Most guidance counselors will advise you to apply to at least a couple of different reach schools. These are schools for which you might not meet all of the academic criteria, but there could be a chance that you will be accepted. Of course, if your GPA is any lower than 3.0, you know that the ivy league schools are definitely more than a reach, they’re a distant fantasy. However, if you come close to meeting the academic requirements for a particular school then it may be worth your while to apply – but maybe it’s actually not. Here are the risks of applying to a reach school.
It Might be a Waste of Time
If the school is too far of a reach you could really waste a lot of time on researching the school, writing your essay and completing the application. Not only that, but if you are required to put together any kind of video, portfolio or come in for an interview, you want to be sure that you at least have a slim chance of being accepted. If you also take the time to go on a campus tour, then you could be sacrificing a lot of time and energy for no reason. Time that could have been better spent focusing on your current studies or applications for match schools.
It Might be a Waste of Money
College applications aren’t just time consuming, they are expensive. Each school will charge you some kind of application fee. This fee is what pays for the college admissions officers to pour over each and every application and make decisions on who is in and who is out. If the applications for your reach schools are particularly expensive, then you may want to forget about them and instead put that money toward applications for match schools.
It May Cause Undue Emotional Stress
We all know how stressful it can be to study for your SATs and wait for your results. Likewise, there is a lot of stress that one goes through while putting together college applications, writing essays, and waiting on acceptance and rejection letters. If you get back more rejection letters than acceptance letters, it can really be a huge blow to the ego. Not only that, but it can really take away from the excitement of being accepted to the schools that were a good match. So make sure that you don’t apply to so many reach schools that you are setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment.
You Might Miss Out on Acceptance to a Match School
In the end, there are only so many schools that you can apply to, and you don’t want to apply to Harvard Law if you know that you won’t even be able to get into Vermont Law. You really have to choose your list of schools wisely, because the more time and emotion you invest into schools that are out of your league, the less time and energy you will have for the multitude of schools that you do qualify for.
