“It’s not just about stats. Holistic matters. Your app can strike one college differently than another.”
The UCs are not that holistic, at least as compared to the other schools that use it. There are no recommendations, can’t use race, no why us essay (your personal favorite), I mean you could say how ucla is a great fit in one of the four essays, but since every uc reads that, good luck getting in to the others. There are 14 factors the UC weighs, 10 are academic, only 4 would be holistic - achievements in special projects (#9), special talents, achievements and awards (#11), academic accomplishment in light of life experiences (#13) and geographic location (14). And I think we both agree that geography is an interesting holistic thing to consider. But at least it’s the last item on the list.
“It is very possible that you fit some of the more competitive schools and not so much the non competitive ones.”
Well I wouldn’t mix non-holistic with non-competitive. Non-holistic are typically used by state schools and any private that uses a straight formula of gpa and test scores, and these can be still very comptitive. So if you applied to any CSU, you would have gotten in, even to CS or engineering with your stats. They wouldn’t be concerned about yield, actually most public universities don’t care about yield as the privates do, they care more about making sure the students in the state get a good education. You also got rejected from Cornell ED, probably means they were concerned about your ability to pay. Meaning you could back out of your ED and go somewhere else.