Is your state flagship university a safety school?

AAt the most selective public universities, the old assumption that the state flagship is a safe choice has quietly stopped being true, a point the readers in Stanford's admissions office made with a single student's numbers. These campuses receive enormous applicant pools and admit a small share, and many of the applicants they turn away have weighted GPAs well above 4.0. Families rarely see this coming, because the high school's number looks so reassuring. The flagship goes on the list as the safety, and the list ends up with no real safety at all. A student who discovers that after the deadlines have passed has no way left to fix it.