<p>If the numbers are so low as to show that the applicant cannot handle the school, then the essay - which is there to show how the applicant thinks and who the applicant is - probably isn’t relevant, because selective schools have enough academically qualified applicants that they don’t need to accept academically unqualified applicants just to get interesting people. Colleges won’t admit it (and maybe they don’t have to worry about it anyway), but there probably is some threshold of stats where there is no point to accept somewhere under. But it’s probably pretty low, and it probably applies to people who are applying to schools with no perspective of what their selectivity means.</p>
<p>I think it would be unethical to throw away an app on the basis of something subjective (like extracurriculars, or maybe even a teacher rec) before reading the essay, though.</p>