<p>Tom - in the end, the only statistic that matters for this (or any) school is the thickness of the envelope. I would hazard a guess that your D will be accepted to the school you describe.</p>
<p>However, the purpose of categorizing schools as safe-match-reach is to make sure that you and she develop a well-balanced (and safe ;) ) list for her eventual applications.</p>
<p>For you to sleep well between January and April a couple of years from now, when her apps are out and you are awaiting decisions, you really want the schools you label "safe" to be slam-dunks. For that, you want her to be in the top 25% of their stats SAT-wise and to stack up well in the class rank and GPA departments. And you want the school's overall admit rate to be a high %. You are way ahead of the game to be looking at that now, as we see so many parents who like the way their kids stack up against a school profile, but fail to notice that the school only accepts about 20% - or fewer - of the applicants and pretty much all of those applicants stack up well on paper.</p>
<p>So, to respond to your "mystified" post - and I hear you - the school's admit rate would need to be 100% for her to be safe. Some of us do use an additional "safe/match" category and that category might fit your D for this school.</p>
<p>My own opinion is that the majority of your effort should be spent on these match and safe/match schools. These are the ones likely to fit her best (at least that's been my observation and feeling). These safe/match and match schools should make up the preponderance of her apps (say 4 or more out of 8). Throw in a reach or two. Then have two safeties - but make those safeties SLAM... DUNK.... never-have-to-wonder-or-ask safe.</p>
<p>You know what? She probably <em>will</em> get into that school. If you asked all to bet, I'm guessing most of us would bet that way. But here on cc, the definition of safe is strict - that's why you're getting the "votes" you're getting.</p>
<p>Match.</p>