Of course, there’s probability. All I’m saying is that **the school’s admit rate is not the probabilty for a given student. **. Too many people treat them as the same thing.
Malia Obama’s probability of getting into far-reach schools might be 85-100% (maybe Caltech doesn’t think she’s a fit, or some small LAC doesn’t want the security headaches), even though these schools’ admit rates are in the single digits.
Forrest Gump’s probability of admission into all the same schools may be 0-2%.
But harvard doesn’t do that. It doesn’t put all 40 thousand (or how many ever they get) applicants in rank order like in a nice histogram.
It has separate buckets of applicants. The development case candidates are in a separate bucket from the recruited athlete bucket. “POTUS for a dad” is a very exclusive bucket.