<p>Ben may be overwhelmed by the number of obviously nonacademic factors that "matter", but I'm not.</p>
<p>Let's be clear about this, based on purely academic factors, there are enough qualified students to fill MIT's class many times over. The options seem limited. Either go with a lottery scheme amongst the qualified students, which is clearly fair, but a little unsatisfying. Or amongst the qualified students, look for those who are likely to add the most to the MIT environment.</p>
<p>That is where all those non-academic factors do matter. </p>
<p>The student formed a rockabilly band in High School. That might matter, heck maybe he will form one on campus. </p>
<p>The student can potentially be a professional baseball player, that might matter. Ideally, he will generate favourable press. </p>
<p>The student's hobby is memorising Proust, that may also matter but negatively, any solitary hobby that takes place entirely in one's bedroom does little to add to life on campus. But if he or she singlehandedly formed the High School's Proust club and convinced 30 HS students to join it, then that demonstrates leadership, the ability to change the environment, and the willingness to put one's ideas into action, all highly commended traits.</p>
<p>All of these only matter if the student is in the "academically qualified" bucket to begin with. MIT is not going to admit an unqualified student regardless of what they might bring to the campus.</p>