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My largely ‘un-based un-biased’ guesstimate of the numbers – 1,500 all-rounders (that is non-hook non-URM types) out of 35,000 gives 4.3% acceptance (or mariculation?) rate. Top-stats (SAT, rank, etc.) are norm (say 80% of the admittees) and low-stat ‘subjective or personal quality, non-hook’ admittees are exceptions (say 20% of the admittees). Of course we do not know what fraction each group divides the total applicants pool and so the exact admission rate of each group is not known. However, if we assume that 50% of total applicants are the top-stat applicants, it will give them 1,200/17,500=6.9% acceptance rate and for the low-stat all-rounders a 1.7% acceptance rate. The less-than-top-stat applicants will have a much much lower chance of acceptance than 4.3% or 6%. So, if you have a near perfect SAT, top class rank, APs all 5’s, SAT2 with near 800s, etc. then your chance of admission is about 7%; and if you have a mediocre stat ( in the harvard standard) but well rounded ECs and passions etc, you have 1% chance of admission. see just how much lower the chances of admission can be for those “those-with-lower-stats-sometimes-do” applicants.
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