The situation reminds me of the kid that built the nuclear reactor in his garage and did not get in to MIT, everybody assuming MIT was not that impressed. My interpretation is that MIT saw in his app that the kid did not really want to “do” college and I think they were right as that student never went to college and he is very successful on his own (ok assuming the kid is who everyone thinks he is)
I think the famous “nuclear reactor in the garage reject” was possibly Taylor Wilson, who was only 14 when he applied. That was probably why they rejected him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Wilson
You can see Taylor interviewed on a recent episode of HBO’s Vice: http://cleantechnica.com/2016/04/20/hbos-vice-looks-energy-future/