<p>I'm a parent. I wondered how recent the apparent trend toward expecting international level awards and national competition winners, has been, in admissions to Ivies and the like. Hint, I'm a boomer, and this, at least if I'm not having a senior moment, was not the case back then? I don't have any doubt that one of my kids, who will be a soph and young for class, will get close to perfect SAT's as he got 600's at age 11, but what all happened, did the herd of geniuses get suddenly huge that you have to be an internationally acclaimed achiever to get into top schools? Hmmm, I'm having a surreal moment LOL............</p>
<p>Well, it definitely won't be test scores/GPAs that make you stand out. Near perfect/excellent stats will be a dime a dozen at the elite schools.</p>
<p>I don't think you have to be a national winner of anything, although it won't hurt. I think it will help to have a distinction of some kind...something that demonstrates excellence and dedication to a particular passion or interest. There is no formula for predicting admissions to an Ivy. They look at the complete person and they try to build a diverse community. Admissions is unpredictable. </p>
<p>I also think the admissions criteria implicitly differ among the Ivies. For example, Cornell has a nice mix of superstar national winners on the one hand and bright, talented, hard-working students who don't go for the recognition and awards but simply work hard and get good grades. Not sure how many of the latter type you will find at Harvard-Princeton-Yale.</p>
<p>The herd of geniuses did not get any larger, I can assure you of that. It's that more people are wanting to attend those schools, so they become perfect "clones" that "manufacture" great scores on tests. So now it takes much more than great scores to get in.</p>
<p>It seems to me that college admissions to the top schools like Ivies are becoming less and less about intelligence and achievement and more and more about diversity. Maybe that's what has changed since the OP was in school.</p>
<p>If you're an URM, your chances go up a lot. If you're a legacy, your chances go up a lot. If you're from a URC (under represented country), your chances go up a lot. If you're a good athlete, your chances go up a lot. If you have some special or simply weird talent, hobby, or ability, such as National Pogo Stick qualifier, your chances go up a lot.</p>
<p>Yea, this whole system sucks. They're making us waste the best years of our life so that we have something that makes us "stand-out". I think if the pool of applicants with perfect stats is too high then they should just make the SAT a lot harder and dump all the extra-curricular ****.</p>
<p>Of course, the alternative is simply to set your sights down a notch. </p>
<p>There are plenty of good colleges that you can get into without being a national-level anything. </p>
<p>But they're not Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Stanford.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The herd of geniuses did not get any larger,
[/quote]
Yes it has. The number of students graduing from high school has gone up dramatically in the last decade, and is expected to peak in 2 years.</p>
<p>It doesn't exactly the take the mind of Einstein to graduate from high school. The herd of geniuses is the same, but the number of sheep surrounding the herd is much larger.</p>
<p>UofCman: if that many more people are graduating high school, the PERCENTAGE of geniuses will likely be the same, so there will still be more geniuses competing for the same slots.</p>
<p>As a high school student, I went through the same sort of shock, since my parents were Ivy grads and always just sort of expected me to do the same. Eventually I realized I'd be happier at a non-Ivy and applied ED elsewhere, anyway, but... if it makes you feel better, in my PUBLIC high school, we wound up with 2 students at Princeton and 2 at Harvard my year. (Along with a couple each at Brown, Cornell, Penn, etc). These Princeton and Harvard students were very intelligent and hardworking, but I'd only consider one of them a true genius - and none of them, to my knowledge, had major national or international awards (no USAMO, intel, etc). So it's still possible, don't worry! Good luck to your kids!</p>
<p>Getting into such universities is hard but definitely possible though it is tough. I think that the most important thing is that you make sure to make sure your kids know that they don't need to get into these schools. My parents made sure that it was my decision where I applied and they made sure to tell me that they were proud of me wherever I got into.</p>
<p>There certainly are a lot more 'geniuses' around to apply to the top schools due to the huge population increase in this country and other countries compared to the previous generation about 30 years ago. The Ivies can only take so many students so I'd say competition is tougher and not just there, but at other top schools as well. Imagine what it'll be like 30 years from now when our population doubles again and there are still only the same 8 Ivies. Fortunately there are many other top-end colleges and universities around that can provide an excellent education.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yea, this whole system sucks. They're making us waste the best years of our life so that we have something that makes us "stand-out".
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is a personal choice. It's amazing what only three years of perspective brings: I know now that where I chose to attend undergraduate college will have little to no impact on the rest of my life. You're still going to have to fight for things like power, prestige, and influence throughout your life; you may as well give yourself a break as an adolescent. Even if I get into a top law school or get a Rhodes Scholarship, it will not be because I went to Columbia. And if I become a highly successful public figure later in life, it will not be because I went to Columbia, went to a top law school or got a Rhodes, but because of what I subsequently fought for. Of course there are contingencies, the occasional boost from a powerful alumni network (rarer than one might expect) or the ability for wealthy/influential friends and family members to really elevate one into any position beyond mere comfort/stability, but among most, especially the highly competitive upper middle class, life will not be a breeze after getting into Harvard College, or Johns Hopkins Medical School, or Lehman Brothers. It will be more like this application process- over and over and over again.</p>
<p>The word got out. The top colleges reached out to students of all backgrounds. The world is a more global place and internationals are applying in droves, new financial aid initiatives help the poor/lower middle class. Asian immigrants have become a mighty force.</p>
<p>Maybe more people are graduating from high school (I'm not going to take that as a given, by the way), but the number of births in the US peaked in 1957. The geniuses weren't dropping out of high school back in my day, as I recall.</p>
<p>Further statistical follow-up:</p>
<p>Americans in the age bracket from 45 to 49 still outnumber Americans aged 15to 19 by nearly two million (23.397 million, compared to 21.444 for the youngsters).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4c5.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4c5.html</a></p>
<p>The last article I saw on this subject said there are more people now who can afford to send their children to private schools than there were 30 years ago. </p>
<p>At most schools, applications are up, and yield is down. Students apply to more schools than they used to.</p>
<p>Affirmative action for URMs was well underway 30 years ago, by the way. I wouldn't point to that factor.</p>
<p>I don't see the rise in the number of selective schools as a bad thing. There's been a rise in the number of unselective schools, too. Why is it a bad thing if high achieving students find themselves attending class at a school they wouldn't have considered before, so long as they're in the company of other high achieving students who also had to look further afield? The point should be to have the opportunity to go to school with other high achieving students, not to spend four years on a particular piece of real estate.</p>