Applying to school with grades a lot above their average? Showing serious interest?

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0Mik3cho

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I'm trying to understand what factors I should use to create a list of schools to apply to and I have a few questions.

Is there such a thing as schools thinking that an applicant considers them a safety and rejecting them on that basis? I have heard this claimed here and there but without any serious substantiation. NOVA's secondary asks applicants to list all schools they are applying to (Source: Nova Secondary: "List all dental schools that you are applying to"). It would seem that they use this information to see how they rank for a particular applicant. I do not know what other schools ask for this.

If this is a risk, what can be done prior to application to show schools that I will seriously consider them asides from actually applying?

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Oh I should clarify that these concerns are what I've seen regarding undergraduate admissions. I've only seen it once here regarding dental schools and was wondering if it applied here.
 
Is there such a thing as schools thinking that an applicant considers them a safety and rejecting them on that basis?
This is what my pre-dental advisor told me too, especially with privates since they know you're a very competitive applicant and will likely have multiple interviews/offers from public schools. I kind of saw/kind of didn't see it when I applied (mostly with the east coast schools I applied to, probably because they know west coast applicants tend to want to stay on the better coast lol ;) ).

If this is a risk, what can be done prior to application to show schools that I will seriously consider them asides from actually applying?
There's not much you can do besides show your interest via the secondary (if they have one), email updates (on a regular, but not pushy/desperate, basis), and the interview (if you get one, it's important to make the school feel like you'd attend their school no matter what).

Just my thoughts on this
 
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