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[quote=Anonymous]I think that it is difficult for elite colleges to conduct admissions because there are 27,000+ high schools in the United States -- which that means there are 27.000+ Valedictorians and if you count the Salutatorians too -- there are arguably 54,000+ top students.

There are arguably another 500,000 top students based on colleges recalculating your student's high school GPA.  Here is why- some high school students have completed a lot of real college courses.  Some states like Florida, Ohio, Texas, and California (and many others) will pay for high school students to take college courses at their local community college  (either full time or part time) - not just honors students that have completed Calculus I and II and need/want to take Differential Equations while in high school).

Because regular high school students (like homeschoolers) are sometimes encouraged to take community college classes in high school --- those regular students (meaning not taking any AP courses) --- will typically have higher GPAs in the eyes of the colleges (because they completed college courses).  This happens because many colleges will weight a college course with an equal GPA weight to an AP course -- OR give an even higher GPA weight to college course (as compared to an AP course) or a regular student can take a full load of community college credits BUT in a high school, an AP student may not be permitted to take an all AP course load (or the AP courses may not be scheduled in a way that a student could do that).  So a regular high school kid that would graduate with some college credits to even completing an associates degree worth of courses  (15 to 20 courses equaling 60 college credits) will likely have a far higher GPA in the eyes of the college (as colleges typically recalculate all applicants GPAs (removing the physical education classes, yearbook classes, religion classes, etc.  ---  so that colleges can compare "oranges with oranges."

When there are easily over 500,000 top applicants based on GPA, it makes it difficult to pick the top 50,000 in regards to academic measures (whether it is one's GPA or SAT/ACT score) to fill the top 25 schools.

Also, college admissions officers need to think about the colleges' needs to.  Athletics brings in ALOT (a really lot) of money from alumni when the school's teams have a winning season or win a national championship, etc. (and colleges need that money to provide financial aid for students who can not afford to pay the listed price of tuition, room and board.

I think that college admissions officers have a difficult job.

Also, I believe that many students and parents do not realize how competitive college admissions is --- and just having sufficient academic fire power to attend a particular set of schools is not enough.

I have heard that almost all applicants to all of the Ivies and the Top 25 colleges are ALL academically qualified (meaning smarts is not enough).

I have also heard that ninety (90) percent of applicants that apply to Harvard (or those top 5 colleges) are ranked number one nationally or internationally (like winning the GOLD Olympic medal in their sport that is also needed at their school --- think Katie Ledecky and Stanford Swimming) are all accepted.  I have heard that the other 10 percent (are not the lottery places) but are reserved for the designees of large donors (meaning 5 million or more a year -- meaning that they are paying for themselves and 15 other students for four years) -- so that the most talented but underfunded and under-resourced students can attend those elite colleges are well).  Sometimes the designees are talented but i imagine that often they are not but the children of (or firends of) billionaires.    [/quote]

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