As Soozievt and others have said, for schools that don’t admit purely on perceived talent, I think it’s important to look at this statistically rather than anecdotally. Anecdotes can be misleading. Where does the admitted average lie in SATs and GPA in each school? You can look this up. (Naviance is also a great tool.) In any school that considers more than talent, the more of an outlier you are in stats, the lower your overall chances, period. Sure, you can be in the bottom 2% in stats, but your overall chances of getting in are far lower than someone who is in the top 98%. This is true of NYU and any school that considers academics in admission (nearly all schools except for schools like CMU, Juilliard).
Other factors impacting admission are: ethnicity/race, gender, region, type, whether you need financial aid, whether you are legacy, whether your parents are potentially major donors and/or have connections in the industry. These other factors are certainly part of the overall package, as well. It’s just how it is. If your kid is like mine and needs financial aid, you have no industry connections, you’re not a legacy, you’re not an under-represented ethnicity/race, you’re a girl–then stats will play a larger role in your admission (in addition to talent, of course). It’s an overall package. And since you don’t know what the pool is for the college that year or what they’re looking for, you can’t really know if you’ll get in to any school, even a safety. This is why it’s super important to apply to a range of colleges in which you are a match, reach and safety.
Maybe part of this debate is glass half full/glass half empty thing–different perspectives on taking chances. One person thinks a 30% chance of an event is high; another thinks it’s low. One person thinks, “Sure I’ll apply, why not? I won’t get in if I don’t apply.” Another thinks, “I don’t want to apply when my chances are so low and maybe the classes will be too hard.”
But because admission factors in multiple factors, it’s almost never a cut and dry thing. I myself am usually on the side of “apply and then see” unless it’s blatantly obvious it’s impossible (Soozie’s example). But that’s my own philosophy. As long as you have a range of safeties, matches and reaches. Bottom line: academics/stats are an important part of the information in telling you whether a college is safety, match or reach for your kid. This is true of any school that factors in academics.