Hunt, I have to agree and disagree with you. I agree that “Everybody knows that sports matters at Stanford.” But the stuff about the grades is not so clear.
The most valuable thing about SAT is that is consistent across students. A 1700 at an online high school is, at least as a first approximation, is the same as a 1700 at Exeter. That is the major reason why a select group of admissions officers pushed for standardized tests as part of the admissions process in the 1950s. It really helped “top” schools become more of a meritocracy.
Grades, as we know, are not consistent across high schools. I’ve seen very rigorous schools were no one has ever graduated with a 4.0. I’ve also seen schools where half of the class graduates with a 4.0 (or a lot higher) and the students and the school are very weak. In the case at hand, we simply do not know how rigorous the grading was at her school.
Couple of other things: From looking at hundreds of Naviances over the years at both public and private schools, you will see that there tends to be a strong correlation between SATs and GPAs. Not perfect, but strong. Moreover, although there are kids with high SATs and relatively low board scores, the opposite tends to be far less frequent (low SATs and high grades).
Moreover, when you look at Naivances (and this is hard data, although you often do not know the kids), you see schools like Stanford rejecting a ton of kids with high board scores and low grades; you also see them rejecting a ton of kids with low board scores and high grades. If you have high SATs and high grades, then you are competitive, but certainly not guaranteed admissions.
Thus, a lot of kids who like this student had high grades (even at very tough schools) and low SATs were rejected. Why not? If you can admit only one kid out of 20, you are looking for reasons to reject.
One question for a recruited athlete is: how low may my SATs be and I can still be admitted to Stanford. There is a NCAA minimum of 820, so you can’t go below this number. I hope Stanford is above that level. This case tells us that 1700 standing alone is not a deal killer. For some kids, that is valuable information.