Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How to get noticed by college admissions officers?

Having interviewed for top 10 schools including Ivies for a number of years, my observations for "getting noticed" would be:
1) Have very strong test scores- at least 2250 or 2300 on SAT, 34 average ACT, Commended or national merit for PSAT, lots of 4s and 5s on AP tests.
2) Be in top 10% of competitive high school by GPA, GPA over 4.50 on a 4.0 scale.
3) Have interesting activities- esp. at national level. Founding a nonprofit, competing with robots at national level, etc.
4) Interesting essays.
5) Interesting person to interview.
Many kids have generic sounding activities- captain of tennis team, volunteer reading to kids at local library, etc. I doubt a lot of kids get in with major financial donations. You have to first have the stats (really high test scores and GPA) and second the activities. It's not enough to be a ballerina or fence; if you get in via sports, you have to be good enough to fence for Princeton, or wherever.