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Since some Harvard dean years ago said that a 600 or 650 was good enough to succeed at Harvard, I’d take the 2100 without qualms, but I might take all three if I could. Both my kids won awards at Science Olympiad, and I know enough about the program to know a lot depends on how good the school program is, and the quirks of the judging any particular year and the particular events you ended up in. I don’t actually think it’s that good an indicator, though both my kids really enjoyed it. The significant charitable organization? It would probably depend on my mood that particular day. I feel like a lot of charities get started when the effort would be much better spent on contributing to an existing charity. One of the best examples I remember from CC is Curmudgeon’s daughter who developed a system for Hispanic patients to communicate with doctors as part of her volunteering in a local hospital.</p>
<p>As to californiaa’s concerns about magnet vs ghetto school - I really think it evens out. A middle class kid is not likely to get brownie points for attending a low performing school. There will be other indicators of her background - parental education and income for one. It’s the kids who truly have deprived backgrounds and have nevertheless risen to the top that get noticed. That will come up in letters of recommendation and their own personal essays. I really believe that it comes out pretty even. </p>
<p>My older son and my nephew had very similar scores and abilities and applied to many of the same colleges. He went to a very selective private school with a class that sent a high percentage to top schools. In my son’s school a much smaller percentage went to the top colleges, but because the school was so large there were also a good number going to top colleges. I don’t think my son’s college admissions results would have been that different if he had been at a different school. However if we lived in the city (NYC) I wouldn’t have hesitated to send my oldest to one of the exam schools - he’d have had access to better quality math and science than he got, but he was able to pursue his main interest - computer science at a very high level because he didn’t end up working that hard in high school. (He wasn’t a slacker by any means, he took all the major science APs and Linear Algebra.) I’ve actually become less impressed with the NYC exam high schools thanks to some recent scandals and some CC posters.</p>