'there are brilliant kids out there who never think of going someplace besides their state flagship (or maybe in other cases Notre Dame, or BYU, or Liberty), or who don’t want to go far from home."
Yep. I’ve had a WoW or two who went ED at Wellesley, Caltech, etc. They just weren’t looking to buy what Harvard sells. Future NFL quarterbacks like Andrew Luck (if their talent is apparent during HS) are a classic example.