Our Val could not get into Harvard. Another student did. She was not an athlete or legacy. Not hooked in any way. No one knows for sure why that happened, but Val is certainly not the magic key.
My guess is that when schools go ahead and tell you what they want – minimum 3 years of language: you should believe them. There is so much we all have to guess at in the college application process, don’t throw away the few things we know for sure.