[jarekr]

I think the following sums it up quite nicely:

"Of course you need good scores and good grades to get into MIT. But most people who apply to MIT have good grades and scores. Having bad grades or scores will certainly hurt you, but I'm sorry to say that having great grades and scores doesn't really help you - it just means that you're competitive with most of the rest of our applicants. MIT is very self-selecting in that regard."

From: http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/the_selection_proc...

[sajithw]

I can agree with that (and with you for the most part). I just maintain that "near perfect" isn't part of the equation.

Edit: I never was really arguing against this (just that near perfect notion). There's a big difference between near-perfect and bad.