Why avoiding highly competitive schools is a winning applications strategy

[1NJParent]

This thread must be considered in the context of OP’s other thread:

South Asian Male with high stats and no admission yet

I read somewhere there are few kids who left with no admissions every year. I never thought it will happen to us but it did happen with no admission to enroll this year. Yep he/she sits in top quartile of every top school out there with GPA in top 10% of his high school. It hurts to even write the list of what his high school activities are as no one valued these achievements. May be some sort of curse, I have to say. We had total 18 applications with zero admissions. We had State Schools, Private Schools and reasonable safety schools in the mix. Yet no one liked our application. Can’t blame anyone but it hurts. Reason why I am so angry with uncertainty of the admissions process.