Maybe he read “David and Goliath” by Malcolm Gladwell. In his book, Gladwell profiled 2 super gifted kids who excelled in high school and went on to elite schools, one a would-be physics major at Harvard, the other a would-be engineering major at Brown. Both ended up changing their major to less challenging fields in liberal arts because they couldn’t handle the competition at Harvard and Brown, i.e. better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.
This kid’s stats put him in the middle of the pack at HYPS, perhaps even in the 3rd quartile. With 16-20% of their seniors (probably the top of the graduating class) applying to med school, compared to 2% at Bama, there’s a good chance he won’t survive the intense pre-med competition at these schools and end up having to change major.
But I agree with those who said if that’s the case he should’ve thought of that before applying to all these schools. Maybe it’s just for bragging rights, or maybe he surprised himself, didn’t think he would get all those acceptances.