Seven Keys to Finding The Right Safety School

If you’ve started the process of identifying which schools to target in the college/university admissions process, you’ve probably heard about ensuring you apply to reach, match and safety schools. You’ve also probably gotten some basic advice about how to qualify a good safety school. While this basic advice is well-meaning, it normally falls far short, especially if you have high ambitions. For the academically ambitious, identifying the right safety school is normally the most difficult part of the college search process. Here are the seven keys to finding the right safety college.

Targeted Academic Strengths. When it comes to academics, you cannot go wrong at an elite, semi-elite or premier school. But as one begins to look at less competitive institutions, one begins to find variation. The good news is that every accredited college or university has at least one center of academic excellence. The best Marine Biology programs for example tend to be found near—you guessed it—bodies of water, and included on the list are many otherwise less competitive institutions. As a first step, identify the less competitive institutions that excel in your particular area of interest.

Merit Scholarships. While the most competitive institutions are very generous in leveraging their endowments for need-based aid, top schools do not typically offer aid tied to academic merit. Conversely, many less competitive schools offer extremely generous merit aid packages. Academically-accomplished students can easily expect a safety school to cost no more than an in-state public university. Significant breaks in tuition and even “full rides” (tuition, fees, housing and meals for four years) can be found among less competitive schools that want to attract top students to their top programs. Some schools even sweeten the offer further with a stipend for books, travel or a laptop computer.

Happiness and Enjoyment. As you move from your reach schools to your match schools to your safety schools, you move down a proverbial iceberg. At the safety level, you have the most options. If mountain biking is your passion, you will find plenty of less competitive institutions near trails and steep slopes. Figure out what you want most in your college experience. Is it college football, greek life, surfing, skiing, a vibrant urban campus, a peaceful rural campus, an artistic community, an entrepreneurial community, a big school or a small school? The one thing that even the basic guides emphasize about safety schools is that you must be happy going to your safety school, even if you are sad not to be going to one of your reach schools.

The Honors Program. While the undergraduate programs at elite and semi-elite schools are all effectively honors programs, large and medium-sized schools from the premier level and lower tend to have honors programs that segment their top students in some way. Honors programs vary significantly. What is the same is that the number of students tends to resemble the number of students at an elite liberal arts college. They also tend to offer general education classes that are smaller, discussion-oriented and “honors students only” or at least give honors students priority admission. Additional honors benefits might include an automatic scholarship, elite housing, elite events, special advisory services and the opportunity to do a special project such as an honor thesis as a senior. Research honors programs and you may find a safety school that rivals a target reach or match school.

Education Outside of Class. At college, there is “another education” that takes place outside of the formal education process. It involves meeting and interacting with new people and experiencing new things that were not available to you where you grew up. While you will get this at every school, some schools will deliver this to you more than others. This will be especially true if the school is a far distance from your home or in a major city.

Work / Internship Opportunities. As one of the top students in your school, you will be in a stronger position to work directly with a professor on research as an undergraduate. Addititionally—as long as you are not in a college-dense metropolitan area like Boston—you should also be in a strong position to find meaningful part time employment or internships with local businesses. While this cannot be guaranteed, any competitive advantage should not be overlooked.

Transfer and Graduate School Placement. If you end up at your safety school, you still have the opportunity to attend an elite, semi-elite or premier school via transfer or graduate school. In short, don’t worry too much if you didn’t get into or couldn’t afford your reach school. You can always take a second shot. So when looking at a potential safety school, see if you can find out about graduate school placement or even transfer placement. You may be pleasantly surprised.

I’m writing this post after going through this very same process with my own son, Nathanael. Nathanael had already decided to go to a match school over a reach school because of greater opportunities and a nice scholarship that put the match school roughly $75,000 less than the reach school: The cost of graduate school. But after we had paid the deposit at the generous match school, we received a thick envelop from one of his two safety schools offering him a “full ride” scholarship that was yet another $100,000 less than his match school, as well as admission into the honors program. After two weeks of research and reflection, Nathanael decided in favor of his safety school. While we never expected to get such a generous scholarship, we are so glad we took the time to choose Nathanael’s safety schools well. We hope our experience will benefit others.