The Safety School is Often the Right School

A safety school, in the common usage, is the backup. The consolation prize. The school a student places at the bottom of their college list because the odds of admission are high, not because anyone is particularly excited about it. It sits there quietly, doing its job, while the real energy of the process flows toward the reaches and the targets.

I have been doing this work for a long time, and I want to offer a different way of thinking about it.

Some of the best college outcomes I have witnessed over the years involved students who ended up at their so-called safety. Not because their other applications fell short, though sometimes that happened too, but because when they finally visited, or when the financial aid letter arrived, or when they sat down and got honest about what they were actually looking for, the safety turned out to be anything but a compromise. It turned out to be the right fit.

Here is what gets lost in the prestige conversation. A school that a student can get into easily is often a school where that student will be academically comfortable in the best sense of the word. Not bored, but well-matched. They will be competitive for research opportunities, scholarships, leadership positions, and the kind of faculty attention that transforms an undergraduate education. At a school where a student is a reach, those same opportunities are harder to access, and the daily experience of feeling academically outpaced carries real costs that nobody talks about much.

There is also the financial reality, which families sometimes treat as separate from the question of fit but which is deeply connected to it. A student who graduates with significantly less debt has more freedom. More freedom to take the internship that does not pay well. More freedom to pursue graduate school, or start something, or take a risk in their career before they have obligations that foreclose those choices. The name on the diploma opens some doors. Financial flexibility opens others, and those doors stay open longer.

None of this means a student should abandon ambition or stop applying to schools that excite and challenge them. Reach schools belong on every balanced list for good reasons. But I have sat across from enough families to know that the safety school is often the one that gets the least serious consideration, the least research, the fewest campus visits. It is treated as a formality rather than a genuine option.

My suggestion is to treat it like an option, because it is one. Visit it with the same curiosity you bring to the schools higher on the list. Look at what it actually offers in the programs and experiences that matter to your student. Ask what a student like yours tends to do there, and where they go afterward. You might find what many families find when they slow down and look carefully. That the school they almost did not take seriously was the one that made the most sense all along.

A Calm Timeline for College Planning

The process feels rushed. It does not need to be. Most families are not behind. They are simply surrounded by urgency. The antidote is a timeline that creates breathing room.

Grade 9

Build habits and academic consistency
Explore interests without turning life into a resume
PSAT testing to determine a baseline

Grade 10

Add depth to 1–2 activities: discussions around community service/internships/experiences
Start noticing what environments help this student thrive

Grade 11

Course rigor matters most here
Build a balanced list of schools that fit academically, socially, and financially
Testing (SAT/ACT) should be done early enough to avoid panic

Grade 12

Fewer, better applications
Essays that sound like the student
Decisions made with fit in mind, not fear

The best plans reduce pressure. Clarity makes better work. If you want help building a timeline that fits your student, schedule an initial consultation.

Alignment

Junior year. Straight A’s. Recommendations that read like endorsements for public office. Clara’s parents came to my office with data. Acceptance rates highlighted in red. Rankings circled. Early Decision strategies mapped out like military campaigns. They spoke in probabilities and tiers. They did not ask what she wanted to study. In our first meeting alone, I asked her what she wanted from college. She paused.

“I want a professor who knows when I miss class,” she said.

That answer redirected everything. We stopped looking at acceptance rates first. We started looking at class size. Advising structures. Faculty access. Residential systems that made anonymity difficult. Not sexy metrics. Not the kind of thing that impresses at dinner parties.

She visited a small liberal arts college we had discussed in early spring. Cold. Brick buildings. No banners announcing rankings. A student tour guide who mentioned professors by name without checking notes. She sat in on a literature seminar. Twelve students around a table. No laptops. No raised hands. Just argument. After class, the professor lingered. He asked Clara what she was reading outside of school. Not what she planned to major in. Not her GPA. What she was reading.

“The Kite Runner,” she said.

“First time?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think Amir owes?”

She didn’t hesitate. “More than an apology.”

The professor smiled slightly. “Good. Guilt without action is indulgence.”

They talked for ten minutes. About loyalty. About exile. About how silence compounds harm. No one asked her test scores. No one referenced rankings. They talked about a book. The following week she walked into my office already smiling.

“That felt different,” she said.

Her first acceptance came from that school. Not an Ivy. Not top 15. A place many of her parents’ friends would have needed to Google. She cried when she opened the letter. Not because it was prestigious. Because she could see herself in that seminar room.

I used to believe there was a right school. Not one for everyone. One for each student. A name that signaled arrival. A logo that confirmed talent. I participated in that system longer than I care to admit. I counted acceptances. I did not count conversations.

Parents still arrive with spreadsheets. They ask, “Where can she get in?”

They rarely ask, “Where will she grow?”

The pressure economy runs on prestige. Bumper stickers become shorthand for parenting success. Acceptance letters are displayed like trophies. Students absorb this quickly. They learn to conflate selectivity with value, brand with identity.

Clara’s visit showed me the crack in the system. There are strong schools. There are weak schools. There are environments that stretch a student and environments that let one drift. But the myth of the singular, life-defining school is sustained mostly by adults treating adolescence like a qualifying round.

Clarity is rarer than ambition. Ambition multiplies applications. Clarity reduces them.

Ambition asks, “How high can I climb?”

Clarity asks, “Where do I belong?”

I had a student I’ll call Marcus who applied to fourteen schools. All ranked. All selective. He was admitted to three, including one Ivy. He visited twice before depositing. Large lecture halls. Teaching assistants running sections. An advising appointment scheduled six weeks out.

He lasted one semester, and transferred to a regional university forty minutes from home. Smaller classes. Professors who asked follow-up questions. An honors program that put him in a research lab by sophomore year.

His parents still don’t mention the transfer.

I have watched students arrive at elite institutions and disappear inside lecture halls of two hundred. I have watched others attend less celebrated schools and flourish because they were challenged, known, and expected to contribute. Prestige impresses neighbors. Alignment shapes lives.

At 61, I see the admissions process differently than I did at 41. It is not a referendum on worth. It is not a ranking of futures. It is a search for friction in the right places: intellectual stretch without isolation, independence without anonymity. The myth of the right school persists because certainty is comforting. If there is one best place, the path feels clear. But growth is rarely linear, and success rarely tied to a logo.

The students who thrive are not the ones who “win” admissions. They are the ones who enter environments that match their temperament and challenge their limits.

I think about Clara sometimes. Not often, but when parents arrive with their spreadsheets. She graduated three years ago. Double major. Honors thesis on post-conflict literature. She teaches high school English now in a town no one has heard of. She emails occasionally. Short notes. Always about a student, never about herself.

Last fall she wrote:

“One of my kids asked if she should apply early to Yale. I asked her what she wanted from college. She said, ‘I want a professor who knows when I miss class.’ I think I stole that from someone.”

The goal is not arrival. It is alignment. Look at the student first. Look at the institution second. Then watch where the two meet.

What Matters Most in Admission Decisions

Grades and course rigor still do most of the work Families often over-invest in the wrong variables. The strongest predictor of admission success remains consistent academic performance combined with an appropriately challenging curriculum.

Recent NACAC reporting continues to show grades and strength of curriculum at the top, with test scores playing a smaller role than they once did.

This is good news. It means the process is less about tricks and more about sustained effort. If you want a strategy, put energy into what compounds: course choices, writing, intellectual curiosity, and stable engagement over time. If you want help translating “what matters” into a plan for your student, reach out.

Test Optional Does Not Mean Test Irrelevant

The question is not “Should we test?” It is “Does testing help this student’s story”

Test optional policies created confusion. The practical question is simple: will a score strengthen the application given the student’s academic context and target schools?

A useful framework:

Submit scores when they are clearly a strength in the context of the school list
Go test optional when the score adds noise or distracts from stronger evidence
Decide early enough that senior year is not dominated by retakes

Families do best when they treat testing as one tool, not the story. Grades, curriculum, and writing still carry the most weight. If you want help deciding whether scores help, I can give you an honest read quickly.

The Common App Essay: The Best Essays Are Coherent, Specific, And Human

The Common App confirmed that the main personal essay prompts remain the same for 2025–2026. A strong essay usually does three things:

It makes a clear point
It uses specific detail rather than abstraction
It sounds like the student, not a committee

Admissions readers are not looking for performance. They are looking for clarity and a person they can imagine on campus. If your student is stuck between “impressive” and “honest,” choose honest and make it well structured.

How to Build a Sensible College List

Building a College List - A good list reduces stress. A bad list creates it.
A workable list is balanced across three realities:

Academic likelihood
Social and environmental fit
Financial feasibility

A simple structure:

2–3 Likely schools (true likelies, not wishful thinking)
4–6 Target schools
2–4 Reach schools, chosen thoughtfully

The best lists are not status statements. They are decision-ready options. If a list does not produce real choices, it was never a list. It was a hope. If you want, I can help you build a list that produces good options without panic.

Early Decision: When It Helps and When It Hurts

Decision Season - Early decision is a strategy. It is also a commitment.

Early decision can be a strong tool for the right student and the right family. It can also backfire if it is used to relieve anxiety instead of to express a genuine first choice.

Before applying early decision, be sure:

The school is a true first choice
Your family understands the financial implications
You will be comfortable enrolling if admitted

The best early decision applications come from clarity, not fear. If you want a quick sanity-check before committing to ED, schedule a consultation.

The Most Underrated Service in College Counseling: Post-Admission Decision Support

Decision Season - Getting in is not the finish line. Choosing well is.

Most families focus on admission. The most consequential moment is often the final decision.

A good decision process includes:

A side-by-side comparison of academic support and student experience
Total cost and real affordability
Campus culture and day-to-day life
The student’s readiness and temperament

The goal is not to win admissions. It is to choose a place where the student will actually thrive. If your family is weighing options and feeling stuck, that is exactly the moment to talk.