What is a reach plus school in college admissions?
You’ve probably heard about reach, likely, and target schools when it comes to college applications, but what is a reach plus school? Here at Awaken Education, we like to use this term to refer to the following:
colleges that are big reaches for even the most accomplished students
colleges that are very high reaches for the specific student.
Why do we encourage students to create this fourth category of schools on their college list? Having a “reach plus” category allows for more nuance and a more evenly balanced college list, which results in more acceptances. To explain, we’ll use the example of a student we helped last year.
James* came to us with a 4.0 and 36 on his ACT, plus 800 and 780 on his SAT II Math and US History exams, respectively. In terms of his grades and test scores, he qualified for admission at any college of his choice. However, he had only come to us the spring of junior year to get help with his college list and essays, and he had not given his extracurricular profile as much thought as he had his grades and tests throughout his high school career. He was deeply involved at his school in terms of clubs and sports, but his leadership was weak. We helped him develop several activities over the spring and summer that supported his interest in Environmental Science or Earth Science as a college major, including finding a research position at a local university with a professor. His profile looked much stronger after that summer, but this didn’t mean that he’d automatically get into any competitive college of his choice.
Here is what his list looked like:
Reach: Williams, Dartmouth, Cornell, Northwestern
Target: University of Michigan, UNC Chapel Hill, Georgia Tech, Rice
Likely: University of Wisconsin, Bucknell, Colgate
Reach Plus: Harvard, Princeton, MIT
James was a very ambitious student, and he had a lot of reaches in mind. However, his reaches could really be split into two categories—reaches that he had a more realistic chance of getting into (Williams, Dartmouth, Cornell, Northwestern) and those he did not (Harvard, Princeton, and MIT). This wasn’t because he was not qualified for Harvard, Princeton, and MIT, but more because of the numbers involved. In the 2020-2021 cycle, Harvard accepted only 3.4% of applicants, and Princeton and MIT accepted 4%. We had him apply to these because he really wanted to, but he understood that he had to be realistic and have a “reach” category, or colleges that would be hard to get into but that he could get into. He knew that the colleges in the “reach plus” category were even more unlikely, but he applied because he felt good doing it and didn’t want to always wonder “what if.”
During the regular decision round in April, James received acceptances to Cornell, Dartmouth, University of Michigan, Georgia Tech, Rice, University of Wisconsin, Bucknell, and Colgate. He matriculated at one of his top choices, an Ivy, and although he did receive rejections from his reach pluses, we still think he did pretty well!
In creating your college list, make sure that you have balance within each category. Don’t make all your reaches reach pluses, balance out high and medium targets, and avoid making your likelies actually low targets. Also, be realistic about your chances when you create your college list. You’ll receive more acceptances that way and be happier in the Spring.
*Names have been changed