Akash brought up a good point—the Dean's List isn't the only factor in the admission process. As far as I know, the only required information about the student's academic success is the cumulative GPA. That means Dean's List winners could potentially be students with low SAT/ACT scores, few other extracurricular activities, bad college admission essays, etc. Even the cumulative GPA is not incredibly informative if given on a 4.0 scale; it provides no indication of the strength of a student's schedule and whether or not that have taken challenging courses that would warrant entrance into a prestigious school. I've also noticed that there are FIRSTers who only do FIRST in high school. That's fine, but admissions people tend to like a bit of diversity in those activities.
Criteria for the Dean's List (courtesy of the manual) includes:
- demonstrated leadership and commitment to the ideals of FIRST;
- interest in and passion for a long term commitment to FIRST and its ideals;
- overall individual contribution to their team;
- technical expertise and passion;
- entrepreneurship and creativity;
- ability to motivate and lead fellow team members; and
- effectiveness at increasing awareness of FIRST in their school and community
This indicates success in FIRST and a passion for STEM, not academic excellence and ability to succeed at a highly-ranked college or university.