I understand what you’re saying. I’ve posted in the University of Chicago board several times saying mostly the school is looking for fit and not intentionally wait-listing overqualified applicants. Being “way above the accepted pool” would mean having major hooks and/or (probably and) showing very little interest (plus the school in question would have to actually be in the practice of Tufts Syndrome). I’m not saying that everyone with SAT scores well above the 75th percentile is overqualified (I was accepted with a 2340), or even that everyone who gets rejected with these kinds of scores is “overqualified.” What I will say is that the concept of Tufts Syndrome, for some schools and some applicants, is entirely plausible. The number of people on CC claiming to be victims of Tufts Syndrome, however, is probably exaggerated by at least a factor of 10.</p>