I am struggling with this. my DS25 had ivies and other T20 schools on his college list. He has amazing ECs, but his grades and SAT score…oof. That and you add on our financial need, about 15 out of his 18 schools are likely way out of reach, but he still thinks he can convince Cornel, MIT, Georgetown, etc. to accept him with his stellar ECs and a great essay.
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First of all, I would run the NPC at these schools to see if you could expect enough aid at them, if he DID get admitted.
I would also make sure he has some schools on his list that are very likely to admit him, that you would be able to afford, and that he would be happy to attend. (All students need these.)
For the reach schools on his list, I would make sure he looks at the data (admit rate, middle 50% range for SAT score, etc.), but I would let him make his own decisions about where to apply, even if it is a long shot, as long as there was a chance that it would be affordable.
That is what I did with my S23. We set a limit on cost up front, and he knew that any school where he was admitted would need to be within that limit for him to attend. He had two schools that were very likely (and some others that were also fairly likely), but for his reach schools, he was free to aim as high as he liked, as long as it could come in within budget.
Towards the end, he decided for himself to drop the most selective schools off his list, because he decided it was too much work to write the essays for a slim chance of admission. But I didn’t push him to do that.
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EVERY kid should start by finding two schools where they have a very very strong likelihood of acceptance that they like, that are affordable. Once those two sure things are found, then build the list UP from there.
You should have a candid discussion about finances with your son.
I’m going to link a thread here. I would suggest you and he read the whole thing. The kid in the thread was class val, tippy top grades, NMF, great ECs and great LORs. And essays. No one expected he would be rejected from every college he applied to the first time, but that is what happened. He really didn’t have a sure thing for admission. But this kid on the thread was a very very strong student.
This kid did land on his feet after taking a gap year after high school graduation. But it was not the end of senior year he expected, or wanted.
You don’t want your kid to be in this situation his senior year of high school…and he should not want that either. Thus the suggestion to find two sure things. If they have rolling admissions all the better.
Here is that thread:
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Would you be willing to share them?
I found your other thread…linking it her for info.
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My advice? Don’t be the one to squelch his dreams. Instead my suggestion is to make sure he has plenty of target and safety schools on his application list in addition to his reach schools. Let the schools do the squelching. Mom and dad can be his constant cheerleaders and his safe place to land when and if heartbreak comes.
As long as he has a healthy list of target schools that he could see himself going to, that are affordable, it will all work out. A lot of things change when reality hits them in the face. And you can be the one who always believed in him and supported him.
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As the parent, run the net price calculator on each college’s web site to see if it is financially realistic. Better to squelch any dreams of too-expensive colleges before applying than after an admission letter comes. For the colleges that could be affordable if admitted, but are unrealistic for admission, the colleges themselves will squelch those dreams.
However, do not make the mistake of saying “student won’t get admitted to unaffordable DreamCollege anyway, so we don’t need to talk price limit beforehand” and then seeing the student get an unaffordable admission to DreamCollege and having to squelch the dreams at that time. Put the price limit up front; say something like “we can only afford $X, so any college admission that requires parent contribution greater than $X is equivalent to rejection” (and note that student loans without cosigner are limited to $5.5k).
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Help them create a spreadsheet with columns for all of the things they value along with the estimated cost with the net price calculator, acceptance rate, average test scores and GPA. Then they can see where they fall into the ranges of GPA, scores, and affordability.
They can keep a few high reaches, but they need to spend more time on the others…they will get there. It is ok.
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Another helpful tool is the Common Data Set for each college. (Most, but not all, publish these.) Rather than just supplying median stats, it shows the percentage of entering students who fall into various brackets with regard to test scores, GPA, and class rank. Sometimes it’s easy for a kid to convince themselves, “I’m not that far from median!” but when they see that 1% of entering students are in their class rank category, where they really stand becomes a bit more real. (Especially if they understand that the the tiny slice of students who match their stats are likely highly-desired recruited athletes or some other “hooked” demographic.)
Yes, it’s fine to shoot the moon if he’s not going to be able to live with not trying. But he needs attainable and affordable schools too. And if it’s possible to insist that the attainable/affordable apps get done first, that is very wise for multiple reasons: The “safety” apps get submitted as early as possible; the apps get better with practice/refinement… and if he runs out of steam by the end, all you lose is schools he wouldn’t have gotten into anyway.
And yes, be crystal clear about finances. Other than that, I’d say just make lots of objective info available, and let him connect the dots, rather than expressing the obvious conclusions yourself. It’s tough, and may take some time for him to process. 
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I think it’s fine to have a couple of top schools, with stellar EC’s. We don’t have info on what they are, but the combo of EC’s and letters of recommendation might help a lot.
I would suggest looking at the Colleges that Change Lives website for other ideas. Colleges That Change Lives – Changing Lives. One Student At A Time. (ctcl.org) We really liked Clark and there is a scholarship there for community service, I believe. We also looked at Goucher, which is also on the list.
Bennington isn’t on the list, and is very small, but has a unique program and might be worth looking at.
Rather than MIT he could look at Olin.
Financial and merit aid can bring surprises. He needs to be prepared for those in either direction- more or less than expected.
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I agree 100%. If the schools are affordable and paying the extra application fees is not a burden, let him go ahead and apply and let the chips fall where they may. But tell him he first needs to find affordable schools that are likely admits and he’d be happy to attend. Only then can he do his moon shot.
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I have a different take on this, at least for some kids. Parents know their kid best, but it can be difficult for some kids to open up decisions and see denial after denial. Don’t underestimate the impact that can have on a some young people.
Agree on the need for a balanced list with at least two affordable safeties/highly likelies. Balanced also generally means more targets than reaches. And get some early acceptances at rolling admission schools, if any of those are appealing and affordable.
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THIS!
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Gotta have the financial discussion very early in the process and the parents have to be very upfront about it. No wait and see if… Approach. That makes the selection fair for the child. Most kids work hard to get into college. You have to be able to afford the school and not go into debt.
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Getting some acceptances at rolling schools is exactly what we did. I knew that the rejection week was coming up. Trust me, always kinda nice to have an acceptance or two before that happens.
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I agree with @aquapt looking at the common data set can help set up realistic expectations. I made a Google Sheets spreadsheet where I linked and listed many school attributes and shared it with my daughter. She only applied to target and safety schools (she also was not interested in a competitive environment).
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If you have a price point, please convey that to your student early on. If this is firm, let them know that any acceptance where the net cost is too high will have to be removed from consideration.
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I agree with the consensus that nothing good can come from your kid applying to “dream” colleges you know would be unaffordable.
Otherwise–as some others also implied, I think there is a lot of practical wisdom in the basic framework of at least 2 Likelies, maybe 3-5 Targets, and 2-3 Reaches. There is lots of debate about whether adding a lot more reaches is good, bad, or neutral, and personally I am in the camp that it is rarely a good idea, and often a bad idea.
Indeed, it was not a big deal but as some here know, I was not a huge fan of my S24 throwing in a bunch of last-minutey reaches. And then nothing came out of those additions anyway, and I don’t really think he should have preferred any of those colleges over his actual favorite admits even if he had been admitted.
So not to over rely on anecdotes, but this is a good illustration of how IF you have already done a really good job identifying your best 3-5 Target and 2-3 Reach opportunities, obviously affordable but also that they are a good fit for you AND you are a good fit for them, then the odds an actually better offer for you will come out of any more colleges you add to your list are usually really, really low.
But suppose you buy all this, does this mean having to squelch dreams? I would hope not, I would hope you could just make the point they should pick a few Reaches in a really thoughtful way, then really submit the best possible applications to those colleges.
And while I think ideally these would all be realistic Reaches, if 1 or 2 are not, or even if all are not? Well, as long as you have those 2 Likelies and 3-5 Targets, all well-chosen, then you can “waste” all your Reaches and really, no serious harm done. I’d gently try to guide your kid away from that anyway, but I wouldn’t put up a big fight if they insist.
Edit: By the way, I was reflecting a bit on all the threads I see online these days when a kid is basically asking, “Should I attend College A, which is a great fit for me and I got a big aid offer so my family can easily afford it without loans, or College B, which is not as good a fit for me and would be a lot more expensive and cripple me and my family financially, but is ranked a bit higher and/or is better known among my elderly relatives?”
And of course the answer is almost always College A. And I honestly think a lot of those throw-in Reaches are either not going to work, or even if they do work they are just going to end up the College B in that scenario. All very pointless, and avoidable if you can be really thoughtful, put aside the part of your brain that is trying to “win” the college admissions “game”, and stick to a really carefully-chosen 2-3 Reaches.
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S24 applied to 20 schools. We limited his number of “Dream” schools to three: MIT, Standford, USC. The rest of the list has to be real reach, target and safety. We don’t want him to spend all his effort writing essays for the “dream” schools. We would rather he focus on the applications for school he has real chance to get in.
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I think this is the route we are going to go. Three dream schools, allow about five “hard” targets along with five additional real targets, and two to three safeties.
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A co-worker just went through this with her son (3.8 unweighted GPA from a very competitive public school and >1500 SAT ). After sending in applications, getting an ED and many EA rejections, he finally came to his senses that he needed to have some targets and safeties on his list. The result? He got into one school (large state flagship) that he has never seen. He didn’t get merit because it all goes to EA applicants. His parents want to ask for more FA, but as they don’t have any other offers, they can’t go in with a “but X school is offering $”
All this is to say that, while you shouldn’t squash his dreams, you should insist he has mostly safeties and targets on his list. You should also set a firm price point.
And if he still balks, he might have to pay the consequences as hard as it may be for you to watch. When it started to look like co-worker’s son was going to have no acceptances, he freaked out and asked what would happen if he didn’t get in anywhere. She gave him a list of choices: community college and then transfer, work for a year then re-apply, or apply late to the schools that would have been his safeties and hope they are still taking applications.
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