<p>Bobby, I'm going to have to disagree with you whole-heartedly, except for the remark that you need to be an incredible person on the whole. You need a 'hook' no matter what your scores are, but the hook doesn't have to be as linear as some people make it out to be. To say you don't need the ECs or the hook as long as you have the scores is ludicrous--that's why they love rejecting the 4.0s and 1600s. Numbers ring hollow.</p>
<p>First, the SAT range is 1370-1550; I have seen no reported average of 1500. I know kids with scores 1270, 1290, and 1320 and unweighted GPAs from 3.5 to 3.7 who were accepted. They were not 'freaks of nature,' private school prodigies, or URMs or athletes, but incredible people with passion and dedication. As badly as you want there to be a formula, some form of logic to crack the code of admissions, there isn't one. The 1500s are just as vulnerable as the 1300s. Just do the best you can, be honest and hope for the best while remembering it is not validation.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, yours is an attitude prevalent among applicants, and one that is steadily increasing and intensifying. There is nothing hollow in Robin Mamlet's statement: I've seen it. I have not received an admissions decision, but I know that even if I am rejected, there were kids out there who thought they had no shot in hell who were given the honor of acceptance. However, when the time comes, I am not going to try and justify or qualify my acceptance/rejection. I am not going to sit here and say some great injustice was committed because what are they thinking, I'm awesome and they'd be lucky to have me. Nor am I going to sit here and say I was admitted because I received X score and Y GPA and received Z recognition. I will say I am a person with passions and convictions who belongs there and nowhere else; I will say it was not my time, but perhaps in a year or two it will be.</p>
<p>On a side note, so many people get rejected because of their attitude towards admissions and the way they present themselves; they treat it like a game rather than a pursuit for knowledge. And thus the degradation of our value for education continues. The 'surprises' shouldn't be, because correlation does not mean causation. People with higher-end scores get rejected for their reasons, and people with lower-end scores get rejected for their reasons. You cannot afford to make overgeneralizations, because your argument will be terribly flawed. Besides, you have no authority. Neither do I, but I am not giving people false hopes or discouragement based on their stats. It's not my place.</p>