I’ve been seeing this sentiment expressed a number of times recently. I just wanted to share this post with some facts about the number of high school seniors that might be worth serious deliberation at the highly selective/rejective universities.
Even if half of HYP’s applicants are applying to it as a “reach” (their scores are on the lower end of admitted stats), then that would take the acceptance rate up to 6% for the group of the true “matches.” If 75% of HYP’s applicants are using it as a “reach” then that still would leave an acceptance rate of 12% for the “matches.” In just about any system that lists percentages for reach/target/likely, a 12% is a “reach” or very unlikely. And if you read the linked post from the first paragraph, I think that there is a very big pool of academically qualified applicants.