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<p>I guess this depends on what is meant by a “top school”. The group of son’s friends who did A LOT of team-based academic competitions throughout hs are at, or were accepted to, schools such as Rice, Northwestern, Wash U St. Louis, Brown, Williams, U Chicago, Duke and Vanderbilt, many with very lucrative merit scholarships. It may well be that even the slightest hit to gpa will damage chances to HYP and the damage will not be counteracted by an active hs profile, but I saw no evidence of deleterious effects at non-HYP top 20 schools.</p>