My lazy boy has weak ECs comparing to most of people in cc. He is not very outgoing. He might not have great recs.
No. You need outstanding ECs and recs to get into any of the top tier colleges. He is better off being realistic and applying to lower-tier schools.
I hope your kid likes UofToronto or McGill…
@herewelearn I don’t know what you count as weak, especially comparing to people on CC (which represent like 1% of the total student population). But if he is weak compared to his peers, he can’t get into any top schools based on his numbers alone.
An introvert would not survive at McGill and UToronto.
Every school emphasizes the importance of stats over ECs, but sometimes they won’t be enough to get you into college.
Most state schools and large public universities tend to admit students largely based on stats. There are also many universities that award scholarships solely based on merit (U Alabama and Louisiana Tech come to mind).
As for the more selective schools, I’d say that for ALL top 50 universities in the US, having good stats alone won’t cut it. But there are schools like Caltech, which seem to put more emphasis on test scores, but it could just be because the applicant pool tends to be stronger than other top schools.
I’d say that if your stats are great, you’d be a great candidate for merit scholarships at low to mid-selective public universities, but top universities and LACs feed on diversity and would want to see involvement.
@AnEpicIndian thank you for taking time to answer my questions. My son will apply MIT b/c he had been dreaming it since baby. I know it is high reach for him. His stats are up there. A girl from his regular physics got accepted to MIT this year. He is quite hopeful. His school also sent 2 girls to Stanford and 1 boy to Harvard the year before.
MIT incoming freshman here!
Firstly, please don’t call your son lazy on the internet. Even if he is, that’s just not nice and I’d be hurt if my parents did that. It’s just weird. Yes, I’m sure he can be frustrating at times, but who can’t be?
Also CC people either totally BS or talk themselves up 90% of the time. I wouldn’t recommend comparing him to people here. I got into MIT and I probably wouldn’t sparkle on here. But I committed a lot to ECs I was passionate about and I’ve worked since I was 15 and done freelance web administration.
And, don’t ride his chances on what other people at his school have done. That’s usually not as big of a factor as people might think, at least from what I’ve seen.
Extra curricular activities are super super super super super (add 100 more supers here) important to get into MIT. Stats alone aren’t a gateway. However, the nice part about MIT as compared to other schools, is that MIT has its own application to help highlight students. So maybe he does things that aren’t necessarily considered ECs, like making things or research or learning new languages. With the MIT application he can use one of the appropriate portfolios or sections to talk about that and show off. And essays and interview are also very important!
MIT is a reach for anyone, please know that. So be supportive either way.
But good luck to your son! I’m sure he’ll end up somewhere great! 
Big on stats, relative to reputation:
Vanderbilt
WUSTL
Tufts
Notre Dame
Lots of state schools focus on the numbers over the subjective. It would be too much work to scrutinize every detail of an application. Focus on those. What would you consider to be “top”?