In general I wouldn’t believe online comments not directly from the school - but yes, it’s certainly a tougher admit than PSU’s general numbers.
Auburn is very like U Arizona. You’re admitted to the school if you hit their GPA & SAT/ACT. Then at the end of the first year there’s a cut-down into the actual B.Arch program. I’m not sure how many of the ~50 follow that kind of admissions criteria.
In terms of Likelies/Safeties - the challenge is to know which programs those are since it’s generally not GPA based and you likely don’t know how you fit into their “model” of an Architecture student. Some will look to be more design/art based, some will look to be more engineering focused. The kid that gets into Syracuse might not get into Virginia Tech and vice versa.
The student definitely needs to meet the first hurdle of general admissions. They can be the best artist in the world but if they’re a C student they’re not getting into Cornell. But a student that might be in the lower 25% admits to the school, if an exceptional artist, might get an accept to the Arch program.
Where I feel like some of our high schools do a disservice is when they offer an “architecture” course at the 9-12 grades it’s focused on CAD. Most university portfolio submissions will state explicitly they do not want CAD/building design work.