This thread reminds me of a fun story from a few years ago.
I am an alumni interviewer for an Ivy and my most memorable interview was with young man whose file claimed he was a senior at a local HS. I began interview with asking him how his senior year was going.
He replied that I must have an old file because he had left HS over a year ago without graduating. He went on the explain that he had gone as far as he could in HS and completed ALL the APs and received the highest grades in all the honors course by the end of his sophomore year. His stats/activities were not dissimilar to those of the OP. He told was incredibly bored, unmotivated and directionless in HS and wanted to be challenged. He discovered a small liberal arts college on the east coast that catered to bored but high-achieving HS students and applied and was accepted. I think this liberal arts college must have been Bard. While he admitted he wasn’t sure what he wanted after HS, he was anxious to get on with life. I must admit, I found this whole story far-fetched, my next question was, how are things going at college?
He then told me he had dropped out, and I was becoming exasperated, wondering if I was wasting my time. I then asked, why don’t you just tell me what you are doing now? This young man went on to tell me that his mother recently died of something rare and unusual, and he had to leave school to take care of this father.
After that he told me that his mother’s death had focused him and he wanted to learn more about what killed her. He had applied and gotten a medical research job at our local hospital and decided that the small liberal arts college he was going to wasn’t going to cut it if he planned to become a serious medical researcher. He has decided to go to a major research university and was applying to all the T20 schools. Our interview lasted a long time, and I was fascinated with his story. In addition to the medical research position this young man also found the time to play in the local orchestra (trombone) and help with a state politician’s reelection campaign. A multi-faceted winner.
As a consequence of our meeting, I wrote probably the best alumni interview report I have ever written with the caveat that the AdCom must verify all the farfetched parts of this young man’s story. It was not his grades or scores (or youth) that made this student such an attractive candidate, it was his lived experiences and what these experiences would bring to a college community. He would have had none of these things of offer if he applied to T20 schools after sophomore year of HS.
I was so excited when he was admitted and I called to congratulate him and tell him how much he had inspired me.
He turned us down to go to Stanford.