Safety Schools. 4. You shouldn’t think of safeties as a worst-case scenario that will never come to fruition, but rather as a practical and viable alternative in case your other options don’t pan out. Rather, it means schools for which your test scores, GPA, and extracurricular accomplishments exceed those of the typical applicant by a significant amount. Edvisors is not a lender and makes no representations or warranties about your eligibility for a particular loan or financial aid. Ultimately, though, your best bet is to go the pragmatic route and devote some time and attention to safety and target applications too. For example, the student’s SAT or ACT scores might be compared with the performance of the middle half of the test score distribution for the college’s freshman class. A safety school is a college to which you have an extremely good chance of gaining admission (above 80%). For example, for a student with a 4.3 GPA and a 32 on their ACT, a school at which the average GPA of admits is 3.5 is probably a safety school, even if said school has a 40% acceptance rate. Find unique options using our Lists & Rankings, or search by location, major, and more using our College Search tool. A safety school is a college that you're almost guaranteed to get into. Also, no college with an admissions rate lower than 15% can ever be considered a safety school. All rights reserved. Some students decide to apply to a higher percentage of reach schools because they're more interested in going to those schools and are hopeful that they'll get into one. Scholarships provide students with free money for college. All rights reserved. You can safely assume you'll be accepted. And what’s the optimal balance of them on a college list? Lender search results do not constitute an official college preferred lender list. A reach school (or dream school) is one where your academic profile puts you at the lower end of the admitted student spectrum—or perhaps even below. Speaking of college costs: a cool offshoot of picking safety schools like this—that is, picking safeties that make you truly happy—is that you could be offered more institutional aid to attend a school you really like, since you’ll be among their top applicants. The remaining 1/3 of schools you apply to can be target schools, schools that offer you about a 30%-80% chance of admission. In any case, applying to more than fifteen law schools is probably overkill. The average GPA for ASU is 3.54, and the 75th percentile SAT scores are 670 for EBRW and 690 for Math. It's a waste of time to apply to a school that you would never attend. She applied to Arizona State University. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | CA Privacy Policy. Choosing your schools isn’t just about comparing numbers to determine your chances of being admitted—it’s about making sure all those schools are places you’d actually be happy to attend. A student has a good chance of being admitted by a match school. Find & Compare Private Student Loans for Your School: Subscribe to Edvisors' Financial Aid Newsletter to receive up-to-date financial aid information and advice, explore scholarship opportunities, loan repayment options, and learn expert strategies on how to plan and pay for college. This should include at least one in-state public college. United Arab Emirates, Copyright © 2020 Carnegie Dartlet. Here's more about your AFR calculations. Private student loans can help you make ends meet when paying for college. You should consider applying to safeties even if you don’t intend to go to them because they may offer you scholarship money. Please check your email for the Student Loan Handbook. Law School Predictor: Part-Time Programs (Version 5.0 arriving soon). As you track down colleges that have the academics, location, and extracurricular activities you want, ask yourself if the school is a match, safety, or reach option for you. A student is likely to be admitted to a safety school. Ensure that you have options. Research a school's admissions requirements on its website to determine if there's a similar offer at that school. and life safety codes prescribe minimum requirements for safety; providing adequate egress facilities is critical and is not an area in which to cut corners. Sure, applying to a safety school you’re almost certain to be admitted to may not be as glamorous as perfecting the application you’ve been dreaming about for years, but it’s a smart, practical choice that you’ll only thank yourself for later. Spoiler alert: it's a big deal. Edvisors has endeavored to provide accurate information. How Should You Choose Yours? Additionally, you can Google "(name of school) prepscholar admissions requirements" and use the admissions calculator on a school's profile to get a rough idea of your chances of admission. We will also email the PDF to your inbox. Please complete the form below to access your free copy. *Results from this calculator have been determined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be accurate in assessing product compliance with the Federal requirements for Smart Snacks in Schools provided the information is not misrepresented when entered into the Calculator. Here's a hypothetical example to illustrate the concept of a safety school. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t stretch yourself in your college search and application process—you definitely should. A safety school is a college where the student’s test scores are above the 75th percentile of test scores for students admitted by the college. Our tool will estimate your chances of admission based on your GPA, LSAT score, and a few other factors. Some schools, though, have finicky requirements and extra essays. Learn about federal and private education financing. Furthermore, I'll discuss how to identify your safety schools and determine the number of safety schools you should apply to. But what exactly defines a target school, or a reach school?