<p>Rodney,
Interesting point about Michigan.
I think Michigan may be getting smart and deferring or waitlisting some applicants it thinks likely to go elsewhere, i.e., those obviously using it as a “safety.” Its prominence as a safety probably hurts more than it helps in things like USN rankings. It helps to some extent because it gives Michigan a larger and stronger applicant pool, some fraction of whom do end up in the entering class. But it also hurts because Michigan ends up admitting very large numbers of OOS applicants who are only using it as a “safety” and end up going elsewhere when they get into their “reach” or “match” schools, thus inflating Michigan’s admit rate and depressing its yield—as well as its reputation among applicants, GCs, and others who look at its high admit rate as evidence that it’s not selective enough to be taken seriously. By deferring or waitlisting some very high-end applicants who are likely admits at highly selective schools, it can better manage its yield and bring down its admit rate; but if some of those kids are still hanging around on the waitlist at the end of the admissions season, Michigan can still add them to its class. I should think a lot of schools that have been heavily used (and abused) as “safeties” would want to adopt a similar strategy, which will make it harder for highly qualified applicants to find genuine “safeties.” Finally, I think from the applicant’s point of view that argues for starting with more than one “safety” because they may not all pan out.</p>