This actually demonstrates that larger number of applications doesn’t necessarily increase the likelihood of admissions if an applicant applied to a similar group (or groups) of colleges with similar admission criteria. OP’s son would have been better off if he had focused on a smaller set of colleges with a more dissimilar set of admission criteria (including safeties).
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I agree with your tips, which are good, common sense advice. I disagree that colleges do not like Asian or South Asian applicants, who, given the proportion of these students in the nation, are heavily represented at top colleges.
Essays are NOT designed to gauge piano playing and lacrosse. Depending on the college, they mostly serve to reveal a certain level of intellectual ability/curiosity and provide insight into a student beyond what is seen in the application.
No one is attacking you. We are trying to help you understand
what might have gone wrong.
You have a LOT of misconceptions about how holistic college admissions work. You said “I … don’t understand why America pays so much tuition for abstract and made up curriculum when employable skills are gained on the job or thru apprenticeship.” Yet your child applied to 18 colleges. I am guessing that your child probably has great stats and applied to a lot of reach schools, assuming one would work out, but unfortunately the system does not work that way.
Your title here is a good one. It IS a good strategy to apply to schools that are not the top 25 or even 50. And you are totally correct when you say this: These top schools are mostly for the privileged. That is true.
You also said you can’t get into top schools based just on stats. Yes, true. And that’s because there isn’t enough room at the tippy top schools for all the valedictorians and salutatorians in the country, never mind the hooked kids, the athletes, the amazing students who aren’t the Val or the sal, or the kid from Wyoming. There ARE colleges where people can get in based solely on stats, but they aren’t Harvard or anything close. I am betting your child didn’t apply to Pikeville College or Bellevue University, both of whom accept everyone.
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What do you and your son intend to do now? You seem focused on the pain of the rejections received, rather than on attempting to move forward with an application to a few last minute safety schools, so that he can go to college in September.
If you post his actual stats people here can offer you very helpful advice. There are some schools with a March 31st deadline, some whose deadline isn’t until May 1st. It is time to look forward to applying to a couple of schools that he is sure to get into, that may award him significant merit tuition, so that he can go to college in September.
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Agree. The bitterness should be pushed to the back-burner for now, and all effort should be on righting the ship. There are so many knowledgeable people here who might be able to offer options that the OP may not not even aware of.
Being cagey about stats/details, and using this site solely for venting is not serving the OP well right now.
Time is of the essence!! Come on!! 
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The advice to “love your safety/safeties” is glossed over by too many highly qualified applicants. Finding a college or colleges where you are guaranteed to be admitted and will be happy (enough) and can still pursue your academic, career, and life goals in basically the same ways that you could at a “T20” is as important as any other part of the process.
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My higher stats daughter got into the 19 schools she applied to. Due to finances, there wasn’t really a reach school she could afford to attend, so she was looking for merit. She did visit some really nice colleges with her cousin who is in a very different financial situation, but there was really no point to applying. She did like Wake Forest.
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OP did mention that his/her son had safeties in the mix. What were his safeties? I don’t view safeties based on their acceptance rates alone and I differ from some posters in that regard. However, a successful application strategy must include at least one such safety that an applicant has great confidence in.
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They said it was a “reasonable safety” (in their other linked post), which probably means it wasn’t really a safety after all. 
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Someone on another thread posted that they thought Northwestern would be a safety for them because of their stats. Northwestern. With a 9% acceptance rate. I’ve heard people calling UNC and UT safeties, for their OOS students, with no realization of the mandate to take most of their students for instate. Hell, I have a family member who is calling schools with 20% acceptance rates safeties…thankfully their GC set them straight about that.
I had a high stats kid too but she had two safeties with over 70% acceptance rates where her stats were way above those of admitted students. She would have happily attended either if she hadn’t gotten into her other schools. One had rolling admission so she had an acceptance in hand October 1st. I’ll say again for other posters who haven’t been through the process - get your safeties lined up first. Even better if they have rolling admission. It’s psychologically great to know you are in somewhere early in the process.
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Agree. Safeties are super important. My kids both applied to two safeties, got into them all. My son attends his safety and loves it.
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A school like Northwestern is too holistic (i.e. more uncertain) to be a safety, even if one ignores its single-digit acceptance rate. A safety must be less holistic in its admissions. An academically suitable in-state public is usually a good candidate as a safety.
My son had only one safety (Rutgers CS) on his list and he received its Presidential Scholarship (essentially a 4-year free ride for an in-state student). He decided to go elsewhere though.
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I would say it depends on the state. My D’s friend was rejected from our instate flagship. It’s gotten increasingly competitive for the high demand majors like engineering and CS. Look at UIUC. Definitely not a safety for instate applicants wanting to go into those fields.
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I agree it certainly depends on the in-state public and the student. For a particular student, there’s usually an in-state public (not necessarily a flagship) that can meet the student’s need.
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Those early acceptances were really helpful to my D19 when applying for college. As a 3.0-3.5 student she was convinced that she was not getting in anywhere. I had added to the list a few rolling admissions targets with high acceptance rates by Thanksgiving she had her first acceptance with Merit and 3 more by the New Year. Just knowing that she had options did wonders for her confidence and made her feel like she had control over the process.
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You make many valid observations, but perhaps have over generalized because of the unexpected and disappointing results.
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Agree, don’t go for ED unless it is one of your top choices, you are in the top quartile of prior matriculated students (tests and GPA) and it is affordable. In those circumstances, ED may get you over the top. EA and rolling admissions are a good strategy as long as you have taken the time to present yourself in the best light by the app deadline.
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Agree, treat the top OOS programs based on OOS admit rates, which could make them reaches, especially for highly coveted majors. Their FA for OOS is likely to be less generous than many privates (or non-existent).
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Over generalized. You have to look case by case. Some of the worst rip-offs are second and third tier privates. Usually the top privates are the most generous because they have sizeable endowments and are trying to compete for the most talented tier of students.
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Impractical. There is some benefit coming from an underrepresented geography, but it is not as great as you think. Private school counseling can be more personalized than big publics, but there are not that many privates with counselors that have a direct pipeline into AO offices. The value of a good counselor, including ones with access, is not so much lobbying for a student, but understanding where the student stands, choosing the right mix of reaches, matches and safeties, and where there may be areas to strengthen the app before it is submitted.
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Agree.
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Disagree. Internationals are almost always worse off. If you want to take any need consideration out of the equation, you can always choose to apply as a domestic with no FA, which puts you in a better position than an international with no FA. But then you may violate 5, which is a more important rule.
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Agree that for technical fields, college prestige much less relevant as far as job prospects are concerned. Not sure you have to go international to find those opportunities.
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Over generalized. Once you are a plane ride away, there is no difference. Travel expenses are a relatively small factor when compared against tuition, room, board and general cost of living of the area where the school is located.
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I would not say that there is not a correlation, it is don’t assume a good interview is going to provide much of a boost, if any. A bad interview could very well hurt.
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Agree.
As to your frustration, I agree that the best thing now is to look forward. That being said, if there truly were safeties that your S was rejected from (no T25 is a safety for anyone unless you are a recruited athlete or major donor child), I do think you may want to revisit the LoR’s and any common essays before submitting any new apps.
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Another reason I advocate in-state publics as one of the safeties is that they generally aren’t yield-protective for in-state students.
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Same. My son was admitted to his two safeties in October/November and received significant merit at both. Rolling admissions (or schools that release kids who will get merit first like Clemson) are great. Nice to know you are in college.
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If the student got shut out, the presumptive “safeties” were not actually safeties.
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@AntiEssayist : As stated by several posters above:
In order to address your concerns raised in this post, readers would need a list of the schools to which your son/daughter applied along with SAT or ACT scores & GPA.
It is important to learn from mistakes, but, in order to do so, a reasonable amount of information must be shared.
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We are from California and this year has absolutely been an eye opener for me. My kid’s GPA is 3.75, 4.15, 4.55 with a lot of unique ECs and essays that paint a consistent portrait of her sincere interest in her intended major. Though we did apply to “safety” schools I know my kid would not have been happy to attend them and I think this is partially my fault. I am guilty of perpetuating the perception that there is a hierarchy of schools. The lower the “rank” the worse they are. Throughout this whole application process I saw just how stressed my kid was and how absolutely crushed she was when she was not accepted to her dream school, a school that I felt was squarely within her reach. In her mind, she had equated her value as a student and the measure of her accomplishments by the rank of the school she got accepted to.
I am going to do things much differently with my second kid. I will try to make her understand that rankings are irrelevant. The best school is the one where she feels most comfortable, regardless of the brand. I want her to feel proud of where she goes to school and not feel diminished because she got into a “safety” school. Her self worth should not be defined by the name of the school but rather what she accomplishes there. Additionally, I will be planting the seed that she should consider out of state schools. There are so many great schools available that are not ranked so we (me) want to be much more open minded which will in turn lead to more options and opportunities. The competition in California is just so great that kids are just losing their minds trying to do everything they can to get into a “good” school.
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