<p>I have been looking through the forum for quite a while and i'm thinking that while you may not win international olympiads,math/sci national competition etc., you can still get into the top unis? what you need to do is to show you're passionate in something? I've seen so many people commenting on the importance of winning awards.. well what do you guys think?</p>
<p>Yeps. It's the passion that counts. Even if you're passionate about something totally arcane, it's no issue. It's just the passion that counts.</p>
<p>It's definitely not solely or even mainly about perfect scores. </p>
<p>Yet your passion won't be looked at closely unless you have the minimum acceptable stats for the school. Passion and great ECs are what differentiate qualified applicants from one another.</p>
<p>Awards are nice but not essential. I recall one HYP adcom saying that about 1/3 of their admits have some unique stellar hook, 1/3 are exceedingly strong academicians and 1/3 are "regular" well-performing kids.</p>
<p>Well the above is a nice way to put it but It's a bit misleading as adcoms tend to be.</p>
<p>If they were prone to really laying out the truth here's what they would say:</p>
<p>50% of the class is taken before we look at the unhooked candidates. Those spots will be taken by recruited athletes (17%), URMs (20%), legacies (12%) and staff kids and development kids (3-5%). When looking at the grades and scores below our 25%, almost all belong to the kids in one of these groups.</p>
<p>That leaves the <50% unhooked to do a few things for us: raise our overall stats, bring brilliant academic orientation, fill out our marching band, make sure all 50 states and as many countries as possible are represented....</p>
<p>well is it true that HYP look for passion while Brown looks for joy in an activity.. so wad are the different things different unis look at?</p>
<p>No, that is simply not true! Do you think HYP have a passion meter and Brown can somehow detect joy? Apply common sense.</p>