Interesting thread. Title of thread should be “Do top students really need to “reach” if money is not an issue”, whether covered by need-based aid or the ability of parents to pay whatever it costs. Again it’s the rich and poor top students who have the luxury of choosing. I am in the ‘donut hole’, so to speak. My situation with daughter is same as with son. Both top students (but not tippy top HYPS material) yet I cannot afford to pay upwards of $40,000 even if EFC says I can. Not at least without taking large loans, second mortgage, etc… Their choice was/is either go to their state school or seek large merit from safety schools whether OOS state or private. There are plenty of excellent safety schools where they can be challenged and receive a fine education.And receive merit aid, thank goodness, to make it doable. They don’t have to (and can’t) reach!
The poor top students have far more limited choices than the rich top students, since they are limited to the schools with the best financial aid (generally very selective, unless in a state with public schools with good financial aid), the schools with the largest merit scholarships (not as many as people seem to think), or possibly the local community college and/or commutable state university.
Well put! And thanks for articulating so perfectly what moved me to start this discussion in the first place. 
You are welcome @EllieMom. Very kind of you to say.
Idk the answer, and am curious to read through the replies and comments here.
My D applied only to safeties - and all were “regional” or “directional” state schools - for a couple of reasons - **
For one - Cost. We knew she’d get merit scholarships to offset the cost at the safeties she applied to.
But she also actually preferred these schools over others because of the size and overall vibe of the student body and campus.
She took challenging classes in high school, did well on her AP exams, and on her ACT exam. I’m certain she would have been admitted to “better” schools if she’d applied. And I encouraged her to. But it’s looking so far (she’s a freshman and only been at her university for a little over a month) like the regional state uni she chose is a very good fit for her, both socially and academically. I think, for one, my D does better when she’s a “big fish in a small pond”. She suffers from anxiety, and being at a very selective university with intense academic competition would not have been recipe for success for HER.
But it might be for other good students, and they probably thrive at schools where they are constantly challenged to keep up. But for many, like my D, it would be too stressful.
As for matches, I think she would have kept up, but many matches for her were mostly small LACs OR huge state flagships. She wasn’t interested in neither type of school. The perfect school for her was medium-sized UG population, around 10-15k and a medium-sized campus the could be walked across in less than half an hour.
(And again - cost. )
** also should add - my D is not a “top student”, the way I’d define it. She had a B+ uw average. For me,a “top” student has a 3.8 or above combined with top test scores.
I agree with ucb above regarding poor students. Theoretically, a kid with parental income under 30K can go to Princeton or Haverford for very little or nothing. But how many low income kids can actually get into a tip top school? How many have the scores, the school background, and even the knowledge to even apply? Can they afford to travel for visits or holidays? Does family really support them going OOS when there is a public directional nearby?
How do families with incomes of 100K, 150K, pay the full 60K for an elite private college? They don’t, unless they started 529s 18 years before and super-funded them, or got an inheritance, or won the lottery. Still, for the majority of them, their kids’ college opportunities are better than for poor kids, most of whom don’t do to any college. It’s just not advantageous to be poor. The middle and upper-middle class kids have an easier time actually going to college. As trackmb3 said, ‘There are plenty of excellent safety schools where they can be challenged and receive a fine education.’
I think it’s wrong to characterize the lack of desire for academic intensity as being based in fear.
Sometimes it’s just a preference.
My son who ended up thriving at the regional state u. seems to thrive in an intense work place – or at least he did when he was younger. When he had a position where compensation was partly commission based… he pushed hard. He wanted to be the best. Part of the benefit of attending a less competitive U. was that he was able to easily handle a half-time job while in school - and he put all sorts of of effort into his job, which he found very motivating and engaging
I assume that there are other students whose drive and ambition is more focused on athletics.
And of course some who simply prefer a more relaxed lifestyle, with time to relax or engage in other activities. That doesn’t mean they are fearful.
There is not necessarily a particular benefit in academic intensity or competition - that is, a rigorous academic environment does not necessarily mean that the student learns more, or learns better, or retains more information or skills long term.
I think, too, that it’s important not to assume that a less intensely competitive school will necessarily be less challenging. D’s school, for instance, sort of prides itself on being “smart and geeky”, challenging but not necessarily academically cut-throat. Collaborative rather than competitive. When applying to schools, she felt like that kind of environment would be where she would most likely thrive. Which fits, because she prefers to work together with others toward a goal rather than fighting to be the best and does not tend to be a very aggressive or confrontational person in general. I don’t see that as reflective of fear or of lack of ambition or talent. It’s more that she knows and accepts herself and what motivates her. It all goes back to “fit”. Once again.
“Challenge” is something that a student can often create for themselves - for example, by doing extra reading, or taing on a more difficult topic for a research paper – or choosing to double major or complete an extra minor. Sometimes the less intense academic environment is what opens the doors to the students to take on extra challenge – they may have more time, more flexibility, or more of an opportunity to gain attention from professors to get research positions in an environment where the academic competition is less intense.
And, again, sometimes the “challenge” is outside of academics, either on or off campus.
And I’d just add that a “challenge” is not necessarily something that others recognize as challenging.
And there are plenty of colleges which are plenty rigorous but not competitive.
Earlham? Beloit? A kid can get a very vigorous AND rigorous education at these kind of places without feeling like they are entering a meat grinder.
And there are kids who thrive on the meat grinder- and that’s terrific.
And believe it or not, there are mega reach schools that aren’t meat grinders.
I wasn’t implying in my earlier post that there were only two modes: desirous of intensity or scared of it. Those were just the characteristics of my kids.
I think some of you may be conflating academic intensity with a competitive environment or with a “meat grinder” kind of institution.
Academic intensity need not be or feel competitive. My son is now in graduate school in a dual program and one of his programs is filled with kids as bright as he is. He absolutely loves it. They work with each other and he doesn’t feel like he is competing with them.He had to take an intense one year sequence in which he hadn’t had any of the prerequisites. he didn’t know, the first week, if he could survive the course. A number of his classmates gave him a lot of help in the first quarter and he learned the material; by the third quarter he got an A+. I don’t recall my undergraduate college feeling competitive (other than maybe for premeds). But, it was intense because of the other kids in many of my classes and the professors’ expectations. My favorite undergraduate course was taught by John Nash’s advisor. I later learned that the course was legendary because it was a two semester graduate course at Stanford taught as a one-semester undergraduate course. The professor was an extraordinarily good teacher and the students were fabulous. If I remember correctly, five of the kids in the course had placed in the Math Olympiad. For someone like me, or my son, the learning experience was/is intense and fabulous. I did work hard, but also had a job as a research assistant, played a minor varsity sport and had girlfriends for part of my time there.
I’m sense that academic rigor is related to but not the same as what I am calling academic intensity. What might be missing, @blossom, at an Earlham or Beloit would not be rigor but really challenging classmates like those my son is finding in his graduate program or like I found in the course I described. We learned a lot from each other. My son found that at his undergraduate school (which he loved), there weren’t that many students at his level and that he absolutely loves the challenge of equally bright kids in his grad program working with each other and pushing each other.
I’m not quite sure what a meat grinder is, but my sense is that you have in mind schools or programs that require courses with an excessive amount of work, often busy work. Such an institution or program can be painful from a work standpoint without actually being academically intense. I think some engineering programs have this character – tons of hard work without much intellectual excitement. Some premed courses are like this. Physics majors almost always have a lot of work but usually would have a lot of intellectual challenge as well. Would a physics major be a meat grinder?
People wisely point out that there are a lot of ways to stretch oneself – athletics, employment, academics, etc. I think one can go to a reach to stretch oneself academically by interacting with lots of really smart classmates or one can go for prestige (maybe useful for certain career paths). I’m not thinking about the prestige-seekers but the intellectual challenge seekers. Some of those will find that being in a pool of really bright folks and having professors with high expectations works for them. Others won’t want that degree of academic intensity for a whole variety of reasons. Their different desires says nothing pejorative about them. Not all top students will seek that kind of intensity, but for those who do, they may well benefit a lot by “reaching.” Very few can be said to “need” to “reach,” per the OP’s question.
Finally, I suspect that not all reach schools are academically intense or academically intense in all subjects. Brown is undoubtedly a reach school. I don’t know it well but have not had the sense that it is academically intense even though it will have students who are pretty strong. I’m guessing that Caltech and MIT are intense in all subjects, Harvard in some subjects but not all.
“I’m guessing that Caltech and MIT are intense in all subjects, Harvard in some subjects but not all.”
That’s probably true, but Harvard kids need to be OK with intensity of atmosphere even if they choose a relatively relaxed curriculum for themselves. I agree with Blossom that some super-brilliant kids would be happier at Earlham than Harvard, regardless of major. A Harvard sociology major is not boot camp, but the kids are still pretty type-A!