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It is undeniable that personal characteristics are huge for top universities. But grades and test scores will always, far and away, be the most important factor. And at the same time, they are more than qualifiers; I like to think of the SAT as analogous to the AMC math competition: if you do well enough, you’ll qualify for the AIME (or in the SAT’s case, the next round of admissions), but odds are you’re not making the USAMO (or, in the SAT’s case, an acceptance letter), with a 100 AMC 12 score unless you do phenomenally well in the next round of the competition (or, in college admission’s case, the personal characteristics. But in college admissions, these characteristics have to be overwhelmingly strong to override the weaker SAT/GPA).</p>