Totally agree. What I might not have made clear is that any school (imo) with graduation rates of at least 70% are acceptable to me. Schools that have substantially higher graduation rates don’t rate higher for me [personally] based upon their high graduation rate.
I think most of the schools my children have ended up applying to/attending have graduation rates between 72% - 84%. Seemed to correlate to the schools with enough resources to give good to great merit while also not so selective that admission was in question for my children’s good to very good but not necessarily ‘CC outstanding’ transcripts/records.
We found a lot of schools that don’t worry about Bs and even the gasp occasional C on a transcript. There are plenty of excellent schools where less than perfect transcripts aren’t an impediment; for either admission or merit.
I don’t know if anyone else has been watching Indian Matchmaker on Netflix but I feel the matchmaker when she reminds clients that getting 60-70% of things on your want list for a spouse is a good result. I’ve said similar things to my children when trying to get them to understand the differences between needs and wants. Especially helpful when looking for colleges while having financial or academic constraints.