<p>Thoughtful responses as usual, D’yer. Yes, there have been a spate of such articles recently. I do not know what is driving them. Before the holidays, and before I had seen these articles, I had a conversation with the Admissions Dean from my college alma mater. He has been in the business for some time. Albeit gracefully, he bemoaned the torrent of flawless applicants before him & the increasing inability to draw true distinctions among them. He compared them to bird dogs bred for the hunt. The good news, I suppose, is the college cannot go wrong in selecting this one rather than that one. Cheers</p>