<p>I dread to use the word “quota” but this is essentially how all elite colleges run their admission process. It starts out as geographic, and all applicants from the same geographical region are reviewed by the assigned admission officers. So a 2400 SAT score could be very competitive in one year but not really competitive the next year if there are multiple applicants with perfect scores. The same thing goes on for the extracurricular activities. Once an applicant is passed on to the full committee, other factors start to kick in while the committee try to build an interesting student body. So decisions at time may look random from the individual perspective, adcom people have gone through lenthy discussions for each applicant. They cannot talk openly about the key factors behind each decision but the decision is not random.</p>