Home |  Forward |  More Advice |  Subscribe (Free) December 13, 2007
With Rachel Korn, former admissions officer at the University of Pennsylvania.
HoH Video
of the Week
College Extracurriculars
View Video
Fill Out a 'Safety School' Application
HEAD Start
To be sure that you'll have at least one school saying "yes" to your application, you need to apply to a 'safety school'. This could mean looking no further than your local state school, or a private school with less competitive admissions.

With the surge in applications due to both a population bubble and students applying to more and more schools, admissions can be harder to estimate than ever. Don't get into a situation where you only apply to schools where you fit the average student profile (or worse, schools that are all 'reaches' for you). They could all say no - it happens...

HEAD Lines
Go to your prospective safety schools' Web sites and check out:
  • The admission requirements. Make sure you pick at least one school where you are well within (or above) the average admitted student profile.

  • The deadlines. Some schools have 'rolling admissions' where you won't have to wait until a specific date to apply because the school reads and approves or rejects applications as they are submitted. You can apply much earlier in the year and find out your answer in only a few weeks.

  • The forms they require.

  • The process for submitting transcripts, recommendations, and essays. (In fact, some might not even require essays!)
Read More
 
Sign up for more great advice on:
Freshman Year Survival
From Other HEADS
IF WE HAD IT TO DO OVER AGAIN, I would recommend to my son that he apply to a broader range of schools. He applied to seven schools, and while the advice is always to apply to some schools that are a 'reach,' some that are a 'match,' and some you know you'll get into, Ben pretty much reached with all of them. That meant he had to deal with rejection, which was hard.

-- VICTORIA JOHNSON
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
SKIDMORE COLLEGE


MAKE SURE THE COLLEGES that you apply to know how thoughtful and thorough you were in the process of selecting them. Make them feel special, not as if you just picked them out of the phone book. You can do this by making reference to specific and distinctive characteristics of the college and how those characteristics fit your abilities, personality, and style particularly well.

-- G.A.
FREDONIA, NEW YORK
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO



Web Resources
But how do you know what is a reach, match, or safety school for you? Try Princeton Review's "Counselor-O-Matic" to find out:
princetonreview.com/college/research/articles/find/MatchReachSafety.asp


HoH Tips
  • If admissions seem so unpredictable and the safety schools of the past are no longer as 'safe,' you should spread your risk by applying to lots of schools - that seems to be the current thinking. But here's what will happen soon if students apply to more and more schools insincerely and colleges' yield numbers drop: Colleges will be forced to be even harder on applicants and will need to gauge sincerity where they may not have done so before.

  • Applying to five or six schools is reasonable and expected, with a few true safety schools and a few reach schools included. Apply to schools of the same genre (size, atmosphere, location, academic focus) that you want. If you want a small school, focus only on the small ones. If you want quiet, do not apply to urban campuses. Applying to the entire Ivy League is silly - they are quite different schools.

Remember: To make sure you continue to receive Heads Up! Get Into College e-mails in your inbox (and that they aren't sent to junk folders), please add college@hundredsofheads.com to your address book.
www.hundredsofheads.com
Contact Us | Editorial Policy | Privacy Policy & Disclaimer | Advertise