It is just immortals competing for radiants at the end of act (this data was from last episode and end of act) so thats false. Also 'there are less radiants than ivy league admits' doesn't matter, you have to look at the competition as I stated above, there are much more admission towards ivy league than ranks immortal and above so proportionally, its much harder.
'you don’t need to be in an ivy league to become a surgeon' I wasn't talking about becoming a surgeon but rather your statement saying radiant is harder than ivy league but if you do want to become a surgeon, it is still harder than radiant. Once again, you need your respective stats to be very high and especially in America, you have to show you really want this job by committing to workplace shadowing and perhaps even research.
Talking from an Australian perspective, you must complete residency for 3 years and then take on the respective tests, interviews to specialise and become a surgeon. If you want to talk about places then oce has 500 radiants, but only around 50 doctors specialise successfully in surgery.