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<p>The concept of Reach/Match/Safety applies for the average and sub-average students. The schools where these students enroll have high acceptance rates, and someone with stats at the class average is likely to be admitted. But there's no such thing as a school with an average SAT of 1400 or 1500 that accepts 70% of applicants, so there is no such thing as a match school for students in this range. All those GPA/SAT averages actually UNDERSTATE the differences in the difficulty of admission.
This is a brilliant observation. This post should be required reading for any high-achieving student as they ponder their application choices.</p>