@lizzy1234 Wow! Touched on a nerve here. Right now I am watching the exact opposite unfold. A “perfect” applicant on paper has been denied by her ED school and has yet to get an acceptance into any of her other “reach/match” (she is a high stats EC loaded applicant so her match schools are all reaches) schools. She does not have a good safety and it’s a shame. She is very bitter and taking it out on those around her. If someone can kindly suggest having a good safety, there is nothing wrong with that. You don’t have to say your kids is never going to get into that school. I also think the relationship of the OP to the kid and parents, makes a huge difference on whether or not to say something. I knew that this student needed better safeties, but I am not close to her or her parents. So I am just watching the train wreck feeling terrible for her and really hoping a school comes through for her. Edited to remove the repeated sentence.
My nextdoor neighbor cornered S18 and I in our driveway in September and asked where he was applying.
I did not respond. Ignoring my prior general advice to keep it quiet, my son said “I want to go to [redacted]”.
Neighbor said, right to our face, “You’re not getting in there”. Exact words.
He was accepted ED.
End result: He was wrong, and now if he ever needs to borrow something he’s cut his available pool by 50%. 
So I have to agree there is little to be gained by offering negative feedback, even with good intention. It’s either going to work out for them or it is not. Just root for them and offer support.
There was a lot of pain with a kid in my daughter’s friendship group who was completely unrealistic about her admissions prospects. She assumed that her high class rank and very good (but hardly perfect) test scores entitled her to admission at a small set of colleges that are among the most selective – not HYPS (she wasn’t interested), but not much easier than that to get into. Her GCs didn’t really pay attention, because they basically left it to the top-performing, academically ambitious kids to counsel each other. Until then, they had no experience with a great student not getting accepted anywhere. Her friends were pulling their hair out telling her to apply to some safety, but she didn’t want to listen. Her parents, who are sort of hippy-dippy, were in awe of her academic success, and completely took it on faith when she told them she knew what she was doing. This was a second child, but child #1 had gone to a local not-so-selective public with no admissions drama at all.
I knew the parents somewhat, not just as parents of a classmate of my kid’s. I could have called them up and said, "I heard from my daughter that your daughter is only applying to . . . " and just given them some nonjudgmental indication of how risky a strategy that was. It might or might not have had an effect. But if it did have an effect, it would have made the world a better place, for them and for their child. It would have been a little easier to do than the OP’s situation, because it was clearly the child, not the parents, who was driving the strategy.
She took a not-well-planned gap year, reapplied to a broader range and greater number of colleges, and was accepted only at her safety. Which was a fine school, and after a few years everything was OK. But it was a bumpy road to OK that maybe could have been smoothed.
@lizzy1234 Did your sister only apply to Duke, no other colleges? If so, it’s great that she got in, but that doesn’t make her a good example for others. About 10% of the people who go over Niagara Falls survive it, but if you had a friend who was thinking about going over Niagara Falls, you might try to change her mind.
@Postmodern OMG! This is why we keep our mouth shut. Too many judgy people think they know everything!
There’s a difference between random judgy people who say ‘you’ll never get in’ and friends who find indirect ways to suggest safeties, without judgement because the kid may get into reaches indeed yet needs a couple good safeties. A good safety could be best friend’s safety.
Hoping op keeps us updated.
@sahmkc and @JHS I agree that everyone needs a safety and a balanced list, but OP didn’t say that this person doesn’t have safeties. Only that in his opinion they are touring schools they don’t have a shot at. It’s probably okay to remind people to have safeties and matches, but I don’t think it is appropriate to tell others that touring certain schools is a waste of time
Clearly, there are always examples of a lower-stats, unhooked applicant who gets into Harvard or Duke or Williams. It happens, but it’s unlikely. I might not get killed if I don’t wear my seatbelt. But I’m not going to chance it.
@wisteria100 I agree that OP should not be commenting on the schools they are touring. I was offering an alternative to “Your kid is never getting into that school. Don’t waste your time.” Because there is around a 90% chance the OP is correct and the student won’t get into the selective colleges that they are touring.
So please tell me you ran out and got the full sized school flag and blow up mascot to put in your front yard. 
^^^^ Lol no but we did joke about exactly that!
So, here’s the flip side of keeping quiet: I am in the position right now of wondering if I should have spoken up with my DD’s best friend (BFF). This is about money, not about getting in. DD and BFF are seniors in private school. The school has, in general, very good and attentive GCs. BFF is the daughter of a low-income single mom and is at the school on a scholarship. BFF applied only to big OOS schools and her stats are not good enough to get much, if any, merit anywhere. I was very nervous about it, since I didn’t think they have the money to pay OOS tuition and I agonized over whether I should say something to her or her mom (or have DD tactfully say something). I ended up convincing myself that (a) surely BFF’s GC was on top of it (b) money is REALLY awkward to talk about and © maybe there is a long-lost uncle I don’t know about footing the bill. Sure enough, BFF cannot afford any of the schools she has been accepted to and will have to take a gap year and reapply. Not the end of the world for her and lesson learned, but I feel awful, wondering if I should have spoken up, gently asked somehow if they had run the NPC on the schools, that sort of thing. I don’t know whether they were not getting good advice from the counselor, or whether they ignored the advice they were given, but this thread has made me think about that fine line between minding one’s own business and helping people who may be less knowledgeable about colleges than the average CCer… Thoughts?
I think I would’ve just mentioned something about having an in-state safety.
@citykid Don’t beat yourself up. It’s hard to know what would have been appropriate to say to your D’s friend (it doesn’t sound like you’re very close to the mom)?
Adding to the complexity of the application nightmare is the need for academic safeties AND financial safeties. This is especially challenging for average students who don’t get accepted to state schools but are admitted to private colleges with no merit scholarship offers.
@citykid , I posted some time ago about losing a friend because I DID try to help in that regard. This was a long-time friend who was proudly and outspokenly about to take out loans of 40k+ per year to send her daughter to college. (A mid-level private, nothing extraordinary, but this girl’s “dream school”) She’s a preschool teacher, single mother, and constantly bemoaning her lack of spare cash on Facebook. I kindly and gently tried to steer her in a different direction because there was no way $160,000 in student loans wouldn’t affect her badly. She wanted no part of it and hasn’t spoken to me since. I am sorry for the friendship loss but I honestly couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t at least tried.
So, be forewarned. If she hadn’t been such a close friend or if she hadn’t always been talking about her financial hardship I probably wouldn’t have felt I could say anything at all, and my mentioning it even delicately was NOT well received. 
It has been mentioned in other threads that many HS counselors say nothing about finances, not even saying “remember to run each college’s net price calculator with your parents before applying”. But perhaps many of the counselors are in high schools where most college-bound students commute to low cost local state schools or community colleges, or schools with students from wealthy families who can pay list price anywhere.
These should not be seen as separate categories. “Safety” should mean that the student is assured both admission and affordability in a school that is otherwise suitable for him/her.
A school that is an admission safety but is only affordable if the student earns a reach-level merit scholarship must be classified as a reach, since admission without the scholarship is equivalent to a rejection.
I’ll be brutally honest. It they can’t figure out that college costs money, and lots of money, then maybe they aren’t smart enough to go to college. For most, especially with serious financial constraints and non-merit aid type grades, the local community college is the best value.
^I wouldn’t call that “being brutally honest”: You don’t know any of that. At all.
There’s merit at tons of places (full rides start at 26 ACT, lots of colleges have guaranteed merit, etc). Further, if they’re lower income, there are meet-need colleges which would be .
Community college is NOT necessarily the best value, especially for someone with merit- worthy stats - this is especially important because, for lower income students, odds of graduating increase if they attend a more selective college. Their odds of graduating with a Bachelor’s degree decrease if they start at CC.
(Keep in mind this is an excellent private school: in order to get in on scholarship, the kid has to be pretty exceptional. It’s much harder to get into an excellent private school if the school must pay for you to attend, and it’s not easy to get in even for full pay families).
I think there is a big difference between “I’ve been doing so much research and I’m amazed by some of the ways to navigate this process. Do you want me to pass on what I’ve learned?”
And, “Listen, you nitwit, you’re just not doing it right!”
No one wants to hear it regarding admissions.
Rarely even will someone listen regarding college financial issues.
Walk away and grab some popcorn.