I’m sure he’s well qualified and with unlimited space they would have loved to have him on campus, but given that limited space, it is very unlikely his outcome would have been different as a non-resident. Non-residents have higher avg stats than residents in the admitted class.
There are many reasons why he might have just missed the cut. Was he an AIME qualifier or nat’l semifinalist in any of the Olympiads? Any CS related out of school activity? A 35 ACT doesn’t trump a 34 with other such qualifications, and we have no idea what his 5.xx wGPA means in the context of his high school. The average accepted students has a >34 ACT score (which includes the scores of those with demographic hooks).
Headline pretty much says it all…
Don’t get me wrong, they love that non-resident tuition, but it looks like they are serious about halting the recent increases in their enrollment, and maybe reversing it a little. This resulted in lower avg ACT scores last year.