<p>And now I want to respond more to the serious replies in this thread. </p>
<p>Post #8 asks if Applicant is male or female. Post #16 provides some very helpful examples of various colleges where either being male or being female might be a "tip" factor in admissions. Now of course I set up my hypothetical so that Applicant has a really strong academic record, and a really strong extracurricular record. Assuming Applicant were a male, applying to a school hoping to attract female matriculants, wouldn't Applicant still have an awfully good chance at admission? After all, if Famous School is looking for lots of female students, it can still admit female applicants to the hundreds of other places in its entering class, even if it admits male Applicant, right? Or if Applicant is female, couldn't famous school fill out its desired number of male matriculants from among the remaining high school students who are applying that year? How much does a tip factor matter if the main academic and EC factors are already strong?</p>