<p>I think that Harvard has no shortage of qualified, interesting people, and can afford to pick and choose however it pleases. SAT/AP/GPA and class rank can only moderately predict college performance, but why risk not using such factors when you still have more than enough applicants to fill your class no matter how you cut it?</p>
<p>Also, students with "better" ECs tend to have higher SAT scores, r=~.5
I doubt that more than a few dozen students with GPA/SAT scores outside the typical Harvard admit (700-800 on each subsection) range have impressive ECs that the rest of the applicants can't match.</p>