[bradwschiller]

Best of the best is very subjective. Once you're over the academic bar of being able to do the work, other factors are far more important for success in college and life.

Essentially, there's a bar for intellectual horsepower – which 4 in 5 Harvard applicants are above. And this is the same for all highly-selective institutions.

Then, other factors become far more important. Specifically, colleges look for people who are unusual even in a pool of extremely higher-performers (essentially the top 1% of all high school graduates). Students who are unusually driven, unusually intellectually curious, unusual contributors, unusual experiences, unusual at taking the initiative.

These personality traits are very similar to what YC looks for in founders. Raw intellectual horsepower is important – but only to a point. Given the choice between a student far above the academic bar without any other distinguishing features and a student just above the academic bar but is unusually driven – we'd pick the unusually driven person pretty much every time.