There is more than just hard work to get into these schools, a strategy is important also, and yes a little bit of luck that the AO looking at your package finds it interesting. The other thing applicants miss out on is the top LAC’s out there. They tend to focus on research universities. Solid applicants should choose a few top universities, a few top LAC’s and a variety of in state publics to cover their bases, of course this has been beat to death here on CC (but many don’t even look at top LAC’s).