As far as school applications are concerned, I applied to eight law school lo these 28 years ago, and there was no real logic to where I was accepted vs. wait-listed vs. rejected. I got accepted at Harvard (that acceptance oddly came very early and before any other responses, so incredibly that became my "safety school" as other responses came in), Stanford (which actively tried to persuade me to go there after the intial acceptance letter), NYU, Michigan, Chicago - but wait-listed or rejected by Columbia, Cornell and Yale. Everyone thought it was logical that Yale would be more selective than Harvard, but the folks at my college were stymied by Columbia and Cornell not accepting soemone who was quickly accepted into Harvard. The Cornell result especially was a mystery to my college's Graduate School placement office rep. In short, unless you're a sure thing for admission, you want to have choices, and there's no saying what goes through the minds of admissions committees.
