<p>You don’t need a 15 on the AIME to be attractive to colleges. Even a really high but not perfect score is an awesome thing and pretty much a ticket anywhere. Although a great SAT I may not put as high on the intelligence food chain as a great AIME, the bottom line here is that intelligence trumps academic success at any level. Einstein failed classes, did it matter? No and colleges know this. The cream always rises to the top and academic success means nothing in the long run–most CEOs were C+/B- students. </p>
<p>Your MA and CT example is wrong. Good public high school system doesn’t authomatically mean good public university (ies) and I never said it did. However, it is fact that most UC Berkeley people are from bad high schools, how else can they have such low SATI’s and such high GPAs/class rankings. Either that or the entire state of CA is bad at test taking. CA also has a larger proportion of illegals than other states, so yeah it’s safe to say it’s one of the worst states as far as schools. QED again.</p>