US College Application Fit

It's that time again when everyone is busy finishing up their online applications to the many schools they are applying to.  One of the most common questions I observe people asking is, "how do I get into ___ college?" or "what are my chances of getting into ___ university".  One thing US colleges emphasizes is the "fit" of the student in their university.  What exactly is fit?  I don't really have a clear description of "fit" but here's what I imagined it to be like in my mind (don't take my word for it).

*In the admission office of ___ university*

Chief officer: "Ok, we are going to take 500 students for our class of 2018 this year.  Let's get going reading all these profiles."

And then the process goes on something like this:-

"First things first, better get those athletes on board, we need to gear up our rankings this year."
"Ok, take some musicians here and there."
"We need some diversity in here!!"
"International? put her in that pool."

"Build a nuclear reactor in his backyard?  But we already have 5 of them here.  Nah..."
"Look, this guy likes to dance in the shower, take him in!"
"Performed for president, meh....."
"Olympiad medallist right here, we'll take 3 of them, no more."
"Invented a cat-dryer machine?  take her in!"
"Stopping and staring and flowers beside the road? Cool, take him in."
"Want to take over the world?  Well, if he's our alumni, that'll be good. take him in."

.....

"At the last spot goes to the girl who just said she wanted to enter our school just because she loves our mascot!"

Well, my point is, it's really hard to know if you fit a certain school or not and that some school might like you way more than another.  So, I just want to remind everyone to not be afraid of applying to a school that you really like even though you might think that you don't have a shot at it.  After all, there really is no harm in trying--you never know what to expect.  Don't be discourage by score statistics, admission percentage, collegeboard forum admission pages and etc.

Just be yourself, write an essay that is true to yourself and hope that you fall into your fit school like a jigsaw puzzle =)

Cheers.