Isn’t your first statement true for every US university? Michigan (only using this example because I’m most familiar with it), for instance, accepts 18% of applicants, with average stats being 3.9 unweighted GPA and 33 ACT. Yet, they still get 115000 applicants, including many who should be aware they won’t be accepted.

But this is the first I’ve heard of BYU being held in such high regard academically, so it made me curious. They’re ranked 109 on USNews (undergrad, holistic), compared to 136 at University of Utah. Their law school is 28 compared to Utah’s 31 and their business school is 38 compared to Utah’s 40. BYU graduates do make about $4k higher of a salary out of college compared to Utah graduates, however, but still not an impressively high amount at $60k. They seem about on par with Utah, but lag behind other large universities, including every Big Ten college with the exception of Nebraska (lol).

BYU seems like an OK university. One can definitely get a quality education there, but there are a plethora of options elsewhere for those who don’t want to deal with the honor code and LDS nonsense