Re: http://www.synocate.com/blog/when-safety-schools-arent-safety-schools
Look up the college’s common data set, section C7, or the admissions tab on its entry on http://www.collegedata.com , to see if “level of applicant’s interest” is considered in admission.
Note that even schools that do not use “level of applicant’s interest” are likely estimating yield of each admitted applicant, so that they do not admit too many or too few. They may, for example, assume that 20 “overqualified” admits (i.e. those who would see the school as a safety) will yield 1 matriculant, but 2 “barely made the cut” admits (i.e. those who would see the school as a reach) will yield 1 matriculant and make the calculations of how many to admit to fill the class accordingly.