I have the following on very good authority:
Harvard: avid cyclists and self-taught menswear tailors
Yale: volunteers, but only in service of elderly women from states that start with the letter N
Princeton: applicants with deep personal interest in family genealogy; left-handed red-heads
Stanford: people who, when they drop their toast, it invariably lands butter-side-up
MIT: applicants who tuck their jeans into their boots; children of the visually-impaired; people who eat chia seeds in their smoothies but pick them off their salads
Caltech: Male applicants who can’t grow convincing cop mustaches; Female applicants who can
Williams: People named “Williams”; people named “William”; people named “Rufus” (there is no consensus on why this last one is the case)
Amherst: People named “Lord Jeff”; people who pass out blankets to homeless shelters, but only if the blankets have been thoroughly infected with smallpox (although a recent student got in despite using cowpox instead, so there are some disagreements on this one)
Swarthmore: People who understand that martinis are not to be made with vodka
Pomona: People who perform Morton Feldman pieces for solo piano; people named “Lord Pomona”
UPenn Wharton: People who wear their watches on their right wrists; half-men/half-beasts; children of amateur gynecologists
Deep Springs: People with “Y” chromosomes; people who collect fancy paper napkins; people who can recite the full lyrics to Cisqo’s “Thong Song” in the style of Harvey Keitel
Dartmouth: people who go by their middle names; people with hyphenated last names that include the name “Clyde”; people who know that Roger Moore was the third-best James Bond
Brown: people who sew owls on their cardigans; people who have at least 12 Facebook friends named “Steve”; people who, when you ask them “how’s it going” answer totally honestly–and at length.