<p>At what point is a student an "academic superstar?"</p>
<p>A Yale representative told my peers and I that a significant portion of the incoming class fits this description and im assuming such is also the case for HPSM (we asked weird questions). My mind was boggled. Usually the we'd think the shoo -in's would be the athletes (someone has to fill those 30-40 division I varsity sport teams).</p>
<p>I was just wondering if the CC community can agree on a definition of a the "academic superstar."</p>
<p>What other criteria there are besides like 2400 SAT and 4.0 GPA?</p>
<p>I’ve heard a quote like “If Yale dropped it’s entire incoming freshmen class, and brought in the next class, there would be no decrease in quality”</p>
<p>Pretty sure it is that way with other top schools. Academically, I don’t know if there can be a superstar. I mean the best you can do is straight A’s, perfect SAT and perfect ACT. Obviously that doesn’t happen often but I don’t think there is a 100% chance to “Academically” earn your way into a top school.</p>
<p>Tbh i’m not even sure if I answered your question… i kinda just rambled on</p>
<p>There are plenty of students who are valevictorians who have near perfect SAT scores who get rejected from top schools. That is why it is essential to apply to a range of colleges and to not get obsessed with any one college.</p>
<p>Non-athlete shoo-in: Relative donates tons of money, 4.0-2400, and RSI. And Siemens winner. And National Merit Finalist. And be an African American woman adopted by lesbian disabled parents (MODERN FAMILY). Damn right.
I guarantee that you will make it into Yale with that.</p>
<p>I don’t remember the source of Yale’s 100 academic LLs vs the 100-200 athletic ones. But I relayed what I discovered. That number struck me as well.</p>
<p>Rank: 1/350 (at Maggie Walker- it doesn’t rank, but it does send out the best GPA, the 75th percentile, 25th percentile, etc)
UW GPA: 4.0
W: 5.5 (all A+ in APs)
SAT: 2400</p>
<p>SATII:800x5 (Christansoldier-level)
AP-10 5s (or more, again like CS)</p>
<p>LOR: top 1% in each category</p>
<p>EC: AIME/Siemens/some humanities award</p>
<p>I would bet money such a person would get in.</p>
<p>How about this guy? He’s a friend of mine from high school-
2400 SAT (first sitting), 800x3 SATs, 15 5’s on APs, 4.0 GPA UW, 4.6ish W, valedictorian, took multiple classes at a university ranked around 50 on UNSWR and averaged over 100% in them. I heard from multiple teachers (some of whom had been teaching for decades) that he was the best student they had ever seen.
Even at Harvard, he’s known for being pretty much a beast academically.</p>
<p>^^ They exist. The young woman I interviewed had already been sent multiple Likely Letters from top Ivies. She turned down my school’s offer (I didn’t mind as I found her to be rather noisome). Later, she won a Rhodes Scholarship.</p>
<p>Wow, if there are 200-300 of these kids a year just for Yale, there must be at least a thousand or two of them to fill the class at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, so on and so forth. </p>
<p>I feel fine about 200-300 kids having Yale as a safety. I guess they earned it… unlike some other hooked applicants.</p>
<p>Rather than focus on the HS “superstar” who went on to get a Rhodes, think about all the non-*********s, or even the rejectees, who went on to do far more than the stars.</p>
<p>In my D’s HS class, there was one kid who was clearly the academic star at a tough HS. 10 APs, most self taught, second highest GPA, great ECs etc.etc. Got into every Ivy he applied to, including a trifecta of HYP. Went to H. Graduated two years ago. Where is he now? He’s a junior consultant, like so many of his classmates. No significant graduation honors or national scholarships during his undergrad years. </p>
<p>Contrast this with his classmate that was rejected by a number of ivies, went to another college where she was a junior year PBK, won a Rhodes (and other national level honors) and is now a DPhil student at Oxford. </p>
<p>So being one of these superstars may or may not mean anything in the long run. Stardom in HS is pretty one-dimensional. Later on, stardom depends on a lot more.</p>
<p>It’s a subjective title, and it’s going to vary from person to person. Personally I don’t think a 2400 SAT score makes an academic superstar (and I say this as a person who scored very high on the SAT and the GRE). It means that you can take a standardized test.</p>
<p>And like newsmassdad says…superstardom in high school means very little later on in life.</p>
<p>This thread is silly because it is sort of pointless. As one poster already pointed out, HYP could fill every seat with a HS valedictorian (after all, there are enough high schools) but they choose not to. So there is no such person as a sure admit except a 6’5" QB with a canon arm and Dan Marino swagger or a can’t miss running back with a 4.3 time in the 40and the “next Gale Sayers” written all over him, either kid with a B+ average and at least 1600/2400 on the SAT. That kid’s getting in over some high school vals with their 2400s. After all, there are more high school vals and kids with 2300-2400 SATs to choose from (not quite a dime a dozen but almost) but very few future Heisman Trophy candidates who can pack stadiums and earn a ton of money and publicity for their college. That’s life in America, baby.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Amen and Amen! There have been more C students and college dropouts who’ve made it to CEO than HS whizzes with perfect SATs and GPAs, certainly more who became famous. And how many multi-millionaire actors, directors and producers and studio moguls who are waving nothing more than HS diplomas they barely earned? Heck, James Cameron famous billionaire director was a truck driver. President Obama was an underachieving “B” student at his Hawaiian high school, and President Bush (the second) was a “C” student at his New England prep. and had 500s on his SATs. </p>
<p>Please, HS academic “superstar” as measured by SATs and GPAs doesn’t mean diddly squat in the long run.</p>
<p>Couldn’t agree more! Kid from my HS (early 70s) went to Harvard for undergrad and also Harvard law school, has since been disbarred. Then there’s me: underachieving HS student, went to a state school, no notable academic achievements there either, went on to get Masters & PhD, now a successful professional at a well-known company. Some paths to success are more circuitous than others. And some of us bloom later than others.</p>
<p>There are academic superstars – but simply having a 2400 SAT, an uw 4.0, and a bunch of 5s on APs doesn’t make you one. What makes an academic superstar is someone who combines most of these qualities with some outside extraordinary achievement. (e.g. a significant publication in a respected journal, winner of a medal in an international olympiad etc.)</p>
<p>Nope. There’s a lot of overlap between the likelies at Yale versus those at the other schools. They’re all chasing the same group of students. The classes aren’t going to be filled with likelies, but each school would of course like to snag as many of them as possible. </p>
<p>I’ve known one student who was one of these kids. The stats were the least of it, though the student had those. What the student was doing outside of the classroom was what made them shine. When you’ve got Nobel laureates calling an 18 year old offering them a reearch position in their labs, or deans calling to lay out the reasons why that 18 year old should come to their school, that’s not because the student is a val or got great SATs.</p>