Ivy League Students?

What was your status when you applied to Ivy League colleges/universityies and that got you accepted? Why is that some extraordinary students get rejected, while some less extraordinary students are accepted?

Ivy League Students?
My son was ranked number one in his class (out of 155) .... had an SAT 1 score of 2360 (one sitting) and SAT2 scores of 800 in Math 1, Math 2 and Chemistry, 790 in World History and 760 in Biology. He is a second degree black belt in TaeKwonDo, was on the track team, (not a star by any means), took 9 AP exams and got 8 "5's" and 1 "4", won a national merit scholarship and did some volunteer work. That being said, there were 11 others in his class who were also accepted to various Ivies while still another 5 were accepted to other highly selective schools such as Williams and Johns Hopkins. By the way, none of them were under-represented minorities nor were they wealthy contributors to these schools. The schools look at the total package...inside and outside of the classroom as well as the rigor of your classes.
Reply:Basically Ivy league colleges and of that sort want hard working people and they like it even better when they are non-white.
Reply:I do not go to an Ivy League, but the answer to your second question is because of race/economic status.