Mary writes:

Our daughter has been a B+ student, but this fall of her senior year, she
had gotten C+’s in Honors Eng & Honors Spanish. She’s applying to some top
schools. We are all wrestling with whether she should now apply to an
easier to get into college. Thanks for your ideas.

Dear Mary,

Thanks for writing. Without knowing specifics, I would say that applying to a number of safety schools is always a good idea. It only costs time if you can get a fee waiver, and may end up being essential if more ambitious choices don’t work out.

There are a number of metrics used in determining a safety school, but one (perhaps overly) simple way may be to check the 25th-75th percentile SAT/ACT and GPA (two important factors taken into account by admissions committees, the former of which can be found in the U.S. News college ranking). If your daughter’s scores fall at or below the 25th percentile, you could consider it a reach school; if they exceed or match the 75th percentile, you could consider it a safety school and if they are somewhere in the middle, a match.

This is by no means a scientific calculation, but may be a useful metric to follow.

If your daughter is not applying to any school for which she exceeds the 75th percentile for both SAT and GPA, you may want to strongly consider adding one or more true safety schools to the equation.

Thanks for writing. I wish you and your daughter the best of luck.