Sometimes, people complain about yield protection due to rejection from an ostensibly less selective college while getting admission to an ostensibly more selective college, but there are often other reasons:
a. The “less selective” college may admit by major or other subcategories (e.g. state residency), and the applicant happens to be in an especially selective subcategory at such a college.
b. The “less selective” college may have a somewhat different weighting of admission criteria. An example would be the test-score-heavy applicants getting rejected from UCs, which tend to overweight GPA and underweight test scores. The UCs’ admission criteria also tend to overweight overcoming disadvantaged situations in holistic reading, which appears to be less weighted at most other highly selective colleges. On the other hand, USC may have been chasing test scores during its ranking rise (based on the generous NM scholarships it offered at the time).