[amtab]

It's easy to say that the American college admissions game relies on strange and difficult to quantify criteria, especially at top schools. The more interesting aspect is the comparison to the UK and other high quality European universities. As a student at a "prestigious" American college, I find it strange how little the lone wolf mentality is encouraged. In graduate programs, the most successful students are almost always lone wolves in many ways, since leadership ability doesn't get you very far with pure science or truly original ideas.

I wonder what the impact would be if American universities used Oxford / Cambridge as a model instead of whatever they're doing now.