<p>Seeing that the american population is now over 300 million. One of the news reporters also stated that only 30% of americans attended college/university
I was wondering what are the percentages of americans that have attended a top 100 school
the percentage of 18 year olds going off to college every year and the percentage attending ivys or top top 50 or top 100 schools? i didnt know where such a question fit or if such research has ever been done, but i thought this would be a good place to ask</p>
<p>Here are some little pieces:</p>
<p>Roughly 48% of 18-19 year-olds were enrolled in college in 2004. That's a total of about 7.7 million kids overall of whom 3.7 million are in college. <a href="http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/school/TableA-5b.xls%5B/url%5D">http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/school/TableA-5b.xls</a></p>
<p>Total enrollment of the COFHE schools (28 highly selective institutions, including all of the Ivy League) was about 109,000 in 2004, of which about 46,000 was the Ivy Leage (and each entering class is probably a little less than a quarter of that, or 12,500 kids).</p>
<p>wow thats pretty amazing how such a small percentage gets to attend these elite institutions</p>
<p>That's why they are elite -- if millions could go there, they wouldn't be elite any more . .. .;-)</p>
<p>Here's another take: </p>
<p>In 2004, there were roughly 10.4 million people enrolled in colleges as full-time students. So Ivy League undergraduate enrollment is about 0.44% of that, COFHE enrollment just over 1%.</p>
<p>Each age cohort in the 18-24 range around 2004 was about 3.8 million people. Total Ivy League entering classes would be about 0.33% of a cohort (a little lower now, with cohorts of almost 4 million, a little higher around 2000). </p>
<p>At the last teenage population peak (approximately 1975-1982), the 18-19 year-old population was about the same size is is now, but the percentage of kids in college was 13% lower. So Ivy League kids represented a similarly tiny percentage of the overall population, but a larger percentage of kids in college.</p>
<p>Time killer just for fun...... I count a total enrollment of 126,252 in the USNews Top 20 Universities. Divide by four to get approximate freshman count gives 31,563. </p>
<p>By JHS's census numbers, there are 3.7 million 18 and 19 year olds in college. Since that is two years worth, let's say half of those are freshman, or about 1.8 million. This puts about 1.7 percent (31,563/1,850,000) of the freshman at the top 20 (ignoring older students, younger students, etc.) </p>
<p>Extending down the USNews list a few more places down to the Top 30 brings in some big schools (Berkeley, UMich, UCLA, USC, UNC) and puts the total at 270,000 students, or about 67K freshman (3.6 percent).</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing the numbers. That ties in with the more than 1 million (but less than 2 million) students who take the SAT I in each graduating class. </p>
<p>It appears that slightly fewer high school seniors have ACT scores on record--and of course some students have taken both tests. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.act.org/news/data/05/pdf/t4.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.act.org/news/data/05/pdf/t4.pdf</a> </p>
<p>So there must be plenty of colleges that give much regard to the standardized test scores, admitted students either who have never taken the tests or who scored quite low on them.</p>