Any high school student dreaming of college considers applying to a "safety school" to get a guaranteed acceptance just in case no other schools work out.
For some, community college is a helpful fall-back. For others, it's the nearby state school.
For those equipped with an ivy league budget but short on ivy league smarts, you can't get much better than Washington University in St. Louis.
That's according to Gawker's new ranking of safety schools, defined by Sam Biddle as "higher learning that's a backup for wealthy high school students who are too dumb to go to Harvard."
See also: Washington University Is America's Smartest College: New Study
Washington University ranks at No. 11 on the list of 22 schools. (Well, 21 schools. Wash U ranks only ten spots above "live at home, save some money, read miscellaneous interesting Reddit pages.")
Washington University ranked higher than No. 12 Boston University and just under No. 10 Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Cornell University took No. 1 in the ranking.
But just because it's a safety school for some doesn't mean Washington University isn't worth all that tuition. Just last week, the U.S. News & World Report's annual ranking of top universities listed Washington University, at No. 14 in the country.
According to the report, the university has a total enrollment of 14,032 with an acceptance rate of 15.6 percent in fall 2013.
Want to see where Washington University ranks among safety schools? Here's the full list, via Gawker: 22. Tufts 21. [Live at home, save some money, read miscellaneous interesting Reddit pages] 20. NYU 19. Connecticut College 18. Dartmouth 17. Skidmore 16. Occidental 15. Elon 14. Bates 13. Trinity 12. BU 11. Washington University in St. Louis 10. Hobart and William Smith 9. Boston College 8. Kenyon 7. College of Charleston 6. Johns Hopkins 5. St. Andrews (UK) 4. George Washington 3. Emory 2. Hamilton 1. Cornell
Follow Lindsay Toler on Twitter at @StLouisLindsay. E-mail the author at [email protected].
