This is only true if you ignore the average rank preference of the school among applicants. Better-ranked college won't see as much decline in acceptance percen

This is only true if you ignore the average rank preference of the school among applicants. Better-ranked college won't see as much decline in acceptance percentage, while worse-ranked colleges will see more than the expected decline. Some of the ways colleges can combat this on their own is by trying to jump the rest of the system through early admission (that creeps earlier and earlier over time), or by giving out exploding offers (I don't think this is nearly as common). The solution is to go to a deferred-acceptance algorithm such as Gale-Shapley. It's a relatively minor change, adding a third party that matches students to colleges algorithmically. The students send in a rank-ordering of the colleges they wish to attend, and colleges send in a rank-ordering of which students they'd prefer to admit (along with quantity). The students get their most-preferred college that likes them enough to admit them over others, and the colleges run zero risk of sending out too many offers.