For families serious about attending boarding school–and not involved a situation where they are only applying to the local boarding school as a day student and will attend the local public if that doesn’t work or where they are go big or go home and it is Exeter or Hotchkiss or nothing–those serious families should build their list just like they would for a competitive college applicant: reach; match; safety. As long as you only apply to those schools your kid actually would attend, you stand a good chance. Many folks use the SSAT stats to figure out where individual schools should sit on their list.
Second tier schools are more likely to be second tier in reputation, endowment, facilities, luxuries than they are to be second tier in how smart and motivated their best students are. The snob appeal and sundries do matter, as we see people pay big money for them every day, but there are a bunch of good schools out there beyond the biggest ones most folks seem to care about, and each of those good schools attracts of cohort of smart and motivated students.