TOW #9- The Truth about Applying to 'Reach' Colleges

Kat Cohen, a college admissions counselor, wrote an article for the Huffington Post entitled "The Truth about Applying to 'Reach' Colleges".  A a college admissions counselor, Cohen has extensive knowledge on the process of admissions of schools.  This article reveals things that high school students may not have realized about their reach schools.  In Cohen's article she uses denotation and rhetorical questions in order to help high school students understand how to appropriately choose and apply to their reach schools when applying to colleges.  One of her main points in the article was that many students don't understand the meaning behind a reach school.  A lot of kids will apply to schools that are too unrealistically out of reach.  Cohen writes, "A reach college, by definition, is a school where the applicant's academic profile is not as strong as the middle 50 percent of students who are typically admitted." (par. 4)  She then gives an example of someone with a 2.7 GPA applying to Yale and the unlikeliness of his acceptance.  By defining reach college first, she is able to clearly justify why this student should not apply to a school like Yale.  She proves that if you are too far below the middle group of accepted students, the college is not truly a reach school.  When explaining which reach schools to pick to apply to, Cohen uses rhetorical questioning to show that she understands the views of students, but refutes their process of thinking.  She writes, " A school's selectivity can make it seem more attractive than it otherwise would. After all, who wouldn't want to say they made it into a college that's hard to gain admission to?" (par. 6)  Cohen understands that students would love to be able to say that they were accepted into colleges like Yale, however, it may not be the best school for them to apply to.  She argues that even if a name brand school is within your reach school range, there are so many more factors to consider when applying to your reach colleges.  Cohen successfully accomplishes her purpose through the use of these rhetorical devices to help high school students when they are applying to their reach schools.