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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and your kids are legacy so roughly 3x the acceptance rate for unhooked kids.

So .. your kids have roughly the same chances at Harvard as they do at Tufts. And they're not pulling that off? Ouch

You can't quote the 3x acceptance rate without stats. The truth is that the high stats kid also has legacy preference.

Legacy preference will NOT make up for low stats. The tufts comparison isn't accurate.

The legacy kids who are getting in are equally qualified as the non legacy kids, the hook won't make up for a low gpa or class rank, but it will differentiate them from someone who is equally qualified. But in an applicant pool like these, they are ALL equally qualified.

you're right. it's 4x as likely with slightly better stats.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/upshot/ivy-league-legacy-admissions.html

The truth is no one really knows. Also, another truth is some (not all) legacy kids are well qualified and could have been admitted without legacy. Doesn't this make sense? Kids of double legacy Harvard - why wouldn't they have a shot at Harvard if they have the academics + ECs + talents? Makes perfect sense to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Holy exaggeration

The dialysis thing was done in their parent’s lab?

nope.

you people really don't get it. you have "standard strong" kids. so they're not extraodinary and they won't get into schools that take 3 kids out of 100. it's FINE

You’re the parent?
I also know a kid doing cancer research not in her parent’s lab, but it was the lab of her parent’s colleague!😆

NP the idea that you even think this is a tell on you.

if kids are doing impressive research (not a pay to play thing, which is common but very easy to read through), it's not a "parents lab". it's almost always done via a high school-based science research program. Stuy has a famous one. Almost every feeder has one. They're chemistry or physics-based USUALLY, although I've seen some AI ones.

if you dont know this, it means you sent your kids to the local suburban "blue ribbon" high school. that's fine too, but just stop with these assumptions that feel completely pulled out of 1998.

Hahahaha, what difference does it make? How much was it the kid’s idea??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and your kids are legacy so roughly 3x the acceptance rate for unhooked kids.

So .. your kids have roughly the same chances at Harvard as they do at Tufts. And they're not pulling that off? Ouch

You can't quote the 3x acceptance rate without stats. The truth is that the high stats kid also has legacy preference.

Legacy preference will NOT make up for low stats. The tufts comparison isn't accurate.

The legacy kids who are getting in are equally qualified as the non legacy kids, the hook won't make up for a low gpa or class rank, but it will differentiate them from someone who is equally qualified. But in an applicant pool like these, they are ALL equally qualified.

you're right. it's 4x as likely with slightly better stats.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/upshot/ivy-league-legacy-admissions.html

The truth is no one really knows. Also, another truth is some (not all) legacy kids are well qualified and could have been admitted without legacy. Doesn't this make sense? Kids of double legacy Harvard - why wouldn't they have a shot at Harvard if they have the academics + ECs + talents? Makes perfect sense to me.

#1 show me the evidence!
#2 here's the evidence
#1 the truth is no one really knows.

LOL!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So you’re basically saying too many Asians.

It is so complex.

With Asians, there is too much merit and they are poisoning the educational environment, taking away all the fun.

With Latinos, African Americans and many FGLI, there is too little merit and they are dumbing down the education to the detriment of other students.

Apparently, UMC white kids are the ideal students while the others reduce the quality of the college experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So you’re basically saying too many Asians.

It is so complex.

With Asians, there is too much merit and they are poisoning the educational environment, taking away all the fun.

With Latinos, African Americans and many FGLI, there is too little merit and they are dumbing down the education to the detriment of other students.

Apparently, UMC white kids are the ideal students while the others reduce the quality of the college experience.

Let Us Know Praise White Christian Nationalists

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So you’re basically saying too many Asians.

It is so complex.

With Asians, there is too much merit and they are poisoning the educational environment, taking away all the fun.

With Latinos, African Americans and many FGLI, there is too little merit and they are dumbing down the education to the detriment of other students.

Apparently, UMC white kids are the ideal students while the others reduce the quality of the college experience.

Well, that’s the demographic that American colleges were built for. Perhaps it’s time we change that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So you’re basically saying too many Asians.

It is so complex.

With Asians, there is too much merit and they are poisoning the educational environment, taking away all the fun.

With Latinos, African Americans and many FGLI, there is too little merit and they are dumbing down the education to the detriment of other students.

Apparently, UMC white kids are the ideal students while the others reduce the quality of the college experience.

Well, that’s the demographic that American colleges were built for. Perhaps it’s time we change that.

As the OP, just pointing out the hypocrisy and agree. I think public flagships like the UCs and Rutgers have tried, and, of course, get criticized for it.

Find it cynically humorous that UMC whites embraced the benefit of a racial and class based merit to keep out POC and low income kids only to be horrified when Asians benefit more than they do.

[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.

lol 14.6% wasn't exactly easy back then. Easier sure, but sure as hell not easy by any stretch.

It’s hard to compare because the applicant pool has expanded so much. Maybe before fewer people applied but they were more high quality applicants. The common app and internet and such have definitely made it easier to apply to more schools. I didn’t know anyone that applied to more than one Ivy and most people didn’t apply to any.
But AI says the average sat of a Harvard admitted in 1991 was 1390, which is equivalent to a 1490 nowadays I think. And it’s definitely higher than that now.

But the SAT has been scored down several times. The tests then and now cannot be compared.

Go AI, I was admitted to Harvard in 1991 with an SAT score of 1390! My classmates kids go all over - Harvard, brown, Duke, Tufts, American, Tulane, Miami….
There was generous financial aid but not as good, relatively speaking, as it is today for lower incomes. The economic diversity is certainly higher.
Harvard happened to be quite useful re my success. But I, of course, know many successful people who went to so many different schools.

[Anonymous]

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.

[phone]

These parents wouldn’t have been accepted in 2025.

My kids both got accepted RD to Ivies. I went in-state. They had near perfect SAT scores and uw4.0s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Holy exaggeration

The dialysis thing was done in their parent’s lab?

nope.

you people really don't get it. you have "standard strong" kids. so they're not extraodinary and they won't get into schools that take 3 kids out of 100. it's FINE

You’re the parent?
I also know a kid doing cancer research not in her parent’s lab, but it was the lab of her parent’s colleague!😆

And often, quid pro quo is expected or given.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

What are they studying at HYP now? I doubt they are intent on working for DaVita. They are doing the prom because they don't want to be seen as robotic even if they are. It's smart. If you didn't know, the answers to those crazy math competitions have been leaked for years and easily bought.

so you want to gloss over the fact that it's ATHLETES who have the real upper hand. White athletes.

Upset because it is mainly white athletes who have the combination of intellect and athletic ability to succeed at top schools? That might be somewhat true but if it is you might want to take a look at Harvard's rosters and wonder why their is so much DEI in Harvard athletics.

It takes a lot of hard work and dedication for an athlete to reach recruitable levels.

And money. You forgot money.

True for both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So you’re basically saying too many Asians.

It is so complex.

With Asians, there is too much merit and they are poisoning the educational environment, taking away all the fun.

With Latinos, African Americans and many FGLI, there is too little merit and they are dumbing down the education to the detriment of other students.

Apparently, UMC white kids are the ideal students while the others reduce the quality of the college experience.

Well, that’s the demographic that American colleges were built for. Perhaps it’s time we change that.

No, they were built for white makes going into the clergy. UVA was the first to be non-secular with study for the sake of learning the goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and your kids are legacy so roughly 3x the acceptance rate for unhooked kids.

So .. your kids have roughly the same chances at Harvard as they do at Tufts. And they're not pulling that off? Ouch

You can't quote the 3x acceptance rate without stats. The truth is that the high stats kid also has legacy preference.

Legacy preference will NOT make up for low stats. The tufts comparison isn't accurate.

The legacy kids who are getting in are equally qualified as the non legacy kids, the hook won't make up for a low gpa or class rank, but it will differentiate them from someone who is equally qualified. But in an applicant pool like these, they are ALL equally qualified.

you're right. it's 4x as likely with slightly better stats.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/upshot/ivy-league-legacy-admissions.html

The truth is no one really knows. Also, another truth is some (not all) legacy kids are well qualified and could have been admitted without legacy. Doesn't this make sense? Kids of double legacy Harvard - why wouldn't they have a shot at Harvard if they have the academics + ECs + talents? Makes perfect sense to me.

#1 show me the evidence!
#2 here's the evidence
#1 the truth is no one really knows.

LOL!

I know right.

And even if they are only tie breakers, in today's academic environment that is knowsn as a hook.

Top stats are so easy to achieve these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So you’re basically saying too many Asians.

It is so complex.

With Asians, there is too much merit and they are poisoning the educational environment, taking away all the fun.

With Latinos, African Americans and many FGLI, there is too little merit and they are dumbing down the education to the detriment of other students.

Apparently, UMC white kids are the ideal students while the others reduce the quality of the college experience.

The myth of merit admissions. They keep moving the goalposts and redefining merit to get rich white kids and poor black kids. They are playing dodgeball with middle class asian kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So you’re basically saying too many Asians.

It is so complex.

With Asians, there is too much merit and they are poisoning the educational environment, taking away all the fun.

With Latinos, African Americans and many FGLI, there is too little merit and they are dumbing down the education to the detriment of other students.

Apparently, UMC white kids are the ideal students while the others reduce the quality of the college experience.

Well, that’s the demographic that American colleges were built for. Perhaps it’s time we change that.

No, they were built for white makes going into the clergy. UVA was the first to be non-secular with study for the sake of learning the goal.

^males, not makes