<p>uhhh...UNC?</p>
<p>I'm not so sure of the selectivity of the service academies. Or rather, they're extremely selective, but not so much on academic grounds. The people I know who go to the service academies were solid but not stellar students, often rejected from selective-but-not-that-selective colleges, i.e. Vanderbilt, on strictly academic grounds.
The service academies are very tough, but in a different way. Many people at Harvard could not even dream about being admitted to a service academy, and vice-versa, just as many Harvard people couldn't get into MIT, or Juilliard or RISD, for that matter.</p>
<p>Do the service academies appear in any of the undergraduate rankings (PR, US News, Atlantic Monthly etc.)?</p>
<p>Oh come on people, according to PR's evaluation (does not get much better) these ARE the hardest colleges to get into. I am a little surprized at UPenn being that high, but otherwise looks fair.</p>
<p>Hardest is all relative...</p>
<p>To correct some mistakes, the mid 50 Berkeley SAT I is 1210-1450. There are many rightmost, or superbly prepared students with scores of 1500+. At my former high school, students with SAI I scores of 1500-1600 who didnt get accepted to Stanford invariably chose to attend UCB even though if were accepted to Caltech and MIT! The reason PR probably put it up so high is because the admissions staff value EC's more than the other UC's. The vice chancellor told all of us on orientation that 40% of the factor in admitting someone goes to essays and EC's.
However, I do agree that Berkeley is too high up the list, although it should be higher than John Hopkins. A lot of my classmates were rejected from both UCLA and Cal, but accepted to Cornell and JHU.</p>
<p>Do not all of California's schools adhere to a specific admissions formula? Particularly with the weight assigned to SATs and SAT IIs?</p>