<p>My understanding is that academic star designation was developed by admissions to track students with major national/international math/science awards. It gives the office an idea of the number of highly accomplished students that apply to MIT and indirectly of how well MIT’s recruting efforts are doing. Most of these students are highly sought after not only by MIT, but also by its peers such as HYPS and Caltech, and many will have choices of admission between multiple highly selective colleges. In EC (educational counselor) meetings we get the annual statistics from the admissions office. It has become part of their 'bragging" statistics and we (the ECs) are encouraged to actively recruit such students at the local level and make sure they apply to MIT (like coaches at Div.1 schools scouting top athletes at local high schools). For as long as I have been an EC (5 years) , that number has gone up every year. </p>
<p>This again does not mean that MIT wil give a strong preference to an academic star over another accomplished applicant without that designation. So many USAMO finalists are applying that more than half are turned away, even though they are all classified as academic stars. Two years ago, our local high school had ten students admitted to MIT. Only one was officially an academic star. The other nine were all accomplished and had shown their commitment to science by being involved in multi-year research projects.</p>