My guess is that this isn’t as uncommon as we think, and it doesn’t necessarily mean these applicants have extraordinary skills or personal stories. At our school this past year, a recruited athlete was accepted to an Ivy (not Harvard) with an 1180 SAT and 3.09 weighted GPA. That GPA puts him in the bottom third of his class at a very rigorous private school. He is not an URM, and I don’t think there’s anything exceptional in his personal story. His athletic ranking is in the top 100-125 of his age in the state, so that doesn’t seem extraordinary. Meantime, Naviance shows kids with a 1560/4.86 and 1570/4.75 GPA denied. Colleges are free to choose whichever applicants they think will contribute the most. But do I think it’s shocking that an Ivy would lower its academic standards to this degree? Yes, I absolutely do.