What are the differences between Reach, Target, and Likely colleges?
When you finalize your college list during your application cycle, you’re essentially making a decision about how to best spend your time and energy. Each college application will most likely require a supplement, so it makes more sense to curate your list carefully focus on colleges that would be good bets—rather than throw a humongous net out there “to see what happens” or apply to a high number of schools that you would not have a realistic change of getting into.
As you may already know, a college list should have a healthy balance between reach, target, and likely colleges. Below is a straightforward guide on how to place colleges into these categories. Keep in mind that there are other nuances beyond just the information below, which I will begin to mention at the end of this post.
A target school is a college where your grades and test scores fall right within or towards the upper end of the college’s indicated range.
A “safety” school is a college where your grades and test scores exceed the school’s range. We actually prefer the term “likely” over “safety” because labeling a college a “safety” is misleading. It implies lower quality, and it also leads students to think that getting in will be a guaranteed slam-dunk. Neither are really true. Every single college on your list should be a place you’d be excited to spend four years at, and you can often get rejected or waitlisted at your “likely” colleges, especially if admissions feels that you may not attend in the fall if granted a spot.
Finally, a reach school is a college where your grades and test scores fall either right within or toward the lower end of the indicated range. However, this also depends on the admissions rates of the reach school. A very competitive college like Harvard, Williams, Stanford, or Duke will be a reach for any student even when their grades and test scores fall toward the upper end of the school’s range.
Many students and parents may get the impression that a reach school is any competitive college that they like and plan their college lists accordingly. However, this is an unproductive strategy. If you’re not within the college’s range of grades and test scores, it doesn’t make much sense to apply. Many students and parents let us know that the student’s numbers are out of range and they need help producing stunning essays to impress the admissions offices. While great essays and extracurriculars certainly give you a boost and make a difference, they can only help so much if you don’t meet the entry “requirements.” Most colleges do not publish concrete “requirements” for test scores and grades, but these exist. For example, 95% of students admitted to Duke during the 2020-2021 cycle were in the top 10% of their class, 99% were in the top quarter, and 100% were in the top half. The numbers were the same at Amherst except that 91% of their admitted students in 2021 were in the top 10% of their class. These percentages are also affected by recruited athletes, who are sometimes able to get in with lower scores and grades than their non-athlete counterparts.
Think of grades and test scores as the minimum preliminary requirement to having your application being considered seriously, and think of essays, extracurriculars, recommendations, and other soft factors as what would differentiate you from others and get you in once you’ve passed that preliminary requirement.
Therefore, it makes more sense to choose reach schools that are truly reach schools for your current grades and test scores. For example, if you are interested in MIT but feel that your test scores and/or grades would not meet fall into their range comfortably, find colleges similar to MIT. Think about what aspects of MIT that draw you in, then identify other colleges that also offer these and are good matches with your current grades and test scores.
The above is only a basic guide on how to start creating a college list. There are some exceptions to this since college admissions truly is more than just grades and test scores. Which high school you attended can factor into your reach, target, and likely list. For example, if you attended an ultra-competitive high school and have successful test scores, you may be able to include reaches and targets in your list that normally would not meet your GPA. Read more about this here.
Lastly, there is what we refer to as the “reach plus” category of colleges, which you can read more about here.