Anonymous wrote:Are kids these days way smarter than kids of our generation? (80s-90s)
Every kid seems to have top scores and all As. Whereas, at my rigorous public high school in the mid-90s, regular bright well-rounded kids with As/Bs but not Einstein-level grades, were going to Northwestern, Dartmouth, UPenn, Wellesley, etc. I had strong but not exceptional grades and got into Vassar. Now it seems in order to get into a T30, you need all As and all APs. Am I missing something here? How is this happening? Did this generation produce geniuses?

Anonymous wrote:Far fewer applications were sent to colleges. Students had to write out each application and sometimes call up the school to even get one (if none was kept in the guidance counselor's office). There was no common application. For point of reference, Penn's acceptance rate was more than 40% in the early 1980's. A school like Boston College had a greater than 50% acceptance rate.

Demographics at the high end have changed (more high achieving Asians to compete with high achieving white students). The advent of the internet made colleges much more visible.