<p>That happens at lots of schools now a-days. For example, lots of top non-Ivy privates practice “yield-protection” heavily where they either waitlist or straight up deny students who seem as if they are likely not to matriculate (like, if a student is in the 75+ percentile, they may look more closely at the essay to see if there is any ingenuity about potentially attending (essentially, these schools don’t want to be the safety, especially when it is likely that they will get in elsewhere). Emory does it (and is perhaps doing it more lately), and schools like WashU are notorious for it. Perhaps top/good publics are not impervious to the trend. It could be a: “Well, she’s good, but we can’t offer her honors auto-admit, and she didn’t apply for honors. And thus, she and many people like her may attend X school instead.” You really never know what goes into admissions now-a-days. It’s no longer simply about stats. anymore, which is why it’s nice to have several safeties, some matches, and even that prized dream school. Admissions is really tricky.</p>
<p>Also, I said avoid loosely discussing admit “rates”, not admissions. Admit rates are a really dicey measure of “quality” of student body and subsequent rigor of coursework.</p>