There is No Such Thing as a Safety School

Students and parents should banish the common term from their vocabulary when building an application list.

Whatever path you take to college, don’t assume there’s a safe way. Photo by Ryan Jacobson on Unsplash

There is no such thing as a safety school.

It’s a classic formulation. A student should have a college application list balanced between Reach, Target, and Safety Schools. That means an application list must have a few schools that are hard to get into, a few schools that feel right in line with a student’s background, and a few schools where it seems safe to say they will be admitted. It’s a nice way to think of things, but it has one problem.

There is no such thing as a safety school.

A safety school indicates a student should be certain they will get in. A safety school means a student doesn’t have to worry. A safety school is a school where the student can put in little effort and still get in. A safety school is a backup. A safety school is there as an insurance policy.

There is no such thing as that kind of safety school.

Not the way college admissions works in 2025. Admissions is no…