<p>Fiddlin, you should read the book ‘The Price Of Admission’ by Golden. He won a Pulitzer for this research and goes into a lot of detail on who gets in and why.</p>
<p>The issue at the private schools is that they typically have many more legacies, connected and development kids than even the elite publics. Don’t get me wrong, the good LI, Westchester and NJ public school kids have their own very competitive pools.</p>
<p>The randomness for the overrepresented just comes down to numbers. These pools send large numbers of qualified applicants who read very similarly and there’s only room for a few. How many investment banker kids from NY who sail and have visited 40 countries do they want? They don’t toss coins though they may as well. This is where it comes down to those who have successfully differentiated themselves in the application.</p>