In their junior or senior year of high school, students are typically advised to create a short list of colleges that includes safety, match and reach schools.
To help high school students with the sometimes tricky process of selecting their one to three reach schools — colleges that are more of a stretch in terms of admission chances — two current undergraduates share their experiences with this piece of the application process.
Consider many factors when researching schools. Madeline Dyke, a sophomore at Williams College in Massachusetts, suggests that high school students adopt a holistic approach to selecting reach schools.
[Read: 3 Tips for Selecting the Right Reach Schools.]
As an advising fellow for Matriculate, a nonprofit organization that connects current college students at eight partner institutions with high-achieving, low-income high school students, Dyke acknowledges that numbers play a role in this process.
“To determine if a school is a ‘reach,’ look at the test scores of last year’s class of admitted students,” Dyke wrote in an email. “If your test scores or GPA are not within the middle 50%, that school counts as an academic reach. That being said, if any school has an admission rate of under 10 or 15%, it should be considered a reach, even if you have a 4.0 GPA and a 36 on your ACT.”
However, Dyke also encourages applicants to consider other factors when looking at colleges, such as campus culture, geographic location, the strength of particular academic departments, the absence or presence of noteworthy professors as well as distribution requirements, or the general education courses students are required to take.
High school students can ask themselves: Am I choosing a reach school simply for its name or top 10 ranking, or is there a compelling reason for my interest, such as the desire to work with a specific professor?
“I picked my reach schools using the same criteria as I did for my target and safety schools,” Dyke says.
[Read: Consider the Downside of Attending a Reach School.]
Colleen Mitchell, a junior at the University of Georgia, did the same.
“I was pretty much only applying to public schools in the Southeast because I wanted to go to a big public school,” Mitchell wrote in an email. While she did ultimately apply to several institutions located in other regions, a holistic focus drove her short list of schools.
As you approach the admissions period, review the reasons for your interest in a reach school. If you shared them on your college application, would they enhance your chances of acceptance? Or are your reasons limited to name recognition and prestige?
Remain calm and pragmatic. Dyke was accepted to several of her liberal arts reach schools.
“Although I didn’t have the perspective at the time, I now realize that colleges pick you as much as you pick them,” she says. “Application readers somehow knew that I would thrive in a liberal arts culture, even when I didn’t.”
Like other aspects of the college admissions process, surviving the reach school selection and application period requires an even-minded attitude.
Mitchell stresses the importance of remaining calm.
“Don’t get your hopes up and depend solely on getting into your reach school. I know a lot of people who were kind of panicked and desperate when they didn’t get in and didn’t have many other options they would be happy with,” Mitchell says. She applied to four reach schools and was accepted to the University of California–Los Angeles.
[Read: Apply to the Right Number of Colleges.]
With reach schools, your odds of admission are naturally lower. “Elite colleges and universities have enough qualified applicants to fill a freshman class two, three, or even four times over,” Dyke says.
This does not mean receiving an acceptance letter is impossible, but instead that it is an uncertain outcome dependent on a wide range of factors. If a reach school appears at the top of your short list for meaningful reasons, be sure to build a compelling case in your application for how you can positively influence the campus.
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College Students Share Tips for Applying to Reach Schools originally appeared on usnews.com
