When beginning the college applications process, all the things a student must do can feel overwhelming. When presented with the thousands of colleges and universities in the United States, it’s not unreasonable for a student to freeze up when given the task of narrowing the list to 10 or 20 schools.

When applying to college, a student must have a balanced list of schools that include target, reach, and safety schools. Target schools are colleges or universities whose most recent incoming class matches the student’s statistics for test scores, GPA, and class ranking. Reach schools are colleges and universities with a less than 10% admit rate – it doesn’t matter how great your statistics are: there are more valedictorians in the United States than there are positions in these schools.

What is a safety school?

Safety schools are colleges or universities with a very high admit rate or a guaranteed acceptance program. Students should choose between 2-5 safety schools to apply to. But how can you know if a college is a safety school for you?

Students need to be careful when selecting their safety schools. While it is completely normal to have a dream school, it’s important to manage expectations and understand that attending the safety school is a real possibility. That’s why they are there, and that’s why students apply to them. Choosing a safety school that the student would be miserable attending (e.g. it is local when the student was determined to study out of state) is a waste of an application.

Why should you choose more than one safety school?

If a safety school is a college that would almost certainly accept you, why should you have more than one on your list? First, it is important for students to give themselves options come decision season. Students are still growing and learning and discovering who they are; their wants in the fall of senior year may be very different closer to graduation.

Additionally, some schools with higher acceptance rates are grappling with an issue called “yield protection.” In college admissions lingo, “yield” refers to the number of students that matriculate, or decide to attend, the school that they’ve been accepted to. Elite schools like Harvard have very high yield rates, because if accepted, students typically choose Harvard over the other schools to which they’ve been accepted.

Admissions teams understand that students with certain profiles – overachievers, top students, etc. – are not likely to attend schools that are lower ranked, offer low financial aid awards, etc. So they tend to reject highly qualified applicants because they consider them to be “over qualified” and unlikely to commit. This is why it is important to have a back up for your back up.

Overwhelmed?

Aristotle Circle’s team of college admissions counselors guide students and families through every step of the college application process. Call 212-360-2301 today for a consultation to see what we can do for you.