HOW COLLEGE ADMISSIONS REALLY WORK: Kimberly Swygert offers the ugly truth.

I think it’s somewhat better at law schools (I don’t have firsthand experience, as I’ve never sat on the Admissions committee) but even there it’s heavily numbers-driven. If your numbers are high enough, or low enough, the decision is pretty much made — the rest of the application doesn’t matter that much unless you’re in an intermediate zone that can be fairly narrow.