<p>You know, it’s pretty insulting that you assume that “reach” is all about the sticker-value. My kids want to go to reach schools for the same reasons that make the schools such a reach: they’re excellent schools, with great teachers and excellent facilities and a peer group that will inspire and challenge them. My kids have stats that make them excellent candidates for those schools. Why should I try to dissuade them from trying to go to such a school, just because those schools happen also to be prestigious? I would agree that the whole reach/match/safety thing is a rather outmoded idea, in this wildly competitive market, but that’s more because the rate of acceptance even for qualified candidates is so low, and acceptance has become so subjective, that it is very hard to find a school with acceptance rates high enough to be considered a safety, that a student whose standards are set by, say, Williams, would like as much as Williams. Not because of the prestige value, for heaven’s sake, but because Williams is a damn good school. You name me an equivalent small LAC, with students and a program on a par with Williams, and an acceptance rate higher than even 50%, and I will encourage my kids to look at it. Academic fit, for someone with high stats, pretty much guarantees a selectivity that disqualifies “safety” or even match status. </p>
<p>And I think there are at least as many kids posting on these boards who have, in fact, cogent and compelling reasons to dream of their reaches, specifically, as there are the kind of clueless prestige grubber you are characterizing the majority to be. Yes, there are some who list all the ivies, first off, in a reflexive gesture without regard to the nature of the individual schools, and I think they will have an unpleasant awakening, but in fact, that is partly what this forum is for.</p>