his possible majors is Marine Science - that or Neuroscience is his current thinking. UMiami has one of the top 5 graduate schools in the country, situated out on a causeway with palm trees and beautiful ocean all around. Plus a cafe and bar.... His hobbies, hip-hop music and basketball analysis (not kidding), are supported at UMiami by their school of music - where he can take music production classes, and by their school of communications - where he can take broadcast journalism and maybe get an internship with the Heat.
Plus the lagoon has an alligator in it. And Miami is extraordinarily diverse, which matters to him not just conceptually but in terms of how he really does choose his social groups.
I concur that he is probably less likely to have word-beating discussions with professors who have read ancient philosophers in ancient Greek as I did as an undergraduate at Princeton. But there are many ways to develop a broad understanding of the world and its phenomena. And UMiami admits 50-70 kids each year who have the same stats as my son so even if I believe that stats are what show intelligence - which I know is not universally the case - 50-70 kids is plenty.
They have told us he'd be a candidate for a full tuition scholarship. We are fortunate that it's not required - we can pay full ride. But it made him feel fantastic when the admissions officer told him that.
So to me, that's a good safety. And the best part of a good safety is that me, the mom, worries less. Which means he, the son, gets less bombarded by me in anxious mode.
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limner
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 06:23 pm |
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Consolation, my son loves an intellectual challenge. The schools he like best were intellectually challenging, the Ivies, UChicago. We didn't go without a "safe bet," but his only true one wasn't someplace I thought was a good fit. I let it slide until he was deferred from his ED (and first choice) school. In January, I asked him to read about Earlham to see if it interested him. It did, so he visited in early Feb. (Earlham has a 2/15 app deadline). He really, really liked the school and said he'd be "happy to go there."
When he wrote to decline his other acceptances this past week, he said that Earlham was one of the toughest to turn down (along with UMich). So, as others have said, there are intellectually challenging schools out there that can be "safe bets." I, personnally, don't recommend going for broke (sans safeties) in the admissions process. There's a thread on CC where a mom details one kid's saga when he applied without a safety. He end up scrambling to do a meaningful gap year but did, ultimately, end up at a school he was very happy with.
For some further data points, my son applied to 13 schools, a number I found almost embarrassing, until all the results were in. He was accepted at 5, waitlisted at 5, and rejected at 3 (all rejections were from Ivies). And he wasn't a slouch in the application pool; he was an NMF, had 4 APs by end of junior year (with one 4 and the rest 5s), took 6 more APs in senior year, had around a 4.2 W and 3.85 UW GPA, and we're from Tennessee, not usually an overly represented geographic area. So just keep in mind that it is a gamble, not a huge one probably, with your son, but a gamble just the same. And it makes for a looooong year with a larger meaure of anxiety.
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mackinaw
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 06:31 pm |
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expert handicapper of NCAA basketball
Alumother, I see a future in this. My son's numbers were about the same as yours and he ran a betting pool in high school covering NCAA and Pro sports (not a lot of money, mind you). His career, after a stint in a large accounting/consulting firm? Creating and writing about baseball statistics.
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Alumother
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 06:37 pm |
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Mackinaw, LOL, I will tell my son. He is going to start writing a column on sports for his high school paper next year. When asked what it would be about, he responded, "Whatever I want, I guess..."
If he became a sportswriter/sportscaster I bet he'd be in hog heaven. I have to admit, I just don't know how it can be that interesting but he thinks my senior thesis at Princeton on Catalogues in Epic Poetry didn't sound too thrilling either.
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mattmom
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 08:18 pm |
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Another way to think about schools is to remember that the faculty at schools well below the traditional top 50 will still be excellent. It is really hard to get a tenure-track job in some fields, so a newly minted Ph.D. might be delighted to accept an offer from a school that is in the "safety" range for many applicants. It's also interesting to look at where well-regarded faculty members at various highly regarded schools got their undergraduate degrees--sometimes small private schools, sometimes non-flagship state schools. The doctorates tend to be from well-known resarch institutions, but again, it's an indication of how wide a net there is when it comes to first-class academcs.
Finding "smart enough" students to hang out with who are socially/intellectually/philosphically compatible is probably more of an issue than faculty intellectual/academic achievement, but honors programs at public schools and merit aid at private ones probably helps with the mix there, too. I would echo the posters who have emphasized the importance of structuring a list so that schools at all levels of admission difficulty are appealing to the applicant--whether in terms of setting, size, academic approach, or whatever. The important thing is to research them all and not just toss in a seemingly easy admit just because it's there but doesn't somehow fit in any other way--and not be dismissive of schools with higher acceptance rates. There are bright students who end up at unexpected schools for personal or financial or just quirky reasons.Last edited on Mon Apr 30th, 2007 08:20 pm by mattmom
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hummingbird
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 08:22 pm |
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| My son's list, which was assembled by him and me, contains a few safeties... one of which is an in-state university that he says he will NOT go to. We have a visit scheduled for later in May, at which time I hope he will at least give it some thoughtful consideration. If he continues to refuse to even acknowledge the possibility of going there, I guess it ought to come off the list (and save the application fee)? To me, it seems like there ought to be a state school on the list, just in case.
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mackinaw
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 08:31 pm |
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We definitely had an acceptable state school rolling-admissions safety (UMich) for our son, and he'd have been happy to attend it. For our daughter, we had no such public safety. She wouldn't entertain the notion of sitting in a college class with several students from her own high school. Her backup, if she'd not have succeeded with the schools she applied to, was to take a gap year and try again. That scared the h*ll out of us but fortunately things didn't come to that.
Last edited on Mon Apr 30th, 2007 08:32 pm by mackinaw
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Consolation
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 09:25 pm |
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mackinaw wrote: We definitely had an acceptable state school rolling-admissions safety (UMich) for our son, and he'd have been happy to attend it. For our daughter, we had no such public safety. She wouldn't entertain the notion of sitting in a college class with several students from her own high school. Her backup, if she'd not have succeeded with the schools she applied to, was to take a gap year and try again. That scared the h*ll out of us but fortunately things didn't come to that.
Unfortunately, we do not live in a state with an outstanding public university alternative. If we had in-state access to the University of California system, the Universtiy of Michigan, or a place like SUNY Binghampton, it would be a different matter altogether. When I read the remarks of the California residents on this list, it often seems to me that they don't realize how few public alternatives there are for some of us. Especially when price is factored in. OOS prices at most high quality public universities are not far from prices at elite private schools--without the possibility of extremely generous grants.
So far, I have had no luck persuading my son to spend any time looking at safe-bet schools. They simply don't seem to interest him. I hope to persuade him to consider on or two by the time fall rolls around.
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mattmom
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 09:47 pm |
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| It sounds as though he may not be as sensitive to the vagaries the admissions process as he could be. He and you might want to take a look at the where did we go wrong thread and follow up thread on the other site that some of us are or have been posters on because it is very enlightening and might be useful. Or you might suggest that he at least take alook at this site and get a sense of what can go awry for even the best-qualified applicants.
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orchestramom
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 10:22 pm |
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Here’s a slightly different twist on the safety school dilemma: sometimes there really isn’t one, even when you WANT one! In our family, we are getting used to this concept, simply because D is probably going for music performance and so much rides on the audition. Scary as this idea is, in some ways it’s a very good thing, because we have had to really focus on the specifics and understand that SHE CAN TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED. That means that she is researching and analyzing and preparing just as carefully for music programs that may have more attainable admissions odds as she is for the tippy-top, most selective conservatories on her list. It means that she can’t take her years of musical study and accomplishments OR her stellar academic stats for granted either; all of that matters, but not nearly so much as the auditions will. It also means that she’s really digging deep to figure out the priorities that matter to her, and where she is likely to find those things.
I actually think this is putting great perspective on the process (at least at this stage of the game). Self-confidence is absolutely required for a performer, or anyone else with drive, determination and ambition – these are qualities most of our smart brilliant kids are taking into their college searches – but OVER-confidence can sometimes lead to a misplaced sense of entitlement, and that can lead to huge disappointment if we're not careful.
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limner
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Posted: Mon Apr 30th, 2007 11:55 pm |
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Consolation wrote:
So far, I have had no luck persuading my son to spend any time looking at safe-bet schools. They simply don't seem to interest him. I hope to persuade him to consider on or two by the time fall rolls around.
My son wasn't really interested in looking at schools he hadn't heard of until later in the process. You might take a look at some schools, take notes, and then put aside that info until later.
My son had a "teachable moment" after the ED deferral, and there was still time to check out and apply to some other, excellent schools. It'll work out.
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Mezzomom
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Posted: Tue May 1st, 2007 12:57 am |
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| I think it's too easy to think of sure bet schools in terms of admissions alone and overlook the financial safety. We had saved for college all along, but then went through several years when my husband was un- or under-employed...during that period, we didn't save for college, and in fact, had to dip into some of those savings. Because of that, we insisted that our daughter have an in-state, public option on her list as her financial safety. She wasn't thrilled with her in-state option (wouldn't consider U-M because it's too close to home, so she went with one of the other state U's), but she understood the rationale for including it. We were fortunate that the financial safety became an unnecessary option, and in fact, her final choice ended up costing quite a bit less than the State U would have been.
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