The “lucky” students with low GPAs are, IMO, not that lucky. I am guessing they really struggle. I may be off base, but for a recruited athlete I know who has very humble stats, she is provided with private tutoring for all of her classes. She isn’t at Princeton or even close, but those school probably do the same for some of their low stats students. My understanding is also that even recruited athletes at HYP and the like still have to meet minimum test scores and GPAs.
I suspect also that some students with very low stats are “special” in that their hook is being the child of a Mega-donor and similar.
It’s very misleading to many students because they see that some kids do have low stats, and it makes them think they have a chance. It would be interesting to know just how many applications never get a true first read because of low stats.