<p>
</p>
<p>That is comparable to the proportion of Harvard applicants accepted for purely academic reasons (10-15 percent) and is apparently the MIT equivalent. However, 245 sounds rather high if by “national award” you mean actually reaching the finalist level. For example, USAMO finalist (i.e., those declared winners from among the several hundred who qualify for the exam) is about 10 people, not all of whom are graduating high school that year. Thus there are at most about 30-40 people who reach that level in mathematics, another 15-20 in physics, similar numbers in computer science and biology and engineering… — but it doesn’t add up to 250. </p>
<p>So I think “national award” may have meant reaching the national level of competition (national math/physics qualifier) rather than being on the list of winners. Either that, or there are many more national competitions than I have heard of.</p>