Anonymous
12/26/2025 20:08
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Why is everyone fighting so hard to get their kids into a "top 30-ish" school?
Less than 5% of college students attend a top 50 college. About 2.4% of college students in the US attend a top 30 college. Roughly 1% attend a "top 20" college. What is the point in fighting to be such a tiny fraction of college students.
For internships and jobs after. For grad school, medical and law school placement. For the contacts one makes at such places.
+1 and legacy status after. In my case, I was fortunate to get into Harvard for undergrad and worked hard and got into its law school. I met future presidents, congressman, roommates are household names, that sort of thing. That got me clerkships, which got me offers from top firms, which got me to the top of my field in interesting private and public positions. And now my DD is there. Yesterday I exchanged gifts and calls from H and HLS friends going way back. That’s why it matters. The experience made me a better person and better lawyer - one that could provide for a family and open doors for the next generation.
Anonymous
12/26/2025 07:35
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Why is everyone fighting so hard to get their kids into a "top 30-ish" school?
Less than 5% of college students attend a top 50 college. About 2.4% of college students in the US attend a top 30 college. Roughly 1% attend a "top 20" college. What is the point in fighting to be such a tiny fraction of college students.
Where is your citation for this? Top 30 nat’l universities and SLACs?
I'd love to see a citation for this too. Honestly, some posters just come here and spout out stats with zero citations to back them up - and then everyone is expected to just believe them.
I have no idea if they are accurate, but with a few thousand colleges in the U.S. they probably aren’t far off.
The bigger issue is that these numbers vastly misunderstand the college landscape. About a quarter of undergrads are not at 4-year institutions (mostly community college). Nearly a third of undergrad students at 4-year institutions are part-time. Over a quarter of college students are over the age of 24. Factor all of these out to look at just recent high school grads enrolled full time in 4-year institutions—which is the crowd OP is really referring to—and the percentages jump a good amount.
https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics
Anonymous
12/25/2025 23:50
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Anonymous wrote:Top 2% is not that hard. A 1430 is in the top 2%.
You do realize you can’t compare the top 2% SAT scores with the top 2% of universities, right ?
Anonymous
12/25/2025 23:28
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Top 2% is not that hard. A 1430 is in the top 2%.
Anonymous
12/25/2025 23:23
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Anonymous wrote:Once you get out of areas where everyone is obsessed with prestige and comparing themselves with everyone else, your life gets vastly better. Go to a good school, live in a moderate-sized city with real people, and quietly be a big fish in a smaller pond with little pressure to constantly compete with others. It’s heavenly.
+1 I could have written this.
Anonymous
12/25/2025 21:24
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Anonymous wrote:Once you get out of areas where everyone is obsessed with prestige and comparing themselves with everyone else, your life gets vastly better. Go to a good school, live in a moderate-sized city with real people, and quietly be a big fish in a smaller pond with little pressure to constantly compete with others. It’s heavenly.
NP.
People in the greater DC area do not realize how abnormal and weird the culture is here.
You cannot go more than 5 to 10 minutes of conversation with someone you just met, without them asking:
- what is your job?
It defines you in their mind. They estimate your salary, education, and net worth based on “where do you work?” They judge you on it.
And it is weird AF to do this to each other. And yet that’s how it is here.
If you are reading this while living here, I have a weird fact for you:
- other communities in the USA aren’t like this. And they are better for it.
Anonymous
12/25/2025 16:04
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Remember how in elementary school a bunch of us got pulled out and sent to advanced math class? The problem is they have all of us mixed together on the same board. So we have questions like these posted by OP….
Anonymous
12/25/2025 15:37
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Highly doubt a 50% IQ kid as it an Ivy. Maybe a 75% kid, but definitely not a 50.
Anonymous
12/25/2025 15:29
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Parents on this thread are "excellent sheep" I guess.
Anonymous
12/25/2025 00:37
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Anonymous wrote:bragging rights2
This is the reason for everything in life.
Anonymous
12/24/2025 22:45
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Why is everyone fighting so hard to get their kids into a "top 30-ish" school?
Less than 5% of college students attend a top 50 college. About 2.4% of college students in the US attend a top 30 college. Roughly 1% attend a "top 20" college. What is the point in fighting to be such a tiny fraction of college students.
I often wonder where people get these stats and how do you know how trustworthy it is.
Some other posts have noted that many posts here are basically SP. Lot of them probably come from consulting businesses, and some outsiders lack a genuine understanding of the lifestyles of American elites.
Do you even hear yourself?
DP
Anonymous
12/24/2025 22:43
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Why is everyone fighting so hard to get their kids into a "top 30-ish" school?
Less than 5% of college students attend a top 50 college. About 2.4% of college students in the US attend a top 30 college. Roughly 1% attend a "top 20" college. What is the point in fighting to be such a tiny fraction of college students.
I often wonder where people get these stats and how do you know how trustworthy it is.
+1
The OP clearly just made them up. And people are discussing this as if those stats are true. Typical DCUM.
Anonymous
12/24/2025 22:35
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Why is everyone fighting so hard to get their kids into a "top 30-ish" school?
Less than 5% of college students attend a top 50 college. About 2.4% of college students in the US attend a top 30 college. Roughly 1% attend a "top 20" college. What is the point in fighting to be such a tiny fraction of college students.
Where is your citation for this? Top 30 nat’l universities and SLACs?
I'd love to see a citation for this too. Honestly, some posters just come here and spout out stats with zero citations to back them up - and then everyone is expected to just believe them.
Anonymous
12/24/2025 22:35
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Anonymous wrote:A few posters have extolled the virtues of an ultra-competitive environment, yet they’re probably the same parents driving their kids insane about the need to “go Ivy” and get a well-paying treadmill job in tech, finance or consulting. Then, they tell everyone else that any other way is the road to serfdom. I feel sorry for these lost and myopic souls. What they’ve encouraged their children to pursue is not a good life.
Yes. It is usually the insecure parents.
Anonymous
12/24/2025 22:27
Subject: Fighting for Fractions .. roughly 2% of college students go to a "top 30" school
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:US is designed around the idea of competition and freedom to compete. Everyone gets a chance to wrestle to the top of the heap, instead of being forced to stay lower class or upper class.
That’s not true. Most Ivy League schools and other top colleges are disproportionately filled with wealthy students, which shows how wealth and power tend to remain concentrated among those who already have them. Many high-achieving students are denied admission not because of a lack of merit, but because they lack advantages such as influence, legacy status, or institutional “hooks.” The admissions system is not fair, nor is it a level playing field.
It is true that many high-achieving kids are denied admission. But, they are denied admission because of a lack of space, not a lack of fairness. Your implication that those with hooks don’t merit admission is incorrect. The playing field isn’t always level but those who do are not qualified for admission rarely get in.
There are far more high-achieving applicants than spaces which is why you cannot really stack rank top schools. The student body and resources are more similar than different. This vexes those who gain admission because they need to crow about their “win”.
I agree with this in part. The vast majority of the kids in the Ivy+ (and mine is one of them) are high achieving and earned their spots (including the athletes and legacies). It's really only the donor ones that are potentially exempted from being at the same level of GPA, test score etc. The problem is indeed that there are multiples of equally qualified students for whom there aren't enough spots.
What I disagree with is the idea that the kids/parents who did get lucky and get a spot don't recognize that. Believe me they do. They are fully aware that many of their equally talented and qualified siblings, friends and peers simply didn't win the random chance lottery that is highly rejective admissions
I agree with that. I acknowledge a lot of equally worthy didn’t get the lucky ticket. However, I do think there is a difference and I know that will make some people annoyed. When we attended admit days for two schools that were ranked around 20, they did not have the same feeling of intensity the higher ranked schools did. It could be a pro or a con based on personal opinions.
There is no difference, it does annoy me because it is absolutely incorrect. I say that as someone who attended one of the HYPSM and has a child at a WASP. I have another child at a different school with single digit acceptance rates and the education that they are getting gives no ground to mine or their siblings.
Obviously. The people extolling the virtues of the hyper-elite schools here admit that most people rejected from those schools are just as meritorious as the ones admitted. It’s a lottery. So what do people think happens to the rejected students? Despite what you might sometimes think from the tone of DCUM, we don’t execute high-performing 18 year olds for the crime of failing to get into Harvard. Ergo, there are many other schools enrolling many strong students.