I’ve seen some overqualified applicants get rejected from schools that they would normally get into. Colleges don’t want to accept someone who isn’t really going to attend, so if he didn’t make his interest abundantly clear, I could see them passing on him figuring he wouldn’t attend anyway. That being said, it’s still strange that they would turn down a qualified legacy, but you never know maybe something in his essays was off-putting to one particular admissions employee.