[ghaff]

Minor role is unfair. It's more like a good score is necessary but not sufficient. Basically, you can have a perfect SAT score and GPA from high school but you have no hobbies or other interests than studying and your essays are unimaginative, you're probably not getting admitted.

But you do need to demonstrate some base level of academic ability.

[scarmig]

Well, you can also have a perfect SAT and GPA and lots of interesting hobbies and extracurricular successes, but then get rejected in favor of other applicants with significantly weaker applications simply because subjective evaluations, under the direction of admissions offices, tend to claim that people of your racial background are all unimaginative drones...