<p>That sounds about right but not all “stars” are treated the same. As Mollie wrote, it is what you actually did to get that academic star designation that matters. Also, a lot achievements don’t neatly fit in the academic star designation even though they may actually be considered just as highly. </p>
<p>Assuming no major red flag throughout the application, an Intel STS Top Ten Award Winner would be a virtual auto-admit, the remaining 30 Finalists probably 50/50. I don’t even know if the 300 STS semi-finalists are considered academic stars, but their chances may not much greater than somebody without such distinction. US IMO qualifiers are auto-admits but USAMO qualifiers are not, even though they are classified as academic stars. There are probably 50 to 100 USAMO qualifiers applying to MIT evey year, and MIT could not and would not want to admit them all.</p>