942f here, my qual was fine, but my quant was lower than the 70% mentioned by OP. I also didn't go to a prestigious undergrad university.
Had my application actually been read, it would have been obvious that I'm a qual scholar. If there was any questions about my ability to do soc-level math, one could have seen the A on my transcripts in a grad level stats course. All this is missed if you are like Harvard and toss the applications immediately after weeding through scores despite you "no cut off" disclaimer.
Had my application been read, the committee would have seen over $20k in grant money I received as an undergrad despite being in a low prestige school. It funded research that went on to be published in a pretty good journal my first year in grad school.
I dont want to say exactly how I found out it wasnt read, but it has to do with unintentionally befriending a very close friend of my Harvard POI. I would suspect the same thing happened at Berkeley, but I can't prove it. I ended up getting accepted at most other places I applied.
