<p>I know for me its a girl in my school, who has around a 3.6 gpa weighted from what I have heard, got just above a 2000 combined on her SAT, literally just above, like a 2040 and in the high 600's on her sat 2's and like low 700's for math, pretty involved but nothing earth shattering and she got into all but 2 of the schools she applied to, Cornell and MIT being two she got into! This kind of blew many of us away but left us mere mortals who are going through this next year with some hope. She got into U of Chicago and waitlisted at Cal Tech, I mean we were and still are quite shocked at how well she did. I just thought it was an interesting story to share. I am sure some of you are saying "yea she had a hook of some sort" but none that any of us naysayers can figure out, shes white, middle class,not a total academic standout but certainly above the average,nothing really that extraordinary. I was told that her essay was so amazing though that they want to publish it in our school paper so is it possible that this could have been the tipping factor? Just backs up the point that this whole process is so arbitrary and unpredicatable!</p>
<p>Clearly in her case it wasn't arbitrary, because many different schools liked her. There was definitely something in her application that you don't know about/appreciate but that colleges did.</p>