Very misleading! Don't just interpret at face value!

My understanding is you have to pass a threshold in SAT.  The problem is this threshhold is very high for our Chinese like 2300 or even higher for upper ivies. There are so many Chinese applicants who have >=2300 SAT then why admission officers want the ones with lower SAT?  Yes, I would want to have a 2300 SAT with great EC rather than a 2400 SAT but boring kid.  But it's 2300 vs. 2400 rather than 1800 vs. 2400.  Actually statistically 2300 and 2400 may not have much difference.  But no matter how good you EC is, if your SAT is only 1800 for a Chinese, you just can not pass the first screen and thus have zero chance.  No, SAT is not very important but you have to pass 2300.  Do you think it's important or not?  Yes, high school GPA is more important than SAT but how much weight your high GPA carries if you SAT is only 1800?  So if you are in a very tough high school and high GPA is not easy but since you are very good and thus SAT is very high then SAT carries more weight.  If you are in a easy high school without much competetion and you have a high GPA but your SAT is only 1800 then I will look at this SAT score since it's a better assessment of applicant's ability when compare to applicants from different high school.