<p>What are the arguments for matriculating to your reach school? If it is the toughest school for you to get into, how does that translate into your chances for doing well and being competitive in that environment?</p>
<p>If you got in, you will do fine.</p>
<p>It's difficult to know how it actually translates into doing well and being competitive. I'm sure a lot of people on this board will tell you that many of the elite schools are harder to get into than they are to succeed in once you're there. Obviously, factors such as how hard you're willing to work, grade inflation and course of study play an important role. Good luck.</p>
<p>"If you got in, you will do fine" </p>
<p>... presuming of course that the college is recruiting you as a student and not an athlete. (Sorry, that sounds way too harsh. What I'm trying to say is that some schools will accept an applicant based on athletic, rather than academic promise.)</p>
<p>Graduation rates of recruited athletes at prestige schools are as high or higher than those of the non-athletes, despite having lower "admissions profiles".</p>
<p>Admissions correctly claim that if you are good enough to be admitted, you will be capable of handling the work expected of you. However, if you choose to attend a reach college you should expect to graduate in the bottom half of your class or worse. Your gpa will not give you entre into the elite graduate or professional schools. And your class standing will not get you an interview slot for the most sought after entry level jobs. Your standing will not make it easy for you to get personal mentoring by a favorite professor because their limited time is reserved for their star students. Same goes for undergraduate research positions, internships, accelerated academic programs, etc. And if you are a student striving to enroll in a reach college, it is most likely that you have been an overachiever in high school making it even more difficult to overachieve in college.</p>
<p>Now I realize there are exceptions to the gloomy scenario I just described. But that is what they are, the exceptions. Attend a match college and you may find yourself in the enviable position of being a star student. </p>
<p>Our son is a perfect example. He could have probably attended the likes of Penn, Cornell or JHU where he would have been a very average student. Instead he chose to attend Rensselaer where he has a 3.75 gpa after 4 semesters which places him in the top 10% of his class. And he can participate in an accelerated program which will allow him to get both a BS and MS degree in 9 semesters. I believe he will be in a far better position come graduation time than if he had chosen to attend a reach college.</p>
<p>originaloog,</p>
<p>I just don't see how you can make the comments you did. Consider:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>some schools are reaches for everyone. They ALL can't be in the bottom of the class.</p></li>
<li><p>some elite schools will select for factors other than academic competence in distinguishing among applicants. These nonacademic tipping factors will not affect academic performance by and large.</p></li>
<li><p>Since HS and college are sooo different, the predictive value of HS for college performance is not that strong. You will have star entrants that do just OK. You will have marginal entrants that did outstandingly.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The curious thing is that some folks do BETTER in a competitive environment! Stellar peers, that they may not have had in HS, can be a motivating factor.</p>
<p>It is often said by adcoms at elites (and would be true of most any level of highly selective "reach" school) (can you have a reach that is not highly selective? hmmm...) that little of substance separates the entrants from the denials. Think about it.</p>
<p>Your son is not a perfect example. He did not go to the likes of Penn, Cornell or JHU. You do not know how he would have done at any of those places.</p>
<p>ditto newmassdad. originaloog- I completely disagree with your post. All it means for a school to be a "reach" is that you might not have as high of SAT scores or GPA as many of the other kids, OR as NMD says, it is a school which would be considered a reach for anyone!</p>
<p>It is important to remember that high school grades and test scores predict college GPA for a collection of students, but leave lots of unexplained variation. For an individual, the prediction is even worse. Of course, if being in the top of the class is important to you, then choose a college where the odds are in your favor. On the other hand, recognize that lots of students do better, or worse, than their high school records would imply.</p>
<p>I agree that if you've been accepted, you can do the work. And if you are motivated and organized, you can do well. In addition, students vary as to when they "come into their own." While your hs "stats" may have made the school a reach for you, I don't believe I've ever seen research showing that your position in the class upon entry will remain your position in the class upon graduation. So many factors - your motivation, your interest in the classes you take, the field you choose for the major, etc. etc.</p>
<p>I was 125th in my class in high school, the 7th best qualified of the 9 applicants to my prestige LAC, and the only one to get in, and that off the waiting list. Finished 10th in my college class, and would have been first or second if not for my freshman year. Granted, the kids at my high school (most of whom went to City College, or Queens or Brooklyn Colleges) were more intellectually gifted than those at my "reach" school. The reach school turned out to be the less competitive environment.</p>
<p>That said, exactly 50% of the students at my reach school finished in the bottom half of their class. Amazing! ;)</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Graduation rates of recruited athletes at prestige schools are as high or higher than those of the non-athletes, despite having lower "admissions profiles".<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Depends on what you mean by "prestige schools". For HYPS it's probably true. But there are plenty of academically prestigeous flagship state universities that also aspire to be athletic powerhouses that are not above enrolling an academically-unprepared star linebacker or power forward knowing full well that he is very likely doomed to failure in the classroom.</p>
<p>Yeah, but the academically unprepared athlete at the top sports school has several tutors and academic advisors keeping him eligible.</p>
<p>newsmassdad, you misunderstood me. Yes, the most selective colleges are a crap shoot for even the best prepared students during admission. However by reach colleges I mean students whose high school statistics(gpa, course load, SAT,SAT 2's) place them in the bottom half or worse in the admissions pool.</p>
<p>I agree that these are not foolproof predictors of academic success but they give some indication at least. If the 25-75% SAT range is 1400-1550, a student who scores below 1450 would consider that college an academic reach and I would agree. Could he become a star student in the university? Possible, yes but probably not. Those students would more likely be those in the top quartile.</p>
<p>All I am saying is that 50% of any class has to finish in the bottom half and it is most likely to be over populated by those in the bottom half of the admissions pool. And yes there will always be exceptions. But this is the way things work in any competetive environment. The best f'ball players start, the others sit or fail to make the team. </p>
<p>I have been in the college classroom for more than 30 years and see this play out in every class. You can indentify quickly those students who just get it immediately, those who eventually get it through hard work and those who never fully get there.</p>
<p>And if the bottom third and bottom half of the graduating class is not overrepresented by those in the bottom half of the admissions pool, who is overpopulating it?? Only Lake Wobegone is able to avoid the laws of logic and statistics.</p>
<p>There are many good reasons to attend an academic reach college. But a desire to partake of advantages offered to those whose classroom performance sets them apart from their peers is not one of them.</p>
<p>"All I am saying is that 50% of any class has to finish in the bottom half and it is most likely to be over populated by those in the bottom half of the admissions pool. And yes there will always be exceptions. But this is the way things work in any competetive environment. "</p>
<p>It's a big unknown. Karabel (in The Chosen) writes about an admissions director at Harvard who seeks out "a happy bottom quarter". These are students who, in his opinion, would not lose self-esteem over being in the bottom 25% of the Harvard class, and would find social meaning outside of the classroom. But it doesn't mean their SAT scores were lower; rather their GPAs and class rank were. Needless to say, the "happy bottom quarter" was way overrepresented in legacies, and in fancy prep school grads (where SAT test prep was first class); but not by athletes.</p>
<p>So it really depends by what you mean by the "bottom half of the admissions pool". I was part of the bottom 2% (meaning I got in off the waiting list), but my stats were well better than half the class.</p>
<p>I think originaloog was clear about the definition of the bottom half of the admission pool--those students whose SAT and GPA rank below the mean of the admitted class. However for these differences to be meaningful you would need to have a fairly decent admission percentage (over 30% I would think) and enough variance in those scores to have truly meaningul differences that would be correlated with academic succcess in college. So the elite LAC's and the Ivies would probably not be good fits for this model. At other colleges I think originaloog is absolutely right. The star student is able to avail themselves of the academic opportunities that would be more equally shared among a larger group of equally talented students at a higher powered place. I also agree that such stars are quickly identified in the classroom by professors when that classroom is filled with students of varying abilities.</p>
<p>Actually, the data I've seen is not at all consistent with originaloog's (BTW, cool screen name. what does it mean?) hypothesis. The CB research, which is clearly more relevant, for technical reasons, for nonelite colleges, has shown that HS grades are the best predictor of college grades, that the SAT reduces varance by another 0.1 or less. But even with both predictors, only about 1/3 of the variance in grades is accounted for.</p>
<p>What this means is that, as afan said neither the SAT nor HS GPA are good predictors of college success, so they can't predict whether a kid will be in the top or bottom half, since that's based on grades. </p>
<p>As others have said, it may be intuitive, but that does not make it correct. </p>
<p>I have no doubt that some kids "get it" and some don't. I also know from experience that kids with stellar records from HS can have a tough time "getting it" - depending on what's expected. In fact, many of these stellar kids excel at a rather rote, formulaic kind of learning, after all, a lot of HS work is of that nature. Since a lot of college is the same way, they can do well in some fields. But not others.</p>
<p>Heck, there is so much variance in the ability, motivation and interests of HS kids, AND so much variance in the intellectual content of various college curricula, that I'm surprised there's any correlation between HSGPA and college success!</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Yeah, but the academically unprepared athlete at the top sports school has several tutors and academic advisors keeping him eligible.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Sure, but we are talking about graduation rates. Keeping eligible and graduating are two different things. The country is littered with former Div. 1 "student athletes" who stayed eligible for four years but never came close to earning a degree.</p>
<p>But many DO earn a degree (i.e. Indiana basketball). I was responding to the "doomed to failure in the classroom" comment when I mentioned the tutors.</p>
<p>As I see it, the problem with the reach school is no merit money.</p>