As someone who just went through this process, I learned two things.
- It is not random. Everyone at my school knew who was going to get into the Ivies or Ivy caliber colleges. It was obvious who had the "it" factors. Also, there's a major difference between being obsessed with going to an Ivy (a lot of my school) and actually DOING what it takes to get into one over 3-4 years (tiny % of my school).
- Nobody that applied to Ivies ends up a drifting bum on their mom's couch. At worst the Ivy rejects are going to the honors college of our flagship U (30% acceptance rate), where they'll likely still become lawyers, doctors, silicon valley geeks.