Rethinking the 'safety school' framework
The safety/target/reach model is showing its age. A more honest way to build a balanced university list in today's admissions environment.
“Safety, target, reach” is a long-standing framework for building a university list. It still has its place, but it relies on assumptions about predictability that don’t hold as cleanly as they once did. If you’re treating any specific university as a true safety based on grades alone, it’s worth pausing and looking again.
What’s changed: at selective universities, admissions decisions have become more holistic and more competitive year on year. Acceptance rates have shifted significantly over time, and decisions can be harder to predict from headline metrics alone. On the UK side, conversion rates for international applicants vary considerably by subject and cycle.
The framework we tend to use with students is more along the lines of good academic fit, stretch within reach, and aspirational. The differences aren’t dramatic, but they change the conversation. This article walks through what ‘good academic fit’ actually means in practice, how to build a list that holds up to a difficult results day, and why a list of twelve very similar institutions rarely serves a student well.
