“You see that in the many posts every year by CC of students considering the UK who trying to get their heads around why that hard-won GPA or all those community service hours being largely irrelevant.”
Yes, before applying to the UK everyone should read this quote from the director of undergraduate admissions at Oxford:
“It really doesn’t matter if you haven’t got any friends or hobbies or if you don’t do any charitable work …[Acceptance] is a purely academic judgement.” He said universities were only interested in “enthused, engaged and excellent” candidates, rather than “second-rate historians who happen to play the flute”.