Where are my 90s era Harvard classmates sending their kids?

[Anonymous]

My sister and other friends who were Ivy grads send their kids to state schools. As do we.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sister and other friends who were Ivy grads send their kids to state schools. As do we.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I are both Harvard grads from the 90s. None of our close friends' kids go to Harvard -- not one. Off the op of my head:

Brown
UVA
William and Mary
Toronto
USC
Barnard
Haverford

etc

Did your friends and their parents go to Harvard?


Were you and your friends in Final clubs?

PP here. I should have specified but I meant our college roommates/friends.

And no, not in final clubs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What this shows is that getting into Harvard used to be immensely easier. People who went to Harvard in the 90s wouldn’t be in at anywhere comparable today.

It’s not harder or easier per se, but the grade inflation is making the signals of quality very noisy. A few decades ago, the high school grades already helped the admissions pick the outstanding (academically) students pretty accurately. In addition, applicants these days are supposed to play victim and write a sob story about what kind of hardship they have gone through and how they have overcome their hardship and what lessons they have learned. It’s like everyone is applying for a script writing major!

Wrong. It is easier. Harvard used to have a much higher admission rate. In 1988, it was 14.6% and less than 15,000 applications.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1988/7/8/freshman-class-sets-application-records-pthe/

In 2025, there was a 3.43% acceptance rate out of 57,435 apps.

https://features.thecrimson.com/2021/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/#:~:text=This%20year%2C%20the%20College's%20acceptance,totals%20a%20historic%201%2C965%20students.

But you also wouldn’t apply unless you have an almost 4.0 GPA unhooked. Also, kids are dramatizing their sob story to have a chance of being admitted as a hardship case.

I had a 4.0 in high school without ever studying for more than an hour a night, ever. Was elected class president, worked a summer job, no national awards. Got into Yale. Took an SAT prep class and mom and dad could pay tuition.

The kids now work much harder than I did and are so much more accomplished. They are taking harder classes, taking more of them a year, doing actual work/research, getting national awards. The IDEA that you think kids are crying their way into Harvard now shows real intellectual disinterest. The kids who are talking about their "sob story" are also winning the TOC. These colleges take 1 kids out of every 25 apps. Get real.

The real advantages now are with athletes, donors, and legacies - and those still favor the white kids.

This is just not true in my experience. What's true is that kids have more extracurriculars. And everyone knows the strategies that only a select few used back in the 80s and 90s. If I had a nickel for every kid who has a published paper these days... who believes this BS?

Work harder? I doubt that very much. I can say that I not only worked much harder on academics (as measured by hours of hw per day) than my kids but read a lot more books, wrote exponentially more papers, went much farther in foreign languages, and so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What this shows is that getting into Harvard used to be immensely easier. People who went to Harvard in the 90s wouldn’t be in at anywhere comparable today.

It’s not harder or easier per se, but the grade inflation is making the signals of quality very noisy. A few decades ago, the high school grades already helped the admissions pick the outstanding (academically) students pretty accurately. In addition, applicants these days are supposed to play victim and write a sob story about what kind of hardship they have gone through and how they have overcome their hardship and what lessons they have learned. It’s like everyone is applying for a script writing major!

Wrong. It is easier. Harvard used to have a much higher admission rate. In 1988, it was 14.6% and less than 15,000 applications.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1988/7/8/freshman-class-sets-application-records-pthe/

In 2025, there was a 3.43% acceptance rate out of 57,435 apps.

https://features.thecrimson.com/2021/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/#:~:text=This%20year%2C%20the%20College's%20acceptance,totals%20a%20historic%201%2C965%20students.

But you also wouldn’t apply unless you have an almost 4.0 GPA unhooked. Also, kids are dramatizing their sob story to have a chance of being admitted as a hardship case.

I had a 4.0 in high school without ever studying for more than an hour a night, ever. Was elected class president, worked a summer job, no national awards. Got into Yale. Took an SAT prep class and mom and dad could pay tuition.

The kids now work much harder than I did and are so much more accomplished. They are taking harder classes, taking more of them a year, doing actual work/research, getting national awards. The IDEA that you think kids are crying their way into Harvard now shows real intellectual disinterest. The kids who are talking about their "sob story" are also winning the TOC. These colleges take 1 kids out of every 25 apps. Get real.

The real advantages now are with athletes, donors, and legacies - and those still favor the white kids.

This is just not true in my experience. What's true is that kids have more extracurriculars. And everyone knows the strategies that only a select few used back in the 80s and 90s. If I had a nickel for every kid who has a published paper these days... who believes this BS?

Work harder? I doubt that very much. I can say that I not only worked much harder on academics (as measured by hours of hw per day) than my kids but read a lot more books, wrote exponentially more papers, went much farther in foreign languages, and so on.

What do you think happened? I’m curious on your perspective as to why you had a better education than your kids. Was it impossible to find?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What this shows is that getting into Harvard used to be immensely easier. People who went to Harvard in the 90s wouldn’t be in at anywhere comparable today.

It’s not harder or easier per se, but the grade inflation is making the signals of quality very noisy. A few decades ago, the high school grades already helped the admissions pick the outstanding (academically) students pretty accurately. In addition, applicants these days are supposed to play victim and write a sob story about what kind of hardship they have gone through and how they have overcome their hardship and what lessons they have learned. It’s like everyone is applying for a script writing major!

Wrong. It is easier. Harvard used to have a much higher admission rate. In 1988, it was 14.6% and less than 15,000 applications.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1988/7/8/freshman-class-sets-application-records-pthe/

In 2025, there was a 3.43% acceptance rate out of 57,435 apps.

https://features.thecrimson.com/2021/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/#:~:text=This%20year%2C%20the%20College's%20acceptance,totals%20a%20historic%201%2C965%20students.

But you also wouldn’t apply unless you have an almost 4.0 GPA unhooked. Also, kids are dramatizing their sob story to have a chance of being admitted as a hardship case.

I had a 4.0 in high school without ever studying for more than an hour a night, ever. Was elected class president, worked a summer job, no national awards. Got into Yale. Took an SAT prep class and mom and dad could pay tuition.

The kids now work much harder than I did and are so much more accomplished. They are taking harder classes, taking more of them a year, doing actual work/research, getting national awards. The IDEA that you think kids are crying their way into Harvard now shows real intellectual disinterest. The kids who are talking about their "sob story" are also winning the TOC. These colleges take 1 kids out of every 25 apps. Get real.

The real advantages now are with athletes, donors, and legacies - and those still favor the white kids.

This is just not true in my experience. What's true is that kids have more extracurriculars. And everyone knows the strategies that only a select few used back in the 80s and 90s. If I had a nickel for every kid who has a published paper these days... who believes this BS?

Work harder? I doubt that very much. I can say that I not only worked much harder on academics (as measured by hours of hw per day) than my kids but read a lot more books, wrote exponentially more papers, went much farther in foreign languages, and so on.

What do you think happened? I’m curious on your perspective as to why you had a better education than your kids. Was it impossible to find?

People are going to jump all over me but here is my experience. I am in academia and numerous people in my family (parents and siblings) are also academics. Also have a family member who taught at one of the most well-known prep schools in the country for decades. Every single person I know says the quality of students at the top has gone down. Maybe overall the mean has gone up. Certainly there is more geographical diversity in college applications -- and that is a good thing.

What I see and hear constantly is that teachers and professors who have been teaching for decades have had to lower their expectations.

Why? I don't know... phones? video games? maybe high schoolers spread themselves too thin. Maybe we reward test taking over deep thinking. Or maybe, weirdly, we have gone back to a world where money buys admission through exorbitant college counselor groups or niche activities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What this shows is that getting into Harvard used to be immensely easier. People who went to Harvard in the 90s wouldn’t be in at anywhere comparable today.

It’s not harder or easier per se, but the grade inflation is making the signals of quality very noisy. A few decades ago, the high school grades already helped the admissions pick the outstanding (academically) students pretty accurately. In addition, applicants these days are supposed to play victim and write a sob story about what kind of hardship they have gone through and how they have overcome their hardship and what lessons they have learned. It’s like everyone is applying for a script writing major!

Wrong. It is easier. Harvard used to have a much higher admission rate. In 1988, it was 14.6% and less than 15,000 applications.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1988/7/8/freshman-class-sets-application-records-pthe/

In 2025, there was a 3.43% acceptance rate out of 57,435 apps.

https://features.thecrimson.com/2021/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/#:~:text=This%20year%2C%20the%20College's%20acceptance,totals%20a%20historic%201%2C965%20students.

But you also wouldn’t apply unless you have an almost 4.0 GPA unhooked. Also, kids are dramatizing their sob story to have a chance of being admitted as a hardship case.

I had a 4.0 in high school without ever studying for more than an hour a night, ever. Was elected class president, worked a summer job, no national awards. Got into Yale. Took an SAT prep class and mom and dad could pay tuition.

The kids now work much harder than I did and are so much more accomplished. They are taking harder classes, taking more of them a year, doing actual work/research, getting national awards. The IDEA that you think kids are crying their way into Harvard now shows real intellectual disinterest. The kids who are talking about their "sob story" are also winning the TOC. These colleges take 1 kids out of every 25 apps. Get real.

The real advantages now are with athletes, donors, and legacies - and those still favor the white kids.

This is just not true in my experience. What's true is that kids have more extracurriculars. And everyone knows the strategies that only a select few used back in the 80s and 90s. If I had a nickel for every kid who has a published paper these days... who believes this BS?

Work harder? I doubt that very much. I can say that I not only worked much harder on academics (as measured by hours of hw per day) than my kids but read a lot more books, wrote exponentially more papers, went much farther in foreign languages, and so on.

My kids go to much better high school than I did. A top 20 in America. My HS was fine but not more rigorous. And my kids had dual language all k-8.

I made sure they got a great education

[Anonymous]

I think Ivy parents from the 80s-90s are shocked to understand how hard things are nowadays.

They don't get that the standard "straight A's, high test scores, sports, student government" well-rounded student usually gets locked out on Ivy Day. You need to be either hooked or an impressive specialist. The process is far more intricate now than the 90s. Most of the Harvard 90s admits probably wouldn't be at Dartmouth today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What this shows is that getting into Harvard used to be immensely easier. People who went to Harvard in the 90s wouldn’t be in at anywhere comparable today.

It’s not harder or easier per se, but the grade inflation is making the signals of quality very noisy. A few decades ago, the high school grades already helped the admissions pick the outstanding (academically) students pretty accurately. In addition, applicants these days are supposed to play victim and write a sob story about what kind of hardship they have gone through and how they have overcome their hardship and what lessons they have learned. It’s like everyone is applying for a script writing major!

Wrong. It is easier. Harvard used to have a much higher admission rate. In 1988, it was 14.6% and less than 15,000 applications.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1988/7/8/freshman-class-sets-application-records-pthe/

In 2025, there was a 3.43% acceptance rate out of 57,435 apps.

https://features.thecrimson.com/2021/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/#:~:text=This%20year%2C%20the%20College's%20acceptance,totals%20a%20historic%201%2C965%20students.

But you also wouldn’t apply unless you have an almost 4.0 GPA unhooked. Also, kids are dramatizing their sob story to have a chance of being admitted as a hardship case.

I had a 4.0 in high school without ever studying for more than an hour a night, ever. Was elected class president, worked a summer job, no national awards. Got into Yale. Took an SAT prep class and mom and dad could pay tuition.

The kids now work much harder than I did and are so much more accomplished. They are taking harder classes, taking more of them a year, doing actual work/research, getting national awards. The IDEA that you think kids are crying their way into Harvard now shows real intellectual disinterest. The kids who are talking about their "sob story" are also winning the TOC. These colleges take 1 kids out of every 25 apps. Get real.

The real advantages now are with athletes, donors, and legacies - and those still favor the white kids.

This is just not true in my experience. What's true is that kids have more extracurriculars. And everyone knows the strategies that only a select few used back in the 80s and 90s. If I had a nickel for every kid who has a published paper these days... who believes this BS?

Work harder? I doubt that very much. I can say that I not only worked much harder on academics (as measured by hours of hw per day) than my kids but read a lot more books, wrote exponentially more papers, went much farther in foreign languages, and so on.

What do you think happened? I’m curious on your perspective as to why you had a better education than your kids. Was it impossible to find?

People are going to jump all over me but here is my experience. I am in academia and numerous people in my family (parents and siblings) are also academics. Also have a family member who taught at one of the most well-known prep schools in the country for decades. Every single person I know says the quality of students at the top has gone down. Maybe overall the mean has gone up. Certainly there is more geographical diversity in college applications -- and that is a good thing.

What I see and hear constantly is that teachers and professors who have been teaching for decades have had to lower their expectations.

Why? I don't know... phones? video games? maybe high schoolers spread themselves too thin. Maybe we reward test taking over deep thinking. Or maybe, weirdly, we have gone back to a world where money buys admission through exorbitant college counselor groups or niche activities?

Most Ivy students today are pointy and if you take them out of their narrow specialty, they are average at best. They are also ambitious for wealth not intellect. As the children of immigrants, they don't come from multigenerational wealth in America so you can't blame them. That's what is valued now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Ivy parents from the 80s-90s are shocked to understand how hard things are nowadays.

They don't get that the standard "straight A's, high test scores, sports, student government" well-rounded student usually gets locked out on Ivy Day. You need to be either hooked or an impressive specialist. The process is far more intricate now than the 90s. Most of the Harvard 90s admits probably wouldn't be at Dartmouth today.

Thisx 1000

I don’t understand any view but this. The harvard kid from my FCPS high school from the late 80s is like a UVA admit now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What this shows is that getting into Harvard used to be immensely easier. People who went to Harvard in the 90s wouldn’t be in at anywhere comparable today.

It’s not harder or easier per se, but the grade inflation is making the signals of quality very noisy. A few decades ago, the high school grades already helped the admissions pick the outstanding (academically) students pretty accurately. In addition, applicants these days are supposed to play victim and write a sob story about what kind of hardship they have gone through and how they have overcome their hardship and what lessons they have learned. It’s like everyone is applying for a script writing major!

Wrong. It is easier. Harvard used to have a much higher admission rate. In 1988, it was 14.6% and less than 15,000 applications.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1988/7/8/freshman-class-sets-application-records-pthe/

In 2025, there was a 3.43% acceptance rate out of 57,435 apps.

https://features.thecrimson.com/2021/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/#:~:text=This%20year%2C%20the%20College's%20acceptance,totals%20a%20historic%201%2C965%20students.

But you also wouldn’t apply unless you have an almost 4.0 GPA unhooked. Also, kids are dramatizing their sob story to have a chance of being admitted as a hardship case.

I had a 4.0 in high school without ever studying for more than an hour a night, ever. Was elected class president, worked a summer job, no national awards. Got into Yale. Took an SAT prep class and mom and dad could pay tuition.

The kids now work much harder than I did and are so much more accomplished. They are taking harder classes, taking more of them a year, doing actual work/research, getting national awards. The IDEA that you think kids are crying their way into Harvard now shows real intellectual disinterest. The kids who are talking about their "sob story" are also winning the TOC. These colleges take 1 kids out of every 25 apps. Get real.

The real advantages now are with athletes, donors, and legacies - and those still favor the white kids.

This is just not true in my experience. What's true is that kids have more extracurriculars. And everyone knows the strategies that only a select few used back in the 80s and 90s. If I had a nickel for every kid who has a published paper these days... who believes this BS?

Work harder? I doubt that very much. I can say that I not only worked much harder on academics (as measured by hours of hw per day) than my kids but read a lot more books, wrote exponentially more papers, went much farther in foreign languages, and so on.

What do you think happened? I’m curious on your perspective as to why you had a better education than your kids. Was it impossible to find?

People are going to jump all over me but here is my experience. I am in academia and numerous people in my family (parents and siblings) are also academics. Also have a family member who taught at one of the most well-known prep schools in the country for decades. Every single person I know says the quality of students at the top has gone down. Maybe overall the mean has gone up. Certainly there is more geographical diversity in college applications -- and that is a good thing.

What I see and hear constantly is that teachers and professors who have been teaching for decades have had to lower their expectations.

Why? I don't know... phones? video games? maybe high schoolers spread themselves too thin. Maybe we reward test taking over deep thinking. Or maybe, weirdly, we have gone back to a world where money buys admission through exorbitant college counselor groups or niche activities?

Most Ivy students today are pointy and if you take them out of their narrow specialty, they are average at best. They are also ambitious for wealth not intellect. As the children of immigrants, they don't come from multigenerational wealth in America so you can't blame them. That's what is valued now.

Some truth to this, yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What this shows is that getting into Harvard used to be immensely easier. People who went to Harvard in the 90s wouldn’t be in at anywhere comparable today.

It’s not harder or easier per se, but the grade inflation is making the signals of quality very noisy. A few decades ago, the high school grades already helped the admissions pick the outstanding (academically) students pretty accurately. In addition, applicants these days are supposed to play victim and write a sob story about what kind of hardship they have gone through and how they have overcome their hardship and what lessons they have learned. It’s like everyone is applying for a script writing major!

Wrong. It is easier. Harvard used to have a much higher admission rate. In 1988, it was 14.6% and less than 15,000 applications.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1988/7/8/freshman-class-sets-application-records-pthe/

In 2025, there was a 3.43% acceptance rate out of 57,435 apps.

https://features.thecrimson.com/2021/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/#:~:text=This%20year%2C%20the%20College's%20acceptance,totals%20a%20historic%201%2C965%20students.

But you also wouldn’t apply unless you have an almost 4.0 GPA unhooked. Also, kids are dramatizing their sob story to have a chance of being admitted as a hardship case.

I had a 4.0 in high school without ever studying for more than an hour a night, ever. Was elected class president, worked a summer job, no national awards. Got into Yale. Took an SAT prep class and mom and dad could pay tuition.

The kids now work much harder than I did and are so much more accomplished. They are taking harder classes, taking more of them a year, doing actual work/research, getting national awards. The IDEA that you think kids are crying their way into Harvard now shows real intellectual disinterest. The kids who are talking about their "sob story" are also winning the TOC. These colleges take 1 kids out of every 25 apps. Get real.

The real advantages now are with athletes, donors, and legacies - and those still favor the white kids.

This is just not true in my experience. What's true is that kids have more extracurriculars. And everyone knows the strategies that only a select few used back in the 80s and 90s. If I had a nickel for every kid who has a published paper these days... who believes this BS?

Work harder? I doubt that very much. I can say that I not only worked much harder on academics (as measured by hours of hw per day) than my kids but read a lot more books, wrote exponentially more papers, went much farther in foreign languages, and so on.

What do you think happened? I’m curious on your perspective as to why you had a better education than your kids. Was it impossible to find?

People are going to jump all over me but here is my experience. I am in academia and numerous people in my family (parents and siblings) are also academics. Also have a family member who taught at one of the most well-known prep schools in the country for decades. Every single person I know says the quality of students at the top has gone down. Maybe overall the mean has gone up. Certainly there is more geographical diversity in college applications -- and that is a good thing.

What I see and hear constantly is that teachers and professors who have been teaching for decades have had to lower their expectations.

Why? I don't know... phones? video games? maybe high schoolers spread themselves too thin. Maybe we reward test taking over deep thinking. Or maybe, weirdly, we have gone back to a world where money buys admission through exorbitant college counselor groups or niche activities?

Most Ivy students today are pointy and if you take them out of their narrow specialty, they are average at best. They are also ambitious for wealth not intellect. As the children of immigrants, they don't come from multigenerational wealth in America so you can't blame them. That's what is valued now.

this is not true at our private HS which is a feeder. HYP admits are either super pointy in math - extreme placement in crazy math competitions, win medals for coming up with AI models that cut down dialysis 20% etc. And also head of prom committee. Also top 5% of class in a very tough school. Or they're Top 5 debaters in the country (which is a much more competitive EC than in my day - it makes my debate team look like a 4H club). Also works part time. And also top 5% of class.

Both kids are highly socially capable, has dates, drinks at parties, etc.

Those groups make up half the kids who get into HYP from our feeder. The other half play a sport, but I get that this forum likes to keep the focus on the boring robotic poor kids takin your white kids spot. Which is laughable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What this shows is that getting into Harvard used to be immensely easier. People who went to Harvard in the 90s wouldn’t be in at anywhere comparable today.

It’s not harder or easier per se, but the grade inflation is making the signals of quality very noisy. A few decades ago, the high school grades already helped the admissions pick the outstanding (academically) students pretty accurately. In addition, applicants these days are supposed to play victim and write a sob story about what kind of hardship they have gone through and how they have overcome their hardship and what lessons they have learned. It’s like everyone is applying for a script writing major!

Wrong. It is easier. Harvard used to have a much higher admission rate. In 1988, it was 14.6% and less than 15,000 applications.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1988/7/8/freshman-class-sets-application-records-pthe/

In 2025, there was a 3.43% acceptance rate out of 57,435 apps.

https://features.thecrimson.com/2021/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/#:~:text=This%20year%2C%20the%20College's%20acceptance,totals%20a%20historic%201%2C965%20students.

But you also wouldn’t apply unless you have an almost 4.0 GPA unhooked. Also, kids are dramatizing their sob story to have a chance of being admitted as a hardship case.

I had a 4.0 in high school without ever studying for more than an hour a night, ever. Was elected class president, worked a summer job, no national awards. Got into Yale. Took an SAT prep class and mom and dad could pay tuition.

The kids now work much harder than I did and are so much more accomplished. They are taking harder classes, taking more of them a year, doing actual work/research, getting national awards. The IDEA that you think kids are crying their way into Harvard now shows real intellectual disinterest. The kids who are talking about their "sob story" are also winning the TOC. These colleges take 1 kids out of every 25 apps. Get real.

The real advantages now are with athletes, donors, and legacies - and those still favor the white kids.

This is just not true in my experience. What's true is that kids have more extracurriculars. And everyone knows the strategies that only a select few used back in the 80s and 90s. If I had a nickel for every kid who has a published paper these days... who believes this BS?

Work harder? I doubt that very much. I can say that I not only worked much harder on academics (as measured by hours of hw per day) than my kids but read a lot more books, wrote exponentially more papers, went much farther in foreign languages, and so on.

I think the misconception arises from the fact that kids these days are doing those things to get into top colleges. In our generation, we did things we’re naturally passionate about or good at, and if our profile happened to be strong enough, then we applied to these colleges.

My son is the typical high stats kid with a few leadership positions both inside and outside his school and some regional awards. On paper, his profile looks a lot stronger than mine back then. But his academic standards are nothing compared to mine, even though his scores on paper are higher. I also was selected for a very prestigious thing in high school effortlessly (kids these days start training for that same thing in elementary school).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was Yale undergrad, Harvard Business, and top 10 but not Ivy law school. My kids went to ND, UVA, and Miami OH. My son was a GREAT applicant and far stronger student than I ever was. He was turned down by Yale. If I told you his qualifications, you would be shocked.
Yale took one student from his high school class, who was the number two in the class, a nice kid, and black. Yale made a good decision in accepting him. They made a bad decision in not taking my son.

Please share his qualifications. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What this shows is that getting into Harvard used to be immensely easier. People who went to Harvard in the 90s wouldn’t be in at anywhere comparable today.

It’s not harder or easier per se, but the grade inflation is making the signals of quality very noisy. A few decades ago, the high school grades already helped the admissions pick the outstanding (academically) students pretty accurately. In addition, applicants these days are supposed to play victim and write a sob story about what kind of hardship they have gone through and how they have overcome their hardship and what lessons they have learned. It’s like everyone is applying for a script writing major!

Wrong. It is easier. Harvard used to have a much higher admission rate. In 1988, it was 14.6% and less than 15,000 applications.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1988/7/8/freshman-class-sets-application-records-pthe/

In 2025, there was a 3.43% acceptance rate out of 57,435 apps.

https://features.thecrimson.com/2021/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/#:~:text=This%20year%2C%20the%20College's%20acceptance,totals%20a%20historic%201%2C965%20students.

But you also wouldn’t apply unless you have an almost 4.0 GPA unhooked. Also, kids are dramatizing their sob story to have a chance of being admitted as a hardship case.

I had a 4.0 in high school without ever studying for more than an hour a night, ever. Was elected class president, worked a summer job, no national awards. Got into Yale. Took an SAT prep class and mom and dad could pay tuition.

The kids now work much harder than I did and are so much more accomplished. They are taking harder classes, taking more of them a year, doing actual work/research, getting national awards. The IDEA that you think kids are crying their way into Harvard now shows real intellectual disinterest. The kids who are talking about their "sob story" are also winning the TOC. These colleges take 1 kids out of every 25 apps. Get real.

The real advantages now are with athletes, donors, and legacies - and those still favor the white kids.

This is just not true in my experience. What's true is that kids have more extracurriculars. And everyone knows the strategies that only a select few used back in the 80s and 90s. If I had a nickel for every kid who has a published paper these days... who believes this BS?

Work harder? I doubt that very much. I can say that I not only worked much harder on academics (as measured by hours of hw per day) than my kids but read a lot more books, wrote exponentially more papers, went much farther in foreign languages, and so on.

I wanted to echo what you said:
We worked much harder academically compared to most of the “top stats lots of ECs kids” these days!