That’s one way to guess at a positive spin. Lol. Could be, who knows?
But we don’t know if it’s any more accurate than all leading to 450 admissions.
I’m not as cynical as some, or as positive as you portray.
Probably somewhere in between, but more likely, “let’s see what we can do to help the applicant” thumb on the scale.
Especially when they can admit twice as many students and not lose on the quality scale.
I do think these students can easily succeed and are at least marginally qualified. If not, grad rates would show this over time.
They probably just aren’t as interesting to the intial readers and are most certainly no going to help on the lower ses front or help with the new pell Grant component of the usnwr ranking.
They probably needed help to overcome a “likeness” problem, as they fill less of the diverse mosaic the adcoms aspired to build.