Well, to be fair, triple 800s on your SATs don't necessarily mean that you're innovative and creative, or leadership material, which these schools have always seen themselves as, if not creating, then fostering . It's a carry over from earlier times, I admit, but that is indeed part of the context here.
I saw it in the public school my children attended, and in the schools like them in similar communities. There were, of course, the awards for academic excellence, organizations for the students with a certain grade point average, and ones for performance in sports as well. Perhaps the most coveted prizes, however, were those for students who were "scholar athletes".
I understand the logic, although as a student myself that would never have applied to me. Now, perhaps if there was one called "scholar and the arts".
Sports do teach leadership and sportsmanship, qualities valued in western societies. It goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks. There's nothing like that in East Asian societies, to my knowledge. Nor is there the emphasis on individualism, creativity, etc.
These schools don't want to be peopled totally by students who have spent their entire lives in their parents' homes cramming for tests.
Another lesson from all of this research is that maybe Asian parents should protect their children's sanity and not send them to "after school school" and then Saturday school and never let them see the light of day. Honestly, if you have the gifts you don't need to do that. You'll still get really high SAT scores.
I'm one of those who think the "Tiger Moms" are one step away from being child abusers. The irony is that a lot of their kids probably don't need it. They might very well do just fine academically, if not quite so precociously, perhaps.