<p>" Others (like HYPS, and Ivies in general) are appealing to everybody because of their prestige, and relatively easy applications."</p>
<p>Ivies aren’t appealing to “everybody.” The dean of admissions at Harvard has said that 90% of applicants qualify for admission in terms of gpa and test scores.</p>
<p>I’ve been a Harvard alum interviewer, and it has been rare that I have interviewed a student who lacked the stats to be admitted at Harvard. The one case that I can think of was a student who was stellar in her inner city school, had strong grades, the most rigorous curriculum possible at her school, and had extraordinary ECs, but had test scores in the 500s for each part of the SAT. She clearly was extremely bright, but through no fault of her own lacked the academic background to do well at a place like Harvard.</p>
<p>She ended up going to a 2nd tier public, and did so well there that she got into a difficult to gain acceptance to graduate program at NYU.</p>