<p>"Do you know of any good state school which does not have a place for plenty of “super high achieving kids who also have super high GPA’s?” Those kinds of kids are present at every state school (even UVA)! "</p>
<p>Well, to be fair, U of I can be harsh on high-GPA/high-stat students, particularly from the North Shore (since they have more than enough Chicago area students to go around) and particularly if they perceive that the kid may be using U of I as a backup. There are certainly lots of anecdotes about very smart kids not getting into U of I. I don’t really have a baseline to compare it to U VA, though.</p>