We found that by abandoning the entire “reach” concept and selecting a wide variety of schools where our son was in the top 30%, he ended up with great merit scholarships at all of them and was able to pick from among many interesting colleges where he can get a great education. My advice: unless you are made of money or will get vast amounts of need-based-grants, ditch the concept of ‘reach’ and ‘high reach’ - it leads to either huge debt or huge disappointment.