I’m basically arguing that the stats ranges and maybe even EC’s at least at WashU are going to be similar…unfortunately “the best in the Ivy League” isn’t that special anymore as there are many schools outside of the Ivies that are comparable to lower and middle Ivies and of course a few comparable to very top Ivies. Also using GPA assumes the Penn students are pulled in the same numbers from the same High schools as, say Harvard students, which may or may not be true (perhaps those from elite high schools who are interested in finance or business would still prefer Harvard, Yale, or Princeton).
Your statement does, however, reiterate the point that places like WashU “stats whore it up” when it comes to selection…at least it appears that way. Less selective schools stats wise (such as Penn, Duke, and JHU) outperform it output wise in many key areas. In fact, it performs lower than my alma mater (which is less selective than schools ranked significantly below it in USNEWs I believe) and many of the schools that rank lower than it as well. So you do point out an important thing, different schools are selecting for different characteristics, some unfortunately may have more superficial selection than others and thus things like your academic and intellectual environment and performance in certain outputs (like national scholarships) may ultimately pay the price and be underwhelming versus selectivity. This is one thing I’ve picked up on and talk a lot about too. It is possible to select a lower scoring student body that is more motivated or willing to take on a challenge than a higher scoring student body at another school. In addition, while we don’t like to give certain selective institutions credit, some may be flat out more effective at making the most of their students…they don’t really need them to come in looking perfect on paper so much as “excellent and ready to go!”. The school with the 1500 SAT average may perform below the one with the 1350-1450 average if the students at the 1500 school matriculated because of, for example, the relatively relaxed or “well-rounded” atmosphere seen at some selective privates in particular. Duke and Stanford are of course exceptions but both also have many signature academic programs that are good enough to attract students on alone. Some of the other places I allude to don’t really have UG programs that they are truly known for and the ones which they are known for are not usually the ones attracting the most motivated students. One such private school has a “pre-professional studies major” and another has a huge chunk of students in “Communications” which would make since if you were as large as Cornell and partially functioned as a public school but is quite unusual for a more medium sized private with exceptionally high stats.
WashU doesn’t really have that problem as its students are often as serious as those at other D-3 schools so maybe they just need to fix their scholarship liason or some other things. They should have an environment more conducive to greater success in such competitions, but when I see a school with 1500 average but only 6/49 Fulbright winners (and this number likely includes graduate students), I kind of wonder.