As a parent that went through this last year with a non ranking private school it was a Major issue.
Multiple at least 15 kids in a class of 100 got team or cap at tu. All of these kids got in to every out of state and private school applied, my favorite was the one that got into Princeton but was cap at tu! The numbers are so big for tu and A&M that the system screwed non ranking private schools.
My own daughter was national merit commended, 1460 on SAT, she was top 25 in class (school does not release ranking but I got it from an admin), and got Team at A&M. She was given presidents scholarship at Auburn which covered 85% of tuition, and a smaller 10k a year at Clemson. Texas Tech admit was for their honors program.
People are negative about the removal of the top 25 admit but I think it is the best thing they can do. Way to many students getting passed over by the large state schools are going out of state. The holistic reviews look at everything not just GPA, SAT but greater emphasis on the quality of student such as President of FFA, 4H, 3 sport letterman, etc.....
IMHO we are letting in a lot of students who played the game with AP classes and artificial grade inflation. Not necessarily the students who are leaders and who are involved with their schools.
I can tell you that we met a lot of freshman who took 7 or more AP classes but only passed 2 or 3 of the tests while making an A in the class. Many did not even take the test. This is just rewarding by playing the system, not the best candidate.
So end result is She is a fish at A&M and her private school has prepared her very well, first round of tests and she made all A's and has become the goto person for math help in her Calc class. Team has been good because it gives her more flexibility as tries to figure out exactly what she wants to do with her life and the class size is small. All in all the transition from small private school to large University has been pretty smooth.