2003 3.9 GPA, 13 AP courses taken, 5 IB (I think on the IB). No where near the top of my class, but I went to a top high school in the US.
1460 SAT, 29 ACT

Duke-accepted
University of Miami- accepted
Tulane- accepted
Florida State- accepted
University of Florida- accepted and attended full ride

Kudos to those of you who remember the specifics.

1991
Top 10% of my class at a larger public
SAT between 1000-1100

Couldn't be bothered to apply to college so I only sent 1 application to a LAC within a 4 hour drive of my hometown so I could see my significant other often. I was a late bloomer and really at odds with my parents my senior year so I both desperately wanted to get out of my house, but also barely focused enough to do something to make that happen because of my SO.

1986. 1090 SAT, 3.4GPA

Applied and accepted:
American
BU
GW (attended)
Emerson

Denied: Notre Dame (parents made me apply! I wanted a city)

What I remember the most—how excited and relatively stress-free the whole process was. I met with my counselor, we researched schools, and I happily applied to the ones that were a good fit. I had zero anxiety about the process but was very excited/nervous when the letters came. My dd was a senior last year and the experience was the polar opposite.

Acceptance rates aside, this is the part I wish were more like the “old days”.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll play lowest SAT- I think posted 1020 540 English 480 Math…. Graduated 1991. I was in top 20 percent of my class GPA-wise

Accepted UMD NYU VT PSU Pitt
Rejected Georgetown

Attended one of the state schools due to cost. Never in a million years would I have been accepted to any of these schools today.

SINce 1991, there’s been a huge grade and standardized score inflations.

I remember about 7 yrs ago, one of my coworkers said her niece is on scholarship with a 4.0 gpa. Her plan was to become a medical doctor. In the old days, 4.0 meant straight As and probably the valedictorian of the HS. When my own kid applied to colleges, I learned 4.0 means 70th percentile. The niece has since graduated and now works at the doctors office as a receptionist answering phones.

Your bitterness has made you make a very unpleasant and distasteful post, recounting a story of a friend in a pejorative way and insulting a person who does honest work without all the details. You should be ashamed.

Yes there are many more high-performing kids than before. The culture seems to have changed to value academic performance more. Is that a bad thing?

Or are you suggesting that highschool and standardized tests are easier now than they were in 1991? Please provide data to support that.

Anonymous wrote:I’ll play lowest SAT- I think posted 1020 540 English 480 Math…. Graduated 1991. I was in top 20 percent of my class GPA-wise

Accepted UMD NYU VT PSU Pitt
Rejected Georgetown

Attended one of the state schools due to cost. Never in a million years would I have been accepted to any of these schools today.

SINce 1991, there’s been a huge grade and standardized score inflations.

I remember about 7 yrs ago, one of my coworkers said her niece is on scholarship with a 4.0 gpa. Her plan was to become a medical doctor. In the old days, 4.0 meant straight As and probably the valedictorian of the HS. When my own kid applied to colleges, I learned 4.0 means 70th percentile. The niece has since graduated and now works at the doctors office as a receptionist answering phones.

Anonymous wrote:Mid 1990s

3.97 GPA
7(+, can’t remember?) APs all 5s
1530 SATs, 800s on all achievements

Accepted: Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Brown, Stanford forget where else I applied
Waitlisted: Yale

I was also captain of sports team and won science awards but I continually see this board and don’t think I would be accepted to these types of places today. Crazy.

Very similar stats and age and acceptances. Also can't imagine it happening today!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1985
3.7
1210
Harvard Rejected
Brown Rejected
Stanford Accepted Attended
Tufts Accepted
Wesleyan Waitlisted
Northwestern Accepted
Boston University Accepted

This is why Stanford should be the lowest of the elite. Their priority was not, and is not, in academics.

Please email the school, cc Guido Imbens and let them know your very valuable opinion. It will have a tremendous impact on everyone around the world. Please feel free to create your own version of "elite" on the toilet paper, while you think about it - Ivy alumna who had Dr. Imbens as TA.

Stanford student paper has been complaining about school’s fetish with athletes at the expense of non-athlete students. As long as its focus is on sports, the paper argues Stanford will always be below academic institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, MIT. Stanford took its rightful spot below these institutions.

Late 1980s, FCPS. Solid B student. Barely cracked 1000 SAT due to low math scores. Took SAT once. Student leadership extracurricular.

Rejected VT/JMU/Mary Wash.

Accepted at Longwood.

Late 90s:

3.97 GPA UW/ 4.6+ W
2/360 at large suburban HS in the Midwest
1560 SAT
Lots of ECs, but no sports

Accepted:
Northwestern
WashU (partial scholarship)
State Flagship (small scholarship)
SLAC in home state (full scholarship)

Attended the SLAC. It's served me well, but I think I would have had a better experience at WashU or the flagship. I applied knowing my parents couldn't afford NW. Not sure why I didn't apply somewhere more prestigious just for fun instead of NW, a school I wasn't even very interested in.

Mid 1990s

3.97 GPA
7(+, can’t remember?) APs all 5s
1530 SATs, 800s on all achievements

Accepted: Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Brown, Stanford forget where else I applied
Waitlisted: Yale

I was also captain of sports team and won science awards but I continually see this board and don’t think I would be accepted to these types of places today. Crazy.

Mid 1980's

1260
3.2

a few APs (5's)

Midwest state flagship.

1988
3.98 GPA, 29 ACT
Northwestern, accepted
Spelman, accepted (full scholarship)
Howard, accepted (full scholarship)
Princeton, denied

I’ll play lowest SAT- I think posted 1020 540 English 480 Math…. Graduated 1991. I was in top 20 percent of my class GPA-wise

Accepted UMD NYU VT PSU Pitt
Rejected Georgetown

Attended one of the state schools due to cost. Never in a million years would I have been accepted to any of these schools today.

This is kinda interesting both in terms of what was needed for admittance then vs now, and also how some colleges have changed. (Several posters from 1980s were accepted to uva but denied/WL at William and Mary!) it also shows that the system was pretty random in the past, too.

Anonymous wrote:I don't remember. I graduated in 2002 from high school. Obviously I know where I went to college, but aside from remembering I'd be satisfied if I broke 1300 on the SATs, don't know any of my stats.

This. Who remembers this stuff so long? One of the slight comforts I don't tell my college kid about just yet is that several years out of college, no one on Earth will ever care again what her high school GPA and SAT/ACT scores were! I graduated from HS more than 30 years ago, and have zero idea what my "stats" were. They were likely high by today's standards but I was a big fish in a small pond so it's not comparable to kids at super competitive, academically very rigorous high schools in this region today. Got into the university I wanted early admission or whatever it was called back then, and I don't even recall finishing applications to other colleges where I'd started the process. Thank God, too, because the other options were never going to be good fits for many reasons.