<p>Ugh, most schools probably don’t reject highly qualified applicants as a strategy. Instead of just seeing them as “lost causes”, it would make more sense for them to offer insanely good financial aid to the student, so that they might be willing to give the school a real consideration. </p>
<p>Obviously, if the kid is applying to a school, even a safety, they must have some interest in enrolling. </p>
<p>I think that applicants are a lot smarter than drones that just base the quality of the school on its rejection rate. Personally, I like at median SAT scores as the baseline for gaging the selectivity of a school. Admit percentage is basically a non-factor since so much of it depends on how well known a school is.</p>