Acceptance Rates--Reality Check

fauve
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:27:07 +0000

Simple solution: Every parent and student has the right to read the Harvard 25-75th percentile test scores in USNWR and believe the numbers. If your child’s numbers do not fit in, you can save your money and decline adding to the application numbers.

If there are tons of unqualified kids applying to HYPS, they are pursuing the brand-name, unable to admit they do not have a chance at a designer Ivy. I think it is more a function of the consumerist culture of entitlement, nurtured by striving parents, than a plot by the Ivies to pump the numbers.

At our school, roughly half the kids applying to top Ivies are unqualified, but they (and their overly optimistic parents) enjoy the glamour of the association during the hopeful waiting months.