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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don’t understand OP’s logic. There aren’t enough “top schools” to admit 10% of the entire college bound population. And also, it’s not really true that a typical 90tb percentile kid could do well at the very top schools. I want to emphasize the word “typical” in my last sentence, because tests aren’t perfect and there are always unusual exceptions. But for the most part a 90th percentile kid probably wouldn’t do well at the most rigorous schools. [b]Even a 99th percentile kid can struggle to keep up with the 99.99th percentile kids at MIT or Caltech.
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But I would agree that a 90th percentile kid could do very well at most colleges, as long as you’re not talking about the top 25-50 colleges in the entire country. There are many, many, decent colleges in the US. It’s a huge field! Not everyone can be Ivy bound.[/quote]

Ok, lets calm down here. There is a total of about 40 college bound kids in the USA who are 99.99 percentile. That's a handful of students at the very top schools, assuming they all go to one. Most kids at even those top schools will never cross paths with them and won't "struggle to keep up with them", unless they choose to (and assuming these kids are fully committed to school, have no issues etc - almost certainly not true for every single one).

99th percentile should have no problem handling coursework at the most selective schools, in any subject. It's not that hard. They need to study harder than 99.9 but they can get excellent grades if they apply themselves.

95th percentile, if accepted to top school, should avoid all heavily mathy subjects. math, physics, CS... Econ is borderline - doable but with significant effort.

90th percentile can take psychology, various area studies, languages... Not easy, and they won't be the best, but they can have a decent GPA. Besides, these are kids who were #2 or #3 in their 20-person classes since pre-K. They won't be "struggling to keep up" with the geniuses.[/quote] The US produced 3.8 million HS grads in 2019, so that's about 380 99.99th percentile kids. At places like Caltech and MIT, even the 99.9th percentile kids are struggling hard to do well in their classes (by design).[/quote]

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