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<p>I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine how one follows from the other.</p>
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<p>If you have a limited number of spots for white females, and you have two overqualified white females, one of whom applies to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Swarthmore, and the other of whom applies to Swarthmore, Middlebury, Haverford, and Grinnell, if you were an admissions officer, you would do well to accept the latter applicant and turn down the former, if you were interested in keeping your admissions numbers looking good. Which, of course, every admissions officer is extremely interested in. Also, just as a counterpoint, ID already indicated that his own daughter had inferior stats to those posted by the OP, yet still got in. It’s possible she was ED, though, and that gave her an edge.</p>
<p>Some of this information may or may not be available to admissions personnel. Some inference and reading between the lines may be necessary. As has been pointed out, it’s not just about black and white stats such as SAT scores. One of the things the admissions officers look for when going over the essays and other materials is whether or not the person is likely to actually attend if accepted. It’s not just a bunch of nebulous mumbo-jumbo like “is this person well-rounded” or “is this person a good fit” so much as it is “if we accept this person, is she more likely to go to Harvard if they also accept her, and does she have the stats to get into Harvard in the first place.” If she can, and if she’s likely to accept, then she’s a better candidate to turn down than someone who either can’t get into Harvard or who probably wouldn’t go even if she did. That’s the real purpose of the essay IMO. Assessing writing skill is definitely secondary to that.</p>
<p>I don’t think this is all that nefarious. It’s just what college admissions people must do to be competitive and help their schools keep elite reputations. The OP didn’t apply ED, has great stats, got accepted to Stanford and also applied to some Ivies. There’s not much harm in rejecting her; she probably wouldn’t be matriculating anyway. The last person to start a thread like this had even better stats (flawless, really) and got rejected. Same deal. If either had applied ED they would have 100% gotten in, because at least the admissions people know they aren’t interested in the Stanfords and Ivies of the world and almost certainly will attend Swarthmore if accepted. It’s as simple as that.</p>