<p>I thought that list was a little off, too. Certainly Tufts has developed a reputation (and named a syndrome) for rejecting qualified applicants, and I know that Bowdoin, Wesleyan, Oberlin, and UVa – and probably lots of the others, too – are perfectly capable of rejecting spiffy students.</p>
<p>However, in Unalove’s defense, her basic idea – “the admissions decisions at these schools [are] much more predictable than at the very top schools” – is still generally pretty correct. There’s a huge difference between accepting 9% of the applicants from a pool where the median application is probably indistinguishable in any meaningful way from the top 5% of applications and accepting 25% of the applicants from a pool that is a little more evenly distributed.</p>