I’m sharing the old thread when my daughter applied to colleges to show you the process of choosing colleges for us. My daughter was an average high stat kid when she applied to colleges in 2021.
It was quite a journey for me at least, but I learned more about the process in applying to colleges and was able to work with my daughter in choosing the affordable and “right” school to help her in pursuing her dream. She is now a junior at UMD and doing well. She chose this school because it offers her a good education at a reasonable cost, provides support for her extra curricular, and most importantly, it’s close to home so she can come home most weekends for a home cook meals .
You shouldn’t weight solely on ranking or acceptance rate when choosing colleges. There are several important factors that other posters have mentioned here, and they are not one size fits all. Our daughter also applied to Stony Brooks among other “hight acceptance” rate schools but chose UMD based on my explanation above.