Schools of Business, Engineering are particularly selective at flagship universities. Many kids in PA and Virgina did not get into the programs they wanted, and ended up at other state schools.
A friend’s son started at Alabama and then transferred to Purdue. He had been shut out of his major preference coming directly out of highschool. It was with some regret he left ‘Bama. Did it primarily because it was The Plan from the onset.
The year my son applied EA to UMichigan. he was the only one accepted at that time; the others were all deferred. He was also the only LSA applicant. No business school involved either. Classics major. I think that had a large part in a lot of his acceptances as it did several other students I knew from prior years with their acceptances. He also was the one with the lowest test scores submitted— just that ACT. It always puzzled me how my one child with very low (1000 combined SAT1) was accepted to several state flagship universities that tend to auto admit and reject according to grades, test scores and application date.