<p>“A valedictorian with over a 1500 SAT giving advice…and saying…to do activities you love. For the average student, this is misleading. The number one thing you can do to get into Harvard, is to have the highest grades possible. Then you talk about activities.”
Yes…I should have talked more about grades, I suppose…but overall, if given a choice between a valedictorian/1510 SAT who only studied and a top-10% 1450 (or whatever) SAT who did something amazing (I don’t know…started an advocacy program for something, use your imagination), they will be more likely to choose the latter because that person showed initiative and had passionate interests (just passions, I guess, haha) outside of school. There is a small population of people at Harvard whom we never see because they live in their rooms/the library…they’re the unhappy ones who are not getting the most out of their education, and they do mean it when they say they want people with “potential”. Not necessarily “well-rounded”, because it’s difficult to do that if all you have time for is studying, but <b>people who are able to make the absolute most out of any situation they find themselves in…THAT is the important part. </b>
I hope that helped 
~lowellbelle</p>