<p>"The real point here is that all top colleges admit a mix of talents and skills and interests, and harvard also makes a point of saying they want a good leavening of ‘regular kids’ as well. "</p>
<p>I didn’t realize that Harvard’s stated goals of diversity meant they wanted stupid kids too. LOL.</p>
<p>Hey, I really don’t care. They keep doing this and MIT will have a better chance to win the Putnam.</p>
<p>"The real point here is that all top colleges admit a mix of outstanding talents and skills and interests (apart from Math Olympiad team members, there are Science Olympiads, Intel and Seimens and other very prestigious competitions, nationally ranked debaters, athletes, musicians, actors, published writers, etc etc etc), and harvard also makes a point of saying they want a good leavening of ‘regular kids’ as well. "</p>
<p>Sorry, this still doesn’t make any sense. First of all, the international applicants have their own separate pool and are limited to ~15% of the class.</p>
<p>Also, IMO is a much better predicter of future performance than Science Olympiads, Intel, and Siemens (although Siemens finalists have an outstanding record too). And, though I’m sure nobody cares, among math/science people IMO is the most prestigious award there is. Ask any Siemens/Intel/Science olympiad winner and they’ll tell you that. </p>
<p>Further, the nature of other fields means it is harder to identify for sure who the best is. Who is the top 5 writers in the country at age 18? Getting published at that age doesn’t mean a whole lot. National competitions aren’t entered by everybody and I don’t know that the top people would even compete in them. In mathematics, all the best people compete in the AMC/USAMO/IMO, etc.</p>
<p>Finally, even if you assume there are only a slice of the admits reserved for math majors, there is no conceivable reason why IMO winners shouldn’t be picked to fill that slot.</p>
<p>Yea, I would say that IMO is more prestigious than winning Siemens or Intel. Almost all of those research competition winners receive help from their mentors. Whereas, writing the IMO is completely an individual task.</p>
<p>well, I’ll leave it to you to take it up with the admissions office next time you see them…:)</p>