<p>Dogwood, Boston College is an extremely good school and because your D2 is thriving there, it is undoubtedly worth every penny.</p>
<p>Somewhat of a bizarre thread - why would anyone apply to a school whether a reach or a safety where they wouldn't want to go??</p>
<p>
[quote]
why would anyone apply to a school whether a reach or a safety where they wouldn't want to go??
[/quote]
Reach:
Because they may have actually liked the idea of going there more than actually going there.*</p>
<p>Safety:
Because they didn't think they'd end up having to go to their safety, so they didn't spend enough time choosing it.</p>
<p>*Some students will be happier and more comfortable at UCLA than CalTech. But if you're really, really good in math and science, people will encourage you to apply to CalTech. </p>
<p>To me, the whole idea of late bloomers "growing out of" a match school doesn't make sense. If it's truly a match, there should be any number of opportunities for a student to stretch and expand. If not, then it wasn't a match, it was a safety.</p>
<p>Some students set high standards for themselves and want to push their limits, or contrary-wise (thank you, Tweedledum) they know that they will slack off if they aren't challenged strongly. If so, they can benefit from seeking the stimulation of a strong academic orientation, including the probability of being around very capable peers. Usually (not always) this equates to a reach school as the best overall fit. </p>
<p>However, other factors may change the picture significantly. If a student is more career-oriented going in, and focused on a specific result, attending the reach school may not be the most sensible choice. For example, I met a young man the other day who closed my refinance loan. He has worked for his father's title company for two years, is finishing an AA degree with straight As, is transferring to UM with a business major, and then plans to go to law school to become a real estate attorney. He is very clear about his goals and highly focused on his future career. If I were his parent, I wouldn't advise him otherwise - he has laid out a practical path and is doing what it takes to join and expand the family business. </p>
<p>I admire clarity in direction when it arises naturally. For instance, I consider my father to be among the luckiest of mortals. When he was five years old, he looked up and saw his first airplane. From that moment on, flying was his greatest ambition. He worked his way into flying lessons from beginning as an airplane mechanic, joined the Army Air Corps, became a flight instructor, was one of the first people to fly a helicopter, performed rescue missions, and flew jets for many years. When he eventually had to move over for the younger pilots, he retired, joined the aircraft industry, and helped develop the armoring and weapons requirements for the A-10 Warthog, still functioning successfully as a ground/tank support aircraft to this day. At 86+, he still misses flying, his lifelong passion. He did exactly what he wanted to do, and aimed directly at his ambition from day one. To find one's calling so young and never waver from it is indeed fortunate.</p>
<p>DocT, I asked the question because my son's GC suggested some reach schools that he would never have thought about going to. I wasn't sure why it was necessary to have reach schools that a student wouldn't want to go to. I understand that reaches are supposed to be schools you might be interested attending if you got in, but in his case, he didn't have any. All the schools that are a good fit are either matches or safeties. The reaches are reaches because they are going to be challenging to get into and even more challenging to attend. That seemed frivilous to me.</p>
<p>Sometimes the GCs are more interested in the HS' ranking & prestige than meeting the student's true needs & wants. There is such a culture of "wanting the best & most prestigous" that GCs sometimes assume kids who are not applying to reach schools are underestimating their chances/abilities rather than choosing the schools the student feels best meets his/her needs.
The HS prestige to some/many is tied to the # of students which attend which prestigous colleges/Us, regardless of the cost or fit. This can run directly contrary to the interests of students & families.</p>
<p>I think that it really depends on the student. If the student is a worker and will not be discouraged by being in classes where the majority of students do not have to work as hard as they do, then I don't see anything wrong with going to a reach school. What I've seen happen is that when it is obviuosly much more difficult than HS was the parent will come back and blame the HS for not "preparing" the student as well as the other (college peers) students were prepared by their HS's!!!!......not realizing that their kid is probably sitting in a clas where almost every other student scored 50-150 points higher on the SAT they did and the prof is going to teach to the "average" ...so yes it's going to be hard!!!!</p>
<p>HImom, that is a very good point. Although I just talked to a senior yesterday, who said she applied to a reach school she had never heard of when several people suggested it to her, and she is now going to attend in the fall. She's a good student but not a 4.0. She said she had never heard of the school before, visited and fell in love with it. The reason is that it was smaller than the ones she was researching so it never came up on any of the searches.</p>
<p>It is good to mention schools that you are aware of that you believe will be a good "fit" for the student. As you say, sometimes kids & their folks have limited awareness of smaller schools in particular (& those with unknown sports teams). </p>
<p>Sometimes families are not as candid about finances & schools that are a academic reach are also a financial reach which just makes things that much tougher--if the student is fortunate enough to get any merit aid it makes pressure to get the grades to keep the aid all that much more intense.</p>
<p>A friend's son was steered by his GC to only apply to safety & match schools, NO reach schools. His mom insisted he apply to some reaches & he got accepted & the best merit within need FAid from his ultimate reach school (USoCal), where he graduated last year & got into his 1st choice med school. He worked VERY hard but his profs were impressed by him with his strong work ethic & he's doing great in med school.</p>
<p>It is useful to define reach. For most applicants the highly selective schools are super-reaches. Reach in this context only applies to admission. It does not mean that only those who are admitted are capable of doing the work and thriving. It means that there are limited slots.</p>
<p>There are schools that are reaches in terms of a student's preparation. I would call these academic reaches as opposed to admission reaches.</p>
<p>For some students, it is best to be in their comfort zone; for some, it is better that they be challenged. All during high school, while my S was taking college classes, we told him he should take the classes he felt most challenged by and in which he could be in the middle of the pack. If he had wanted higher grades, he would not have felt challenged and would most probably have been bored.</p>
<p>Some students, however, want to get top grades; and high GPAs are very necessary for admissions to some graduate program or for retaining merit aid. They should plan accordingly.</p>
<p>marite, that is a good distinction. Academic reaches vs admission reaches. I will keep that in mind.</p>
<p>I understand Dogwood's point myself and went through with that for Colgate. It was my dream school that I thought I could realistically compete with other students. But first, my father made me understand that I would not be in the upper part of the class if I choose Colgate. Because of that I would need to work a little harder than my peers because my SATs and GPA was bit below the average. I was willing to take the stress because Colgate was a better fit and bit more challenging.</p>
<p>Unrealistically- if I had my own way- I'd say YES! to this question of whether I'd attend my "reach," which was Stanford. I'd be the bottom of my class!</p>
<p>I read somewhere in an article that was posted here several months ago that sometimes it's worth attending a "reach" school like Harvard for an average student. No matter how much the student is struggling, s/he will assert that s/he won't drop out because it's HARVARD! I mean, why NOT?</p>
<p>This question, I guess, matters the most to those who are sure of going to law or med school where it's more crucial to be on the top of your class. We've seen enough kids opt out of going to Harvard to their state public where they would have a better chance of earning top grades.</p>
<p>My D applied to an EA school where she probably would have been a very "middlin' " applicant had she gotten in. For the school that she decided to attend, she was somewhere in the top 5 percent of the admitted class. I privately worried about the college being "too easy" for her and thought that being challenged by being "middlin' " might have been good for her. As for the second part, we'll never know, but as for the first part, I needn't have worried. She is challenging herself very rigorously and I think she's getting much more than our nickel's worth.</p>
<p>There's a lot to be said for seeing rewarding results (good grades, etc) for your hard work. :)</p>
<p>Mrs P: IMO, you should add the schools. If I understand your situation correctly your ds is a rising senior, meaning it is 11 months before he will actually send back the postcard saying "I will attend." Lots of things may change btwn now and then, and more choice is better than less.</p>
<p>Both dds have chosen to attend the schools which were their last submitted app, and oddly enough a last minute addition to their final lists. In both cases the schools were super reach for admissions purposes but match/reach academically. </p>
<p>In April, after all their choices were in front of them, they again revisited the "why do I want to go here" part of the process. At this time their priorities shifted, and for DD1 location moved down the list in favor of no core. DD2 also moved size and location down her list in favor of opportunities and yes, name recognition.</p>
<p>Both kids are pragmatic and realized very few things in life are ever perfect. They knew that they could be happy and do well at any of the schools they got fat letters from and weighed the pros and cons of most (some dropped off easily). They weighed the big fish, little pond vs more middle of the road argument. They weighed the reality of the super reach in terms of ec's (i.e., the well lopsided class built by these schools can make it very difficult to particpate in something you love but which you are not gifted at). They weighed the financial aspect (since we don't need or qualify for FA we made a deal with the kids-half of any merit aid would go into an account for them and provide a nest egg for grad school or whatever at graduation..and they both had good choices which would have given them upwards of 30k in the bank)</p>
<p>As DD1 has now finished her first year with almost straight A's (despite missing over a month because of mono), great friends, and a passion for a concentration she had never considered before, I'd say the process worked well for us.</p>
<p>IMO, the realities of choosing where you will spend the next four years are very different from compiling the big list of where you might want want to go.</p>
<p>Quote from Marite: "Some students, however, want to get top grades; and high GPAs are very necessary for admissions to some graduate program..."</p>
<p>It is common to hear that for med school, not attending a super-reach may be wise in order to have the requisite GPA. However, my husband, who interviews for his med school, says they do take the college into account. Still, as my son is thinking along the lines of MD-PhD programs, I do advise him to be careful with course selection. He mostly ignores me, but has agreed not to take three science/math classes next semester when he takes organic chemistry, and is planning to include one interesting but less demanding course.</p>
<p>Everyone seems to assume that the level of high school achievement will lead to an equivalent level of college achievement. Had that been the case, I would have graduated with High Honors from UIUC. I wasn't even close, and in retrospect, I'm surprised I didn't do much worse. I graduated with my BSEE in 1996 with a GPA of 4.13 on a 5-point scale (3.13 on the 4-point scale) and around the 60th percentile. I graduated with my MSEE 2 years ago at George Mason University at the bottom of my class.</p>
<p>What's more, nobody today cares about my past GPA. I won't get a raise by disclosing my SAT or GRE scores. On the other hand, I won't get fired for revealing the "skeletons" in my closet, either.</p>
<p>Donemom, check out the Yale Law School admittee stats. 95% had gpa's of 3.5 or better and 80%+ had gpa of 3.75 or better. While the most selective grad and professional schools do consider where the student attended as an undergrad and probably make some sort of gpa adjustment, student attending very selective colleges better graduate with a very good gpa too.</p>
<p>Your advice about scheduling is perhaps sound but in some ways unfortunate. Undergraduate college is perhaps the last chance a student will have to explore areas of knowledge in depth for the sheer pleasure and challenge of it. For a student to feel that it is unwise to take academic "risks" such as these is unfortunate and is one disadvantage I see in attending a college which is an academic reach.</p>
<p>One reason our son has been able to put together a very challeging academic plan while maintaining a gpa which is about 0.7 point above the college average is because he chose to attend an academic match college. As I noted in prior posts, he views the entire course catalogue as his cookie jar.</p>
<p>PS. I took O-Chem too and it was a brutal course. It seemed that I had to understand and be able to apply a gazillion synthesis reactions in relation to structure and reactivity. I'm breaking out in a cold sweat just thinking about it.</p>
<p>Originaloog, I do agree with your point that "Undergraduate college is perhaps the last chance a student will have to explore areas of knowledge in depth for the sheer pleasure and challenge of it. For a student to feel that it is unwise to take academic "risks" such as these is unfortunate..." </p>
<p>And in fact, that is almost word for word what my son says. In fact, because he loves physics, he took the most advanced version of a class that he didn't even need for med school, (since he has two AP physics courses that he scored 5's on from high school). He was definitely challenged, and it was his favorite class. So far, tho, he's doing well --at least, based on his 1st semester and his expectations of 2nd semester grades. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, given the need for him to maintain a strong GPA, I do think he needs to try to balance his desire to take some risks with a realistic assessment of what the demands of a particular combination of classes will mean in terms of performance.</p>