<p>Exactly what molliebatmit said. International admissions at a school like MIT are obviously going to end up looking like you HAVE to be in international science/CS/math Olympiad, have perfect grades, etc., because there are only a few spots available to international students and there are MANY highly qualified international applicants. They will still choose based on their domestic admissions policies, but so few will be admitted that a few traits they all share (international competition winners, etc.) look like requirements. However, it just turned out that the 2-18 most qualified Indian candidates all happened to have those traits. Correlation vs. causation.</p>