I think it depends on the school at the time. I got rejected by one school probably because I didn't have a varsity letter and had a so-so interview. I got accepted to at least two others that were at least as "good" at the time.

There's a lot of luck of the draw when you're applying to schools with a pretty low admittance rate.

I joke with someone I know pretty well in my alma mater's alumni office that I'd probably never get in today and they smile and follow it up with an "oh well, you're fine." :-) And they're not unhappy that I'm an alumnus. 3 people from my school's 59 person graduation class got in; certainly would never happen now.

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WalterBright 6 days ago | parent [-]

I found out years later that I was a marginal candidate, and ironically it was the interview that made the difference.

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ghaff 6 days ago | parent [-]

Which is the luck of the draw thing. If you're on the bubble for whatever random reasons, a decline or accept on even a marginal measure because you did/didn't click with someone can make the difference.

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WalterBright 6 days ago | parent [-]

I was well aware of the vagaries of chance, which is why I applied to the top 10 engineering universities in the country. I was accepted by Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, and Caltech. As a backup I had ASU.

I knew nothing about Caltech, and by amazing luck it was perfectly suited to what I wanted and my personality.

For a while now, I've been running the D Coffee Haus monthly meetings, where myself and fellow nerds meet and talk about nerdly stuff. It's as much fun as the same thing at Caltech.

	▲	ghaff 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		I don't remember what schools I applied to in general. But I didn't get into Dartmouth and did get into MIT which was something of shocker. Did go to the latter as an undergrad (though had never visited the campus) and have stayed involved. Started a non-profit at the former as a grad student at Dartmouth and still involved so all good. At the time, didn't seem to make a lot of sense to go to west coast (or UK) in part for schools as air travel was still relatively expensive.