“Reach” is about how hard it is to get in, not how hard it is to succeed once you are in. Good luck to your child. They will be fine!
My son was accepted to a reach school. He was right on the bubble. I’m not concerned because I know he is a hard worker. He has a great work ethic. He also has very good time management skills. During high school he has had to juggle club soccer, varsity soccer,work, school and social activities. He will be a student athlete in college so he will already have to develop a structured schedule around that. I know it is a big commitment but I think the structure will help him. As someone said it is called a reach school because of how competitive the admissions process is for incoming freshman. It does not necessarily dictate a person’s success. If a student has a good work ethic and reaches out for help (professors,free tutoring,writing lab,etc) when needed, they should be fine.
Both of the students that I mentioned above had test scores below the 25% for the OOS reaches that accepted them. They also did not have the courses that most other students had. My friend’s kid wants this health field in the worst way. She was told flat out by an admissions counselor that if she applies as this major she will be rejected. Right now she is struggling and looking to either do the major on a five year plan or take some prerequisites at a community college. Not sure if these things are allowed. She dropped chemistry and plans to retake it at another time. This school is a reach for her- not just for acceptance but also in terms of getting through some of the sciences. Her work ethic is excellent and she attends all office hours. The other girl who got off the waitlist changed her major from business and seems fine with that decision.
Sometimes a reach school works, and sometimes it does not. It really depends. Neither student was on the bubble.
Ok, D2 went to a reach and what I consider a grade deflation college. Her grades weren’t tops, but she came out finely educated, surprises even me.
Imo, a big part of college is about expanding. This is really the big fish/little fish thing. Some kids want or need to be the big fish in a little pond, grades coming more easily, maybe knowing a bit more than the kids sitting next to them. Some can work that very well. But many want to be challenged and grow from that. You have to have the basic ability to work purposefully and get academic support when needed.
Some of this also depends on major, imo.
I think it depends greatly on major too. STEM fields are a lot different than social sciences, humanities etc… I’ll probably get hammered for this but getting into CMU for CS as a reach is probably a lot different experience than getting into Harvard as a history major as a reach. My freshman roommate at a highly regarded flagship was a HS valedictorian who got into the engineering program as a reach. Probation after the first semester and failed out after the second. 30 years later he’s a bartender. It was a reach for me too but I was a social science major and graduated with a 3.8 and never felt overwhelmed.
Agreeing with others who suggest it’s in large part a head game and varies person to person.
My D2 has struggled (about in the middle of her class now), but still loves her school. I still think it was the right choice for her. Really – someone is going to graduate in the bottom half of their class, right? (Half the class, in fact 
) This is a big struggle for kids used to getting really high grades. And maybe more so for their parents.
My opinion is that if your kid goes to a reach school where their stats or prep are low compared to their peers, you as a parent have to work on not ratcheting up the pressure they are already under. I would talk to your kid ahead of time about resources available on campus, and make it clear you expect them to take advantage of them (writing center, tutors, office hours, etc). Also about time management and good study habits. But I try not to bring up grades often – it won’t make them better to talk about it often, and you need to keep the lines of communication open. If my kid is on track to graduate, getting some good summer and research experiences, appears to be building relationships for good recs, likes her school – I can live with that. Your kid likely will NOT be near the top of their class at a reach school. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t attend one.
I try to save advice mostly for breaks unless she asks. We researched how to write good lab reports together on winter break of freshman year. Over spring break this year, we talked about how she will develop a backup plan with her advisor in case she doesn’t get into grad school (discussed questions to ask him, and possible courses to take next year to supplement her skills). I probably actually only speak 10% of the advice I am tempted to give.
@intparent’s counsel is good – if your D is going to freak out if she’s not at the top of the class, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a reach or not – pick a place where she can excel. Some people do better when they have to run to keep up while others do better when they’re leading the pack.
The other thing to remember is that HS requires that students do everything, and selective colleges want them to do everything well in HS. But this isn’t how life is! If D is strong in the field in which she plans to pursue (i.e., she’s an amazing writer but weak at math, and that’s what lowered her scores), it doesn’t matter!
Congrats to her. Tell her to go where she feels she’ll be happy.
That is my kid – and we both knew it when she was applying to colleges. She is not a good practice player (and i know that is not a compliment!) – she only pulls out her best effort under pressure. No problem with that at her current school. 
Not everyone struggles at a reach school. There is also no such thing as a reach school for everyone even though many people want to not believe that
I think all students have the same level playing field when they start colleges.
However, colleges do have the top half of the class and the bottom half of the class. That’s is the reality we cannot ignore. Many students try very hard but don’t do well.
Some kids come to college better prepared so the playing field is not really level. There is a big difference between going to private prep school in the UES(upper east side) and going to an inner city public school in LA
That is just not true. Some students come from schools with a lot more APs offered, schools with a more robust track in advanced math, maybe from families where they could afford to go to summer programs that built their skills in fields like engineering or robotics or writing, or could afford to subsidize the kid for something like an NIH research experience.
Uneven preparation and opportunity are real, and make it harder for a lot of kids to hit the ground running in college.
Cross posted with @proudparent26.
Both of my kids went to high match/reach schools. I actually spoke to my S’s guidance counselor about it before my older S made his final decision and she was firm in saying that admissions officers only accept student who they felt confident will succeed at that college. I also spoke to my mom who is an educator and she said that by being accepted the kids have “earned the right” to attend that school. Still, I was quietly concerned. But in the end, both kids did extremely well – far exceeding our expectations. They both were/are serious students, worked hard, used their time well, and in the end I feel that both really benefited by being in a stimulating, challenging environment with top quality peers and professors.
@intparent , @proudparent26
It’s true that strong HS preparation has some advantage during the first year in college.
However, what I meant is all students have the same opportunities to be successful.
Students who have less preparation should take lower level classes to have a good foundation in the subjects first. After they finish the first 2, 3 semesters, the high school preparation disadvantage will become insignificant and the tortoises will catch up the hares.
And sometimes, students who have too many AP classes may have drawback too. They don’t want to repeat the introductory classes and jump into the advanced classes. But they don’t do well in the advanced classes because they miss some important learning methods for the introductory classes. This happens because the highschool AP classes were not as rigorously taught as college classes.
Well, that is a great idea. Except that a LOT of students retake intro level classes in college when they already had a lot of the material in HS. You have an idealized notion of this that doesn’t match the reality. While I agree that students do catch up over time, often it is at the cost of their GPAs over the initial couple of years. And if “successful” is a high GPA for grad school and employment opportunities, they don’t even really catch up.
My daughter went to an above average public hs and she felt she was well behind the kids from the tippy top schools., but still better prepared than many. That said, I don’t think having slightly below average scores means that a kid is going to struggle. Unless you think the entire bottom half of the class, scorewise, is struggling?
@intparent I did not completely disagree with you. I did mention in post 30 that colleges have top half of class students and bottom half of class students. But it does not mean that the students who have less opportunities in HS are always the the ones in the bottom half of class in college. And I have not seen any colleges say students from good HS are always the top college graduates. But I did see some examples that made me feel very humble.
There isn’t a reliable way to predict which kids will struggle. Colleges care too much about kids getting in and out in four years- so if there was a way to determine ahead of time who was going to be the “I’m on academic probation but still partying every Thursday night” kid- believe me- they’d do it.
I have compiled a couple of categories of kids who struggle- based on my own observations and from the thousands of young college grads I’ve interviewed over the years.
YMMV:
1- This is going to be a cake-walk. A kid showing up at ANY college with that attitude is at risk for struggling. Why? College isn’t HS, and falling behind by even a week can be deadly depending on the class.
2- I’m here to major in beer-pong. The kid who is always ready for a party is likely to struggle. Not week one- and maybe not even end of first semester. But it catches up eventually.
3- I have a lot on my plate. This is the sad case- the kid who is working 25 hours per week at a paying job to help the family PLUS pay expenses; is home every other weekend helping to take care of younger siblings or an elderly family member; never has time for office hours or tutoring sessions or even to ask a professor, “I didn’t really understand the lecture today. Can we talk later this afternoon?”
4- I have no idea what I want to study but I’ll know it when I see it. This is the kid still taking intro classes junior year- anthro was too much reading. Linguistics was too much math. Econ- they expect me to learn to program? Yuk. Maybe International Marketing is my thing!
5- I can figure this out on my own (false. Demonstrably false. If it were that easy, save your money, get an online degree, and sit at your parents kitchen table every day).
6- I have a low tolerance for frustration AND my parents expect me to major in something practical. These are the kids who graduate with a C minus average in accounting (not a very tough major but a lot of work and there are right answers and wrong answers) or who end up circling the drain- first engineering but they can’t hack it. Then econ because it’s rumored to be a lot easier than engineering. But that gets hard junior year. So then Urban Planning since most of the credits already taken will transfer. But jeez- that’s a lot of work and not that interesting. So fifth year of undergrad starts to loom- mostly C’s, a few B’s, a bunch of incompletes and W’s… yikes.
If your kid isn’t one of these types, I say don’t worry about it. ALL successful college kids struggle at some point- that’s part of the process. I attended my reach school (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth) and spent the first semester gasping for breath. I had attended a decent public HS but the kids I met from stellar public HS’s and top prep schools were just unbelievably prepared. I had never written a research paper (they had). I had never done a proper index with citations and foot notes (they had). I had taken a LOT of tests-- and done well- but first semester I ended up in a class with an oral exam… you sat down with the professor in his office with a cup of coffee and spent an hour answering his questions. I thought i would die halfway through the test- I don’t think I’d had more than a three minute conversation with a single teacher in HS, and here I was with a famous professor and he kept asking me what I think… who the hell cares what I think?
But I powered through it. Second semester I was over my culture shock. Sophomore year my work ethic (strong) and ability to read (was always a voracious reader so chewing through heavy workload courses became easier over time once I figured things out) got me positioned to graduate Magna Cum Laude by the end.
And truth be told- I’ve spent the rest of my life choosing to be thrown into the deep end of the pool. I opted for a tough grad program; I’ve always taken the harder path professionally; figuring things out Freshman year at my “reach” gave me the confidence to push myself.
I am just glad to see this question. The focus on the forums is about getting in, and it is important also to think about the time actually spent at the school 
The course work can be much harder at some selective schools. There can be more reading, and denser reading, and more papers, and higher standards for discussion.
As others have said, I think it depends on the kid. Not just intelligence and work ethic, but level of academic interest, resilience and ability to handle being in the middle of the pack or even lower, for the first year of adjustment.
I read that professors like to teach the kids who come less prepared, that these students often struggle the first year and then catch up, and are genuinely excited by the learning, as opposed to the more “jaded” peers who went to prep schools and so on.
But I have also been present at a panel at an artsy school that is not a top college, where students said they got into Ivies but chose instead to be where they were, and were happier for it.
It depends!!!
p.s. many kids at top schools do take intro courses even though they got 5’s on their AP exams; every school has its own curriculum and it can be a good idea to start at the beginning. This also reduces stress in the first year.