> A student who got top-scores and excellent grades can still go to their pick of a large number of these other fine schools if they get rejected from Harvard/

> A student who got top-scores and excellent grades can still go to their pick of a large number of these other fine schools if they get rejected from Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford/MIT/Caltech because of losing out to some intangible criteria. That's me! I was rejected from one of those schools and ended up at a "tier 2" school, and have been very successful. IOW, getting rejected from a "tier 1" school isn't a big deal, and a student may be better off at a "lesser" school.