“… college admissions are fair”
I certainly would not claim that university admissions are fair. I have seen too many cases where the stronger and harder working students with better grades did not get in, but the kids that they helped get though school did get in. Admittedly it does not take many examples of this for me to feel that admissions are not fair.
However, I have also seen kids attend the universities that they could get into, and do exceptionally well. I have seen kids at a school that you never heard of apply for and win government funding to do research as an undergraduate student. The fact that they were not at a famous university or LAC does not matter – what matters is the great work that they are going.
I have also talked to a few hiring managers who have noticed that the best graduates coming out of a local in-state public school are now just as good as the best graduates coming from MIT and Stanford. We are now mostly hiring from the public universities because that is where the great students are.
I see from another thread that your dream school was Stanford. Stanford sent an article to alumni a few years ago that talked about admissions. What I took from it is that admissions is largely based on things that you personally do not have control over.
There are a lot of very good universities. There are a lot of universities that will give you great opportunities. What you do have control over is what you accomplish when you get to university. It sounds like you have been accepted to some good universities. Go somewhere else and make Stanford sorry that they did not admit you.