The story was more complicated than that. Sending a PM to avoid giving out too much info publicly.
At any rate, the statistics I provided tell much more than a single anecdote. As the news story said, "Valedictorians are a dime a dozen" in the applicant pool.
Add the quotas (they want the same proportion of racial groups each year, they reserve places for alumni children, etc. etc.), plus a higher bar to acceptance for financial aid applicants, and it's easy to see that a high IQ, good grades, and high SAT scores are no guarantee of admission.
An NYT article states that British college admissions are more academically focused, which I agree with:
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/applying-to-college-in-the-united-kingdom/September 22, 2011, 10:05 PM
Applying to College in the United Kingdom
By REBECCA R. RUIZ
...
Ms. Burn of Oxford stressed that universities in Britain are more interested in academically directed personal statements than they are in reflections on personal memories or demonstrations of character.
Of the essay, she said: �It�s not the place to talk about the time you ate a pot brownie. It�s about what you want to study and why.�
Ms. Burn emphasized that recommendations should be similarly to the point. �This isn�t a time to talk about how charming students are, or how they�re always on time,� she said. �Talk about their academic performance and be specific.�
She also advised that people providing recommendations be wholly truthful and not write anything they would not want a student discovering: by law in Britain, applicants are allowed to read submitted recommendations of them.
Applicant interviews are uncommon in Britain, excluding Oxford and Cambridge, both of which require them, Ms. Burn said. �There are just too many applicants to interview at most schools,� she said. �And the concept of the alumnae interview or student interview doesn�t exist for us.�
