I think the reason this comes up so often is that the answer is both yes and no. No, it’s not a lottery in the sense that it’s random chance. Once you “prove” or “satisfy” that you meet a school’s “requirements” (all those things in quotations marks are a combination of objective and subjective valuations—the earlier in the process, the more objective, the later in the process, more subjective), get past the gatekeepers, and otherwise get your application considered by the “final” admissions committee, then is it a lottery? Again, yes and no. No in the sense that it is not random. Yes, in that at this point, it is probably 99.9% subjective (so here, I am equating the final decision of 100% subjectivity to the feeling that it is random, a crap shoot, nobody can really predict, etc.). But, if it’s truly random, why do some applicants get accepted not just to one “top school”, but more than one? The flip side of that statement is also true: if applicant A is accepted to college C, why did college B reject them unless it was random?
To put this another way, let’s suppose I’m a college coach for the baseball team. I need more pitchers. I analyze potential recruits. I see them play. I look at statistics. I talk to their coach. My final list is 26 pitchers that could help my team. I can only select 3 for my squad. I select pitchers, A, Q, and W. But not the others. Random? Do you think that if asked, I could give a reason for A, Q, and W over the others? I would not have to be right, but I would have a reason. I didn’t just throw 26 note cards down the stairs and take the three that flew the farthest, right?
In other words, it’s random in the sense that no APPLICANT can really predict what any single college will want or do, or how they will evaluate a student based on diverse needs, for any particular year/class. That’s random in one way, to the applicant. It’s never random to the person making the decision. Outside that admissions committee who will know the reason, all the outsiders have, with zero actual insight into the whys, is … random.