Reading a list · 4 min read
Reach, Target and Likely describe YOUR list, not the country
A top-25 program can be a Likely and a regional D3 can be a Reach. The band is about how you match, not how good the school is.
The mistake the words invite
Every family reads 'Reach' as 'good school' and 'Likely' as 'lesser school'. Neither is what the word means here. The band is set against the player's own scored list: a Likely is one of the strongest fits among the schools we scored for you, and a Reach sits in the lower third of that same list or plays materially above your current level.
Why it has to be relative
We score all 2,215 programs for one player. Ranking them against the country would tell you what a magazine already tells you. Ranking them against each other, for this player, is the only version that answers the question a family is actually asking, which is "where do I stand a chance and get on the field".
Build the list across all three
A list of nine Reaches is a hope, and a list of nine Likelies is an under-sell. The reason the app pushes a spread is that the middle band is where the real conversation usually happens — a program where you are plausibly a contributor and they plausibly have room.
Sources
Figures attributed to Startline are counted from the data we hold and update when it does. Recruiting rules change — check anything dated against the governing body itself.