But what’s your Safety school?

When you’re applying to college you put together a list of the schools you’re going to apply to, usually divided into three types (reach, match, safety).

The redheaded stepchild of this list is usually the safety school. Underappreciated and given almost no attention.

There are some major mistakes people make with their safety schools, but perhaps the biggest of them all is calling a low match a safety.

A low match school is a school where you’re at the top of the middle 50%, or you’re above the middle 50% but have some lack in your application keeping it from being a hole in one, or you simply can’t guarantee you can afford the school.

A good safety school has three components:

1. You can absolutely afford it
2. Even if you don’t love it, there are things about it that compel you to apply (IE: you won’t refuse to go there if you get in)
3. You can absolutely, positively, 100% guarantee you will be accepted because you’re heads above their average applicant, and they have a decent acceptance rate.

While 1 can easily be remedied by adding in a state school, 2 has to come from within, number 3 is where a lot of people screw up.

Because, even if you are basically overqualified, if a school has a low enough acceptance rate, you can’t really guarantee it as a safety school.

I would say that even if you are one of those crazy 4.5W 2350 SAT applicants, your safety school needs to have at least a 30-40% acceptance rate to be a real safety. You’ll probably get into another school, but you need an actual safety net.

Too often I’ve heard applicants who are dreaming of Harvard call a school like Tufts (21% accepted) their safety school. First of all those “Ivy Safety” schools are incredibly difficult to get into, and have similar numbers. And with their tiny (and decreasing) acceptance rates, they’re no one’s safety.

Also, I hate to break it to you; any school with less than a 15% acceptance rate automatically becomes a reach school in my book. I don’t care if you’re qualified, so are 60% of the applicants, they get to pick the best 15% out of that.

So when I was applying there was this tinsy liberal arts school in Pennsylvania that was my safety. I actually really loved the school, and it had a 40% acceptance rate. Even though I was entirely overqualified, I still had another school with a high 40s acceptance rate on my list as my “true safety,” because I knew if I got rejected early decision from my favorite school (30% accepted ED), my confidence would be shot and I would need that extra safety net.

I keep looking at people’s college lists and all I can think is “Well that’s a nice list, but where’s your safety?”

Make sure when you’re applying you have a school that’s a real tried and true safety school, just in case.