@intparent you are right on the first point, I was looking at slightly old data.
@bouders, the point of interest is to figure out how likely the student is to say ‘yes’ if they are accepted. If your kid’s stats are high, they want to have some reason other than the application to believe that she might attend if accepted. They are protecting their yield, which matters in rankings.
@intparent Yes, I understand that- and she talked about that in her “Why College X” essay.
A little more on safeties and planning the college list: I think this is another one of those things where what works best depends on a number of factors – things like what level school the student is a match for, their financial situation, their personal preferences, where they live, etc.
So it’s not the case that one strategy will work for everyone. It’s not even the case that one general kind of strategy will work for most people. It’s more like, there are a handful of general strategies, each of which will work for a large proportion of students, and all together they’ll cover almost all students.
So, per @“Erin’s Dad”'s example, for someone who really likes a school that happens to be a safety for them, they don’t need to worry too much about matches. (But don’t miss @“intparent”'s point about having choices in the spring.)
I can look at my own kids to see these differences. For my older son, now at UIUC, although we insisted he apply to a variety of schools (which he did quite willingly 
), looking back, he probably could’ve applied to just the one school. He was very focused on UIUC, it was a great fit for him, and he was very likely to get in. And at that time, they had an early decision application – apply by Nov. 1, hear back by Dec. 15. So if he had just applied there, by then he would’ve been all set and done (and if he hadn’t gotten in, we could’ve gone to Plan B).
For my younger son, things are much different (and more complicated ). He has no clear choice at the moment, so we’re looking at a lot of places. He has UIUC as a “safe” option, and otherwise we’re looking at a lot of matches and reaches. But he would prefer not to go to UIUC, so it’s important that we find good matches. So I’m using a strategy like what I outlined in my previous comment. (And I think this kind of situation is more common than the previous one.)
One extra comment on that – if a kid doesn’t get into that early or rolling school, it can be hard for them to get motivated on their other applications. Best to have them keep working and at least have a few other apps ready to go so that dip in motivation doesn’t hurt the quality of the other apps if needed.