Here is the one-sentence "secret"

"The person who knows what he wants and has the capability to accomplish it."

I have listened quite a few lectures in Ivy League schools and the takeaway is simply the sentence above.  The school does not want to babysit you. The schools wants students who will be automatically successful once they are in the school environment.  Once you made the impression of that in your materials, you will have advantages over other students who got better grade or better SAT.  That's why students who can organize community activities, who are established musicians (semi-professional earns pay and/or donates), who won the national awards (Intel, Emmy, Oscar, etc.), whose parents are filthy rich, whose parents have tremendous political connections will all get accepted to top schools. Even though the last two does not fit the one-sentence criteria above but the reason is simply enough, you get the idea.

Yeah, you can fake it but before doing that you may want to ask yourself does it worth it?

I knew a few Chinese students who get in HYP but did not get out.