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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Before the application process began, I told my kids that there are approximately 21K high schools (both public and private) in the US.  For 21K high schools, there are 21K valedictorians and 21K salutatorians.  Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc typically have around 1900-2200 slots to fill in each year's new freshman class.  If all 21K valedictorians applied to Harvard, only 2K would get in if that was the only qualification (which also means no salutatorians get in).

Forget about just high stats kids - odds are that even the best students in the country  will be rejected. [/quote]

Good advice; people think "top 10" or see a 1500 score (98th percentile) and don't step back to see the big picture. 27,000 high schools means over a quarter of a million kids who were top 10 in their class. About 2 million people taking the SAT means about 40,000 1500 plus SAT scores, etc. The numbers overwhelm everything else; very top stats is just gets you a ticket to play and the odds are still very much against you. The numbers also mean that the ALDC preferences which people get so upset about don't significantly affect any individual applicant. Eliminating every single preference at Harvard would only change the odds by a few points from about 3% to maybe 6%; i.e. your child still isn't getting in.

If people were opened eyed about the system they would realize that the peer group level isn't significantly different among the T30 schools and T20 SLACs. Your child no matter how smart will be among their intellectual peers at any of these schools. There is less difference than people believe among the next 20 or so as well and there are literally hundreds of schools that will do right by your kids.[/quote]

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