<p>epiphany: By your standards I think both my kids had sensible lists, and maybe not "reaches" except in the selectivity of the schools. Kids were in statistical range for every school they applied to. So it wasn't "unreasonable spaghetti."</p>
<p>In fact DS was highly qualified for HYPSC but chose not to apply after seeing more qualified kids rejected his sisters year. He didn't have a burning desire to attend these schools and didn't want to be part of increasing their stats when he didn't have a reasonable hope of acceptance.</p>
<p>So, all schools were schools that we had some hope of acceptance, even though with 13% admit rates, certainly no reasonable expectation. I guess that's what I meant by reach.</p>
<p>And no Cornell or UPenn because he really didn't want a very big school.</p>
<p>I am in complete agreement with the "spaghetti" theory espoused here (mythmom, mathmom). My D applied to 5 high match/reach schools, just a bit under the Ivies. She was accepted at 2 and waitlisted at 3, one of which was a "priority waitlist". With a smaller set of schools, she might have been waitlisted or rejected at all. There is no way to predict the decision process at these highly selective schools.</p>
<p>I make the motion that CC should be made mandatory in the curriculum and web sites of all secondary schools. It should be incorporated into the No Child Left Behind legislation, lol!</p>
<p>I've lobbied to have it placed into recommended sites on my kids school college counseling website.</p>
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I've lobbied to have [CC] placed into recommended sites on my kids school college counseling website.
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<p>That's a very concrete way to show appreciation for the hundreds of students and parents who contribute useful content here. The other families in your school community will benefit from that suggestion too.</p>
<p>I think some people are being overly defensive or self-conscious. No need to be. No need to justify to me or anyone else the inclusion of reaches. Indeed, I just said that my own D applied to 5 reaches. (No other schools, because of EA results.)</p>
<p>My original post was discussing reaches to the exclusion of every other category of school, especially extreme reaches. Unless one is absolutely a billionaire (& every school knows it), I consider it to be an irrational strategy. </p>
<p>Or let's put it another way: I do think there are some families that define <em>matches</em> merely as colleges which tend to accept students with one's own academic profile. The problem is, those same colleges also reject HUNDREDS of students that are identical to such a profile. Those schools are NOT matches. Those are reaches. (As one of you said.) I think that's part of the communication gap & the perception gap among many applicants -- perhaps new arrivals, perhaps others as well.</p>
<p>A match school is one that you have a reasonable chance of acceptance to, because your academic background is at LEAST as good, & maybe even slightly ahead of, the typical admitted student from the most recent round. (Granted, this year's match can be next year's reach.)</p>
<p>A safety school is a school that will drool for you. The problem, however, is that many safety schools resent or resist admitting high-performing students without a high likelihood of enrollment. So if you're way overqualified for your safety, it is no longer a safety unless you communicate how pleased you would be to attend, how you see value in their college for your specific needs, etc.</p>
<p>Lots of people think that their in-state is their safety. Depends on the recent competition; could be that this year your in-state is one of your high reaches. Just ask any Californian, or it seems, Virginian.</p>
<p>^^ I meant that limiting the list to reaches in the RD round is what I find unrealistic. If you can still find a reach that does EA, and you're accepted there, it surely makes sense to limit the list to reaches only, naturally.</p>
<p>People are as free to be as unrealistic as they choose in life. But please, don't come on CC and complain that you're mystified that absolutely no spaghetti stuck because you threw it all only in the same general area.</p>
<p>Our GC helpfully listed all the colleges with low acceptance rates as match/reach for our son. I agree, you have to accept that those top 20 colleges are reaches for everyone and that no one (well almost no one) can count on getting in.</p>
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there are some families that define <em>matches</em> merely as colleges which tend to accept students with one's own academic profile. The problem is, those same colleges also reject HUNDREDS of students that are identical to such a profile. Those schools are NOT matches.
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<p>This is an important point. A sufficiently low base acceptance rate means that an applicant shouldn't regard a college at which the applicant has a statistical match of scores and grades as a "match" college, because most rejected students will have statistics similar to the SMALLER number of accepted students. That's why I don't think "match" is a useful concept (at least for high-statistics students). Line up a sure, helpful, affordable, and desirable safety college, and regard any others on the list as more or less speculative "reaches" and don't be overinvested in being accepted by any of those, even if you apply to several.</p>
<p>H and I were talking about D's college choices today vs. ours back in the day. Although H is older by 5 years, we were amused to realize we both had the same "safety school " over 20 yeras ago, and it was Georgetown, LOL. Neither of us chose to go there. H chose a small top 40 LAC; I chose a small top 20 university (mind you, we didn't have USNWR rankings then - I am referring to today's numbers.) </p>
<p>D chose a top 40 LAC over 5 other schools, 2 in the top 25. Her stats were better than mine were, or H's. Our conversation centered on whether it would have made a difference to our lives if we had chosen more prestigious schools (my school was not widely known in those days for undergraduate education.) And we concluded that likely nothing would have changed about our lives today, other than that we would have missed meeting our respective best friends. We are thrilled with D's choice, but academically, she would have been just fine at any of the schools she applied to, including her safety. She didn't worry about prestige or rankings, though her GC clearly guided her away from ivies based on her stats. In the end, she chose based on the elusive concept of fit. But H and I know that choosing a college is not like choosing a mate. Many fine institutions can provide the right atmosphere for academic achievement, but kids can't always see that, because they are so caught up with thinking this is the most importnat decision in their life (so far.)</p>
<p>D applied to safety, match, and reach. Don't understand the risk takers only going for reach schools either. D actually started with rolling admission safety school to take the pressure off during the process ended up at P.</p>