<p>I understand what you mean, and I read through the link - I get that different institutions may have different needs… and that an applicant might fit the needs of one college but not those of another. But. This likely doesn’t even apply to the average applicant who is strong overall but doesn’t have a hook that may look good to one school but not the other.</p>
<p>If a student isn’t very competitive in one selective school, then chances are that they won’t be competitive in most other selective school with similar admissions processes either.</p>
<p>Also, although Cambridge is a great school, it does not admit students on the same basis that American colleges do. They don’t really care about EC’s as nearly as much… so if a 4.0 GPA student with a 2390 SAT applied there, they’d probably get in - on the other hand that doesn’t guarantee admission at Brown or any other selective school in the US (I’m not implying your daughter has no EC’s and therefore got rejected, just trying to say that admissions in the UK is vastly different and isn’t the best example to support your point). </p>
<p>In any case, whether or not getting rejected at one school means you’ll get rejected at others, it’s still pretty hard to think otherwise, which is why I think applying to other good colleges that release before your 1st choice is a good idea. In hindsight, I wish I had applied to something like UW Madison or UIUC to fallback on… i’m sure it would’ve made a difference in my attitude towards Cornell afterward.</p>