Does anyone ever get to a reach or long reach school?
Of course but only about 8% of applicants to long reaches get in and about 20% of applicants to reaches get in.
For additional context, here are the percentage ranges on how CollegeVine defines Long Reach, Reach, Hard Target, Target, and Safety.
1%-15% — Long Reach
10-33% — Reach
21-55% — Hard Target
43%- 85% — Target
85% or higher — Safety
This is why you should have a good mix of college types so you will have at least a place to go. Some people suggest 1 or 2 safety, 3 or more targets and hard targets and a couple reaches or long reaches. If you only have long reached and reaches and want to play the odds game, you might have to apply to like 20-30 schools to get into 1. Some people like me feel it's better to make your college list on where you think you'll enjoy 4 years regardless of the clout and ranking.
Good luck.
So as Nurse provided the "percent breakdowns" I want to say that you never know what specifics the admission officer (AO) will want to see. The AO may fall in love with your personal story or with your extracurriculars but you generally always have a chance as long as you have a GPA that isn't too far off. (You'd never get into Harvard with a 2.0 gpa but a 3.5 is possible just supremely unlikely. For example, the chance of rolling snake eyes on 2 six-sided die (rolling two 1s) is 1/36 with is sub 3% chance. Yet people can and do roll snake eyes.
Hope this helps and feel free to ask for clarification as I id be happy to help explain something.
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