<p>I think there are plenty of situations in which the last-resort of a type of school wouldn’t be as good a choice as one of the top choices of another type, and I think people sometimes do this…but I’ve never heard it explained as a distinct strategy. There seems to be more than a few people on cc whose reaches are like HYP, and the matches are Tufts, Carnegie-Mellon, and Georgetown, and instead of choosing Rochester and Boston U as safeties, they pick Michigan. In other words, their first choices are elite medium-sized Northeastern privates, but when it comes down to settling for medium-sized Northeastern privates that are NOT especially elite, you might say the heck with that type, and opt for a top-of-the-heap large Midwestern public with great sports and incredible name recognition.</p>