One of the four awards I listed is at Level 8 and is a pure merit award that does not consider anything else about the student, such as character, grades, recommendations, or other extracurriculars. Of the dozens of people I know who have received this award, almost every one was admitted to at least one HYPSM or CalTech. And one who didn’t had a pretty clear character flaw. That’s a pretty good indication that the colleges admitted these students because of this award as long as there was nothing disqualifying about them.
The other three awards (one each at 7, 8, and 9) all take into account personal characteristics. So you are right that they were not admitted purely because of this award, but getting such an award shows both considerable merit and other personal characteristics desired by these elite schools which the applicant can demonstrate elsewhere on the application.
That’s not the right question. I don’t need visibility into every HYPSM applicant.
But I do have nearly 100% visibility for the outcomes of students on three of the four activities (two for one year, one for multiple years). One of them announces where everyone is going, and in two others there are chat groups where students celebrate each other’s admissions. And for the last one, I have visibility into dozens of outcomes across multiple years.