At most colleges, admissions is primarily by prior academic credentials as predictors of academic capability (of course, different colleges choose different combinations and weights of such, and no prediction is perfect). Most students assess “reach” (versus “match”, “likely”, “safety”) based on how their prior academic credentials compared to the college’s enrolling students.
Yes, there are colleges where non-academic criteria are magnified in importance in admissions (sometimes due to the ceiling of typical prior academic credentials with respect to the most selective colleges), but these do not set the general rule.
In addition to excluding reach colleges, this criterion would also mean that most students who need big merit scholarships to afford college will find an unfulfilling academic experience because they are in the top few percent of students by prior academic credentials.