I think the dean would freely admit this. If elite colleges had a perfect admissions process, they would never fail to admit people who go on to accomplish grea

I think the dean would freely admit this. If elite colleges had a perfect admissions process, they would never fail to admit people who go on to accomplish great things. But they do. All the time. The issue is that they have a limited set of things to go on. And high school performance, test scores and extracurriculars just aren't a great predictor of success, but they certainly better than just picking students randomly.