@ucbalumnus Understood… but I believe that there is more to consider in terms of the concept of yield protection. If it is true that some stellar applicants with near perfect stats manage to gain admission to Harvard, Yale, UChicago, Stanford and Princeton, for example, while getting rejected at UVa, BU and USC, it does seem counter-intuitive.
Since my daughter will be among the 54K+ applicants to USC this cycle, I would certainly hope that the admissions committee would just be setting out to admit the 9K or so most qualified applicants, but other considerations always do enter into the mix… legacies, athletes, creative/artistic talent, geographic diversity, demographic diversity, gender, intended majors, etc. It would not surprise me at all if the goal of raising USC’s yield rate might be brought into the equation somehow too. They cannot like it always being around 32-33% while other elite colleges have yield rates into the 60s. How do you actively deny a kid with a 4.0 unweighted GPA, a 35 on the ACT and a 2300+ SAT? But if you trust some posts on CC this past Spring… USC did so. And if so… why? I doubt that those applicants just chose to send in mediocre essays to the schools on their list with higher admission rates…