<p>I think the “randomness” of the acceptances of Stanford have a lot to do with their application. Harvard and Yale have applications that are pretty much identical. Stanford’s is lengthier, more personal, and more “creative” in order to identify that intellectual vitality they’re so fond of. There’s also a mini-essay asking why Stanford specifically would be the right place for the applicant, which the readers often read aloud during their committee meetings. By the virtue of the application and the admissions officers reading the applications, a different (perhaps more holistic?) impression of the applicant will be formed (versus the snapshot that HY’s two essays provide). Clearly, it’s a matter of admissions offices looking for different things; better writers and more creative people as well as folks who KNOW what an education at Stanford specifically is about will reap the benefit of Stanford’s application, while people who are not as adept at extensive written communcation/ “leaping off the page” or just applying because hell it’s Stanford!- are less likely to be accepted. HY’s applications, being more facts-based, seem to reward more hard, factual achievement. (Yale does have a space asking about why the applicant would want to go to Yale, but it’s 200 characters and would probably require all of five seconds to write.) Just a hypothesis, but it actually kind of makes sense when I think about the people I know who were admitted to these schools. </p>
<p>But the whole Tuft’s syndrome thing is silly, especially when I know many a cross admit who’s chosen Stanford over everything else.</p>
<p>I have actually heard a few rumors of Princeton practicing mild selective admissions to keep their yield up and their admit rate low, (which, again, anecdotally, would make sense based on some acquaintances) but there’s really no way to prove such a thing.</p>