<aside> 💡 It’s impossible to tell as applications are holistic. Just be exceptional, which can be executed in 1000 ways. College admissions’ job is to create a diverse campus, which means a collection of individually special people. Copying a superstar application for last year will not cut it. They don’t really want that again - they want you.
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US Colleges are ultra-competitive, moreso than Oxbridge, across the board; the top 10 have acceptance rates between 3 and 5%. Most people with straight As and that get offers from Cambridge (where admissions is more objective) get rejected from unis like Princeton and colleges you will have never heard of. It's simply not enough to have the best grades in your school, or even in your borough. Holistic applications mean they value all of the academics, the other stuff, and be a match for the school.
Even though it seems about half the people at Columbia undergrad were Valedictorians of their High School/Sixth Form, we need to see beyond a superficial conclusion of: these people are straight A students, which is why they got there!” .. almost. What did you not read and see is the brilliance of, is who they are as people, which comes through 4 major other parts of the application including essays.
Me and my Sutton Trust cohort at Bowdoin’s Marine Biology lab (Maine, East Coast of the US)
Understand this: Colleges compete for applicants the same way you are competing to get accepted to x college.. by the way. The same way you do all these things to seem appealing to a college, they’re designing out brochures, scrubbing student GPAs, creating summer insight programs, and constructing artsy websites to draw students in. They want to repeatedly appeal to the best and brightest. Colleges might diversify course & program offerings, and hire reputable scientists & writers all to bolster the college's power and reputation, which they need to stand out to applicants. Factors like the values the university alumni fame & success, the values of the uni, the academic focusses, the local area, and the type of students the college attract give the college powerful and interesting cultures and reputations.
!This is not the UK! You have an immense, actually mind-boggling, range of colleges to pick from - choose somewhere you're going to love to spend time for the next 4 years! Are you looking for a large research university, a small liberal arts college, or a technical uni? …Do you want all of those things in one? Do you want a core curriculum or a flexible program where you can carve your own path of study, like Brown? Do you want a uni with lots of the best professional schools (Business, Law, Politics), like Columbia/Harvard/Stanford? Do you want to live in a bustling city, like Columbia, or a college town where you interact with local residents, like Bowdoin (MN) or Trinity (CT)? Colleges looking for students that are a fit for the college’s academic approach and culture. See here for how to choose a college:
There are 4,200 colleges and universities in the US, 200 in the UK. The top 1% in the UK = 2 unis, let's say Oxford and Cambridge to make it easy. 1% of the 4,200 colleges = 42. Yep, 40+ colleges in the US are Oxbridge-level or have courses that rival those at Oxbridge. Or better. Better resources, a wider course range, a richer campus experience, more money to aid students, a wider network of opportunities, better research opportunities, etc. This is not hypothetical, I was just going on a tangent about my college experience.
Statistic: 75% of people with a perfect 4.0 GPA got rejected from Stanford in the 2018-19 application cycle. Shocking, right? How can so many people who are academically qualified get rejected from an institution that primarily values.. academics? It’s probably the case that those people didn’t fulfill all metrics that Stanford values..
Analogy: Building an application is like making a smoothie. (Bear with me). To gain admission, your cup is to be 100% full. This can be done in an infinite number of ways. You can do 30% banana, 40% strawberry, and 30% ice - 30% grades, 40% extracurriculars, and 30% demonstrated entrepreneurial mind. Or maybe, instead: 50% banana, 25% strawberry, and 25% ice. Both make 100% and both taste great. This is analogous to candidate's applications - different mixtures/amounts of the different components of the application (grades, ECs, awards) will still make an application that admissions officers may admire equally, and want to extend an offer to. You don't need to have the same application as the guy from your school that you got into Dartmouth, to get in. You and your friend's application taste great. They’re looking for different versions of the same smoothie type. "Slightly less banana is fine, this applicant brings grape which I think is really cool and we need that on campus". Everyone is entirely unique and it takes self-awareness & intelligence to understand who you are. It takes understanding in who one is and their abilities, and good communicative skill to portray that well & accurately.
Case ii) Student A has a 3.5 GPA = '35%' in grades, student B has a 4.4 GPA = '44%'. A is more exciting in their extra-curricular endeavors, giving 48% compared to B’s 40%. The remainder is covered by awards from both. See how both candidates fill the cup to 100% but in different ways. Both students get accepted.
Case iii) Someone who has a 5.0 GPA (50% in the cup for grades), may only have 10% in ECs, and 15% in Honors. That only adds up to 80% - not enough for the 100% that Vanderbilt will require for you to be admitted. This solves the common rebuttal to a rejection of 'Ah what? I got way better grades than her and still didn't get into Yale.'
The different types of students that colleges like to admit are the similar smoothies, of a different fruit make-up. For example, Rice Uni could love the banana, strawberry & ice mix we had going on before. Vassar could instead be looking for more of a kiwi, apple, and frozen grapes-type mix. Stanford, a more guava and pineapple concoction. They're all made of different fruits but all taste great. If you consist of bananas don't apply to Stanford - they don't like those in their smoothies. But there may be 15 other colleges that love that in their mix.. take the time to do the research.
Edit: This analogy works well but needs to be reworked - people of any type of smoothie can and should go to any college. Colleges reflect the diversity of the world & every college is diverse in quite a common way. E.g. the students you’ll find at Penn, you will find at Harvard and Columbia. The students at MIT will be more tech-focused on average, but will still all have the same types fo behavioral traits.