Having just gone to DD's high school awards ceremony which had a segment listing the college choice, scholarship, and awards for some of the students, I would say that the kiddos that went to HYPS etc did have the "core" of good grades ( 4.0 un-weighted), IB diploma, AP scholar or better, over 100 hours of community service (at DD's school this does not include the 50 or more done for IB) and leadership in student organizations. Then they went on to do things like qualify for AIME , be an Intel Science Fair finalist, volunteer over 500 hours with local government, etc. So, another vote for well rounded AND pointy.

Have a look at Stanford's admission stats for 2014 here:
http://admission.stanford.edu/basics/selection/profile.html

73% of admitted students had a 4.0
95% were in the top 10% of their class

Harvard (see here: http://features.thecrimson.com/2014/freshman-survey/admissions/) had "only" 54% with a 4.0, but looking at a plot of GPA vs SAT demonstrates that high GPA and high test scores both characteristics of admitted students.

Also, I wish now, that I'd taken DD to a high school awards night when she was in 5th grade so she could see what was possible.