it's all to do with ELL.
the actual level it shows is NOT the main indicator of skill.
basically your first 10 games will mean more than your level until you play ~100 games.
Here's a challenge, play 10 games, quit ALL of them, then check how good the players you are against, do NOT look at the level, look at the "skill" of the player? did they suck?
Next one: win AS MANY AS POSSIBLE of your first 10 games, and try your opponents then.
If you "freelossed" those 10 games, it will take AT LEAST 50 games for you to get your ELL back up to a normal standard and play "competent" people.
If you just went for it and won as many as possible (lets say 7 wins) you'll find yourself against ~lvl 30 hackers quite a lot, or players whom are ~4 wins 0 losses and stuff like that.
for RT it's a little squiff though. it balances you as what IT thinks is balancing, not based on levels.