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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are lots of parents now who are realizing they "outkicked the coverage" (football term) - by going to super elite schools they actually made it harder for their kids. My spouse and I both went to TT schools. Our kid is extremely smart and in our generation would have gotten in, but it is harder now. With a legacy preference they would be a shoo-in for the schools just below ours, but they don't have that. So now we scramble.

The process is completely awful and screwed up. And I don't know what the answer is. Other than finding out a way to get rid of all of the yield management the schools are doing which has turned it into an awful game.

I agree with this. I went to Harvard but my kid was deferred Duke ED even with very top stats and great ECs. I have a feeling that if I was a Duke alum, my kid would have gotten in. If I had to do it again, I probably should have gone to Duke also and had more fun (and given my future kids an advantage too).

Duke legacy was brutal this year. Lots of deferred in my social circles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“Sending their kids…” Do the kids not get a choice in this?

I say tomato you say tomato.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meh, when I look at my Ivy parent kid’s we see:

Harvard
Pomona
UT Austin
John’s Hopkins
Princeton
Yale
Stanford
Williams
Barnard
NYU
BU

But also give us the less selective schools...

Those are the schools their kids attend. If you’re highly educated, your kid shouldn’t be going to auburn.

[Anonymous]

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!

The elevation of the hierarchy of oppression over the hierarchy of competence

[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.

In 1988, you had to type out your application on a typewriter. The lower acceptance rate is as much a function of the improved ease of application as it is anything else. The denominator changed more than the numerator.

Also there is just a larger population in general, more people aware of elite schools, and about the same amount of spots.

And academically elite children of immigrants crowding out mediocre legacies.

Go back where you came from with your "mediocre". You are all ruining it. That word is almost as cliche as "woke." Your kids with their 18 APs and violin, chess, fencing, and zero social skills. They will go to these schools and study 24/7 and add nothing to the experience, then not be able to get jobs because they can't interview. Or they will rebel from their obnoxious parents and spend their four years stoned and drunk. Which is the preferable outcome.

The elite kids are far more socially acclimated than the mediocre legacy kids. Have you interviewed these kids?
A lot of elite legacy kids too but a lot of legacy kids just aren't elite. That's OK, they aren't going to be flipping burgers for a living or anything like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meh, when I look at my Ivy parent kid’s we see:

Harvard
Pomona
UT Austin
John’s Hopkins
Princeton
Yale
Stanford
Williams
Barnard
NYU
BU

But also give us the less selective schools...

Those are the schools their kids attend. If you’re highly educated, your kid shouldn’t be going to auburn.

Sure, if all the genes mix up in the "right" way, your kid should also go to an ultra-selective school. But life doesn't always work that way. My kids got their dad's academic smarts (dad played collegiate sport, went to mediocre college) and their mom's athletics (mom went to Ivy but not an athlete). One side of the family is super smart and the other super athletic. Jokes on us that neither of the "good" qualities dominated and instead all the average ones. So the "wrong" genes expressed. But if the genes had mixed the other way, the kids would have been in a much different place. Luckily, they are still happy kids and go to perfectly fine schools but definitely would be deemed a failure by this forum's standards despite my own Ivy pedigree. No amount of tutoring, planning, support or coaching etc. could ultimately overcome the way the genes expressed.

[Anonymous]

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.

Please don't add to the defensiveness. The answer is: it used to be much, much easier to get into top schools several decades ago. Period.

[Anonymous]

There seriously aren’t people on here arguing that it’s no harder to get into Harvard today than in the 80s and 90s are there? Because that would be ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meh, when I look at my Ivy parent kid’s we see:

Harvard
Pomona
UT Austin
John’s Hopkins
Princeton
Yale
Stanford
Williams
Barnard
NYU
BU

But also give us the less selective schools...

Those are the schools their kids attend. If you’re highly educated, your kid shouldn’t be going to auburn.

Sure, if all the genes mix up in the "right" way, your kid should also go to an ultra-selective school. But life doesn't always work that way. My kids got their dad's academic smarts (dad played collegiate sport, went to mediocre college) and their mom's athletics (mom went to Ivy but not an athlete). One side of the family is super smart and the other super athletic. Jokes on us that neither of the "good" qualities dominated and instead all the average ones. So the "wrong" genes expressed. But if the genes had mixed the other way, the kids would have been in a much different place. Luckily, they are still happy kids and go to perfectly fine schools but definitely would be deemed a failure by this forum's standards despite my own Ivy pedigree. No amount of tutoring, planning, support or coaching etc. could ultimately overcome the way the genes expressed.

You never know how people will mix. Plus there is regression to the mean anyhow. Your kids are I am sure better off than the kids of two Ivies who are relatively average, have to deal with the tyranny of their parents’ unrealistic expectations, and will always have to deal with being “lower” than their peers, often at a too “competitive” college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There seriously aren’t people on here arguing that it’s no harder to get into Harvard today than in the 80s and 90s are there? Because that would be ridiculous.

Yeah, I think most of us are just not engaging with such a preposterous notion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Past few years have seen the children of all my Harvard 1990-something classmates head off to college. Where have they chosen to go? here’s the list so far:

University of Virginia
Wake Forest
Auburn
Sewanee
Duke
Tulane
SMU

I am sensing a pattern here…

Tufts. Brown.

[Anonymous]

DH went to Harvard and I went to Duke. Lots of our kids attend SLACs including Carleton, Davidson, Haverford and Wesleyan, plus many at various UCs, UVA and Michigan. We know a few alums with kids at Ivies, but majority are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Past few years have seen the children of all my Harvard 1990-something classmates head off to college. Where have they chosen to go? here’s the list so far:

University of Virginia
Wake Forest
Auburn
Sewanee
Duke
Tulane
SMU

I am sensing a pattern here…

Not here. UVA. Oxford. Harvard Law

Harvard Law does not count. Undergrad is?

Harvard.