<p>Personally, I think there is a certain degree of luck with admissions to top schools (especially). With a pool of people who are all impressive in their own right, it kind of comes down to splitting hairs. Sometimes it likely has more to do with the overall presenation and how you tell your story, then on a scientific process per se. I think this is especially true for transfers. Additionally, if a school feels like they have too many government concentrators, but not enough classics concentrators then I believe a nearly perfect government applicant could get rejected, while a somewhat less qualified classics major could get accepted. When you factor in needs for athletes, URMs, musicians, etc. I think it's kind of a crap shoot among 'relatively' equal candidates. The difference between a 4.0 and 3.8 is marginal as is the difference in a 3.5-3.7. If you factor in difficulty of courseload and institution its difficult to tell the difference. It's about the big picture.</p>