> Admissions officers look for born-geniuses that can effortlessly get perfect scores. Meh... I hear this a lot. This is a gross over-characterization of the r

> Admissions officers look for born-geniuses that can effortlessly get perfect scores. Meh... I hear this a lot. This is a gross over-characterization of the reality. There are plenty of true geniuses with high grades and high SAT scores who do not get into elite schools. The applicants need something else. > Thanks for sharing and I've heard this to be case from multiple sources as well, which means, it can also be gamed. This is a half-truth. A mediocre applicant will have nothing to show from their experiences, and their recommendation from a person in that field will probably be something like "applicant is nice, shows up, and tries hard". A strong applicant will have something like a publication or a documented initiative that they led, and their recommendation will be something like "applicant did things that went above and beyond what many of our regular employees do -- I don't want this applicant to leave for school because we will be a worse place without them" (with believable detailed examples). Even that will be gamed, and sometimes it is, but there will usually be gaps in the narrative unless there is a decent-sized group of people who are colluding together. Whenever someone thinks that there is a new formula for getting into elite schools, they don't realize that the key ingredients are things like creativity, curiosity, and leadership. These are ridiculously hard to fake in a compelling manner.