Interestingly, the Chinese universities have in recent years discontinued the practice to add points for being proficient at piano, being an elite athlete, being an award-winning artist,what have you to the GaoKao exam. Using extracurricula to get an advantage was prevalent in the last twenty years or so but the universities(ordered by dept of education?) went back largely to admission based on academics only. This is partly because the game of extracurricular activities are largely played by the rich/upper class and seen as unfair advantage.
Another major difference between Harvard et al and Beijing University and the other elite Chinese schools is that the Chinese universities really would like or at least don't mind filling their school with highest academic performers. They believe that academic trumps everything else. So in a way, they are all behaving more like a more extreme version of Cal-tech or MIT. The HYPs are definitely defining talent more broadly than IQ and academics.
