<p>I started another post about the search for more reaches, but then it occurred to me: Does a student NEED a lot of reaches?</p>
<p>I see kids on here applying to five, 10, 15. Right now, there are only three schools that are reaches that my son has expressed any real interest in. He's just a junior and so has plenty of time, but if nothing else piques his interest, does it really matter? He's not at all interested in "prestige." I've also read the advice of making a list like an inverted pyramid: lots of reaches, several matches and two safeties. That makes it sound like many, many reaches are desirable.</p>
<p>The point isn't that many reaches are desirable; it is that by definition, admissions to any single reach is a statistical unlikelihood. If your S has a bunch of schools that he's excited about, none of which qualify as "reaches" he'll be fine; it's when a kid struggles to get excited about any college that the need to show a true reach often kicks in.</p>
<p>It also depends on the intended field of study; if a kid is interested in Bio or English he/she can probably find what they need anywhere. A kid who has been taking distance learning classes in Math, or is already fluent in German and wants to continue in German but add Japanese may need to cast a wider net- and may end up with some "reachier" schools on the list. Not every college is going to provide the right or enough opportunities for every kid.</p>
<p>You may also be surprised that for many parents, the prestige factor isn't all that relevant- but the apppropriate learning opportunities are. So if you're trying to provoke a fight- have at it. But if you honestly want information, dial it back a notch.</p>
<p>There are kids who come from states where the public flagship simply does not have the department, or depth of offerings, or even the degree program the kid is interested in. I wouldn't surmise that prestige is what drives the college search- but simply recognition that not every kid is going to be challenged at every single college in America- and that to be realistic, some schools are just harder to get into than others.</p>
<p>Your kid may not be interested in prestige- but if he learns that the top program in Nanotechnology is at Cornell, and he decides he's interested in Cornell, I'm sure he won't want people criticizing him for being interested in "prestige"- he's interested in studying at a college which offers him opportunity. He may not care at that point that Hofstra has a great program in Mass Media Studies-- even though your neighbors may decide that you are "prestige %^&*&" for encouraging his interest in Cornell vs. Hofstra.</p>
<p>People are looking for different things out of college. Some of them are particularly interested in a very challenging environment with a lot of other high-performing students. Schools like that are hard to get into, even for very qualified students, so it makes sense from a strategic point of view to apply to several. If you look through old threads on CC, you will find many inexplicable cases of kids getting into one Ivy but not others, and other kids with the reverse experience.
I also think sometimes that the differences among these top schools is exaggerated--Sure, Harvard, Brown, Duke, and Stanford are quite different in some ways, but there would probably be many students who would be happy at all of them, and might well prefer any of them to a match or safety school.</p>
<p>Trying to provoke a fight?!?!? Not at all. Just wondering whether there is something I'm missing, strategy-wise. Didn't mean to offend anyone. Is that dialed back enough?</p>
<p>Son's entire list of 8 schools consisted of matches if not safeties. Son is likewise not interested in prestige. He needs to be at a small schoool which means that almost all publics are out. He's applied at schools that are likely to offer him a decent amount of merit aid. I'm pretty sure that a reach would not have offered any, and to be able to pay for a private school without going into debt, we need for about 1/3 of the total cost to be covered by the college. Thank goodness Son is willing to go along with my pragmatism.</p>
<p>Just to take your son's example, let's imagine, for the sake of discussion, that the three reaches he has expressed interest in are Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Maybe his matches are VeryGoodPrivateU and VeryGoodPublicU, while his safety is YourStateFlagshipU. The strategic point is that there are probably a lot of schools similar to HYP in many ways that are between HYP and the matches in selectivity. If your son would be just as happy to go to one of the matches as opposed to, say, Penn, or Cornell, or Duke, or WashU, or Rice, that's perfectly fine. But that's not how a lot of students look at at, especially after doing research. They find out things like: "Hey, a lot of the things I like about Brown are also true of Tufts." This causes their list to grow at the top end, because of the real risk that they won't get into Brown.</p>
<p>Makes perfect sense, Hunt. Maybe I should be asking what are some reaches that are like the three he's identified! </p>
<p>I think part of the deal is he doesn't want to look that far from home, and there just aren't that many reaches within a day's drive of here. All I meant by my "prestige" comment is that there's nothing at the well-known schools that would be enough to make him want to go across the country to go there, if that makes sense, when he can get so many of his needs met closer to home, even if it's at a school that is less well known.</p>
<p>For instance, he really loves Rice, and that's one of his reaches. Loves the residential college system, loves that it's in state and that we have family in Houston. Loves the size, loves the academic offerings, loves the good baseball team. So, there might be an East Coast school that has most of these things, but living in a cold climate would be a deal breaker and would be enough for him to cross lots of those reaches off his list no matter how great they are. He's so easygoing that he'd find the good in going to a third-tier state U if Rice didn't work out. Believe me, I appreciate that, but I don't want him to sell himself short and just wondered whether he needs to be looking at more reaches.</p>
<p>No point applying to schools he doesn't want to attend- whether they are reaches or safeties. If leaving Texas is the deal breaker for him, and he's reasonably confident that he'd be happy and challenged wherever he ends up and you can afford most of the options on his list, then I think you're done.</p>
<p>If you are concerned that by Senior year he may decide, "anywhere but here" as far as geography, then you may want to encourage him to cast a wider net.</p>
<p>Rice is a fantastic school. I typically recommend it to kids in my area who are worried that their profile looks too similar to everyone else's when they apply to Tufts, Northwestern, Emory, Vanderbilt, Wash U- all of which are very popular in my neck of the woods, and all of which have become increasingly tough to predict admissions-wise.</p>
<p>How close are you to the airport? Although Son wants to stay close, I can see Daughter wanting to go far away. A way to "shorten" the distance for us without greatly increasing the cost would be to look at schools served by direct, inexpensive Southwest Airlines flights. For example, for us, that would put schools like Wash U and Tulane on the list, where a school like Mizzou (where you'd have to fly, then drive) would still be off the list.</p>
<p>I would just add that teenagers often don't really know what they want, because they don't know what there is to know. Get you son to look at some college guidebooks (including some that are fun to read, like the Yale Daily News one) to see if other colleges pique his interest. Then he can look at their websites. I think if he likes Rice, that he will find that there are other schools he likes, too, perhaps including some LACs.</p>
<p>Plenty of safeties and matches, a reach or two if you really are interested in them.</p>
<p>After all, you are more likely to be accepted at the safeties and matches, so it makes sense to apply to more of them -- and have a number of options once acceptances arrive.</p>
<p>I suppose if you are a super strong student you are more likely to be interested in the "lottery" schools so more schools on your list would be considered reaches.</p>
<p>I'd also suggest you be sure kids have financial safeties they loves on their list so there isn't a huge angst issue once acceptances roll in & the kids decide that they really don't want to go to the less expensive Us on their list but the kids & families can't really afford the others.</p>
<p>Applying to several schools that compete with one another for students can also help with leveraging merit offers among schools, if that's something that would be helpful--it helped us & other families I've spoken with.</p>
<p>
[quote]
After all, you are more likely to be accepted at the safeties and matches, so it makes sense to apply to more of them -- and have a number of options once acceptances arrive.
[/quote]
At least for the safeties, I think it makes more sense to do your homework up front. Why pay all those fees and spend all that time filling out applications for multiple schools if you will get into all of them? Unless, of course, you want to see how much aid you will get.</p>
<p>Re multiple safeties/matches -- my theory is, teen psychology being what it is, it is better to have a choice of schools, come April, than end up with only one school, the one you therefore HAVE to attend.</p>
<p>third- you dont need any reaches.
Develop your criteria & weight it.
Rank schools according to criteria- and decide where you want to apply
However, if your criteria weights heavily east coast schools, with star profs where the admission rate is below 30%, you may want to reevaluate.
;)
Ds first bundle of applications included no reach schools- after she took her year off ( as planned) she added one reach school( which was an academic as well as financial stretch), where she was admitted and attended.
However- she was well suited to other schools on list as well.</p>
<p>^^As long as they have a strategy of how they are going to eliminate the schools they got in from their list, that is fine. My D felt somewhat like a Buridan's donkey last April when she had to choose between two schools she really, really liked.</p>
<p>I think it really depends on the kid. Not every kid even wants to be at a reach. My nephew loved St. John's - with a 75% acceptance rate he hardly needed to look further.</p>
<p>For my older son all his matches were reaches by definition, and he is a kid who has complained about being bored by school since he was in first grade. He needed to be some place where he was challenged. He basically had six reaches and two safeties. </p>
<p>My younger son may get a few extra reaches, mostly because I think it's going to be hard to know for sure what a match is. (GPA has been improving, big scatter in grades, GPA has been overly influenced by A+s in orchestra. So I am not sure how accurate the school scattergrams will be.)</p>
<p>I agree with mini. If a kid is happy with a list of only safeties and matches, the list is complete. </p>
<p>I also wholeheartedly agree with fendrock that every kid should have a choice in April. The kids that complain most about having to attend a safety are the ones who do so as a default. Choosing between at least 2 schools forces the kid to look at the good points to help them decide. I would always want the final decision to be my child's.</p>