Why Safety Schools May Reject You

Hey guys, it’s Eric at Solution Prep, and today we’re talking about why you might get rejected to your safety schools and what you can do about it.

When you apply to colleges you should build a balanced list of about 25% safety schools, 50% fit schools, and 25% reach schools. Among those safety schools you should include a geographic safety school or two, just in case. You should include a financial safety school or two, just in case.

And a “safety” school doesn’t mean that they’re no good or that you’d never dream of going there. In fact, don’t waste your time applying to any colleges that you are definitely not going to go to. A safety school just means you have a much higher chance of getting in, either because they just have a higher acceptance rate, or because your grades and test scores are much higher than their averages. Or, maybe they have a guaranteed admit for students like you based on some sort of carve out. But, understand that a great program for your major could make a safety school a great fit for you. A big scholarship could make a safety school a great fit for you.

Every year we see students get rejected by colleges they thought were going to be safety schools. And there are a few reasons for this. The first is they just underestimate how competitive and how high a caliber that college is. So you can dig into their Common Data Set and find out their average GPA, their average SAT or ACT score, and see: are you truly a cut above the rest?

Another reason why students get rejected by colleges where they genuinely have the grades and scores is that the college doesn’t think you are going to yield. Yield is the percent of accepted students who choose to go there, and colleges want to have a high one. 15-20% is normal. More competitive colleges tend to have higher yields, less competitive colleges tend to have lower yields. And because they want to have a high yield, they want to look good, and they want to move up in these ranking lists that include yield as one of their criteria, they may not accept students who they think aren’t going to come. So, if they think they’re your safety school, they might reject you in favor of a student for whom they are a fit or a reach.

So, how can you get them to understand that you will yield? Well, you have to demonstrate your interest. There are a number of ways you can do that. One, you can go visit the college either in person or through a virtual visit that you can sign up for on their website. You can meet their representatives face to face at your local college fair, or when they come visit high schools in the fall, or if they’re offering admissions interviews with an actual admissions counselor. Those are all great opportunities to make human connections.

In the age of big data, they might also be tracking things like, do you open their emails? Do you follow them on social media? Once you apply, do you log into your account on their website? How many unique page views do you have? How long do you spend? And even opening those emails, you may find opportunities in those emails to demonstrate your interest. They may invite you to certain events, or they may offer you a fee waiver which shows them that you are opening their emails.

You can even reach out to your representative proactively, maybe after you’ve met them at a visit, or when they’ve come to your school or the local college fair. And you can ask them questions via email or via phone that are not easily Googleable or found on their website. You do not want to seem like you’re too dumb to read through their website.

Even if a college that says in their Common Data Set that they don’t consider a student’s demonstrated interest, you may find it’s different when you have that human connection because there’s only so much a person can ignore the connection they’ve made with you and the face they can put to the name in your application.

So, pursue all of these things that are available to you to increase your chance of admission to every college you’re applying to. And if you have questions, reach out to us at 732-556-8220. We are here to help.