<p>Exactly. That does not even take into consideration the wealth of qualified international applicants. Most people cannot understand the sheer amount of qualified applcaints though.</p>
<p>Time to make more ivy league schools</p>
<p>tennisforall - An ACT score of 34 is in the 99 percentile, so I’m not sure what you mean by top 3%. The top 1% translates to less than 40,000 students. When you combine a 34 with a 4.0 this number gets reduced even further - based on my anecdotal evidence it is much easier for a student to get a one-time high test score than to post top grades for four years. I would estimate that you are in a group of only 10-20,000. Remember that some in this group will choose state flagships or other full ride scholarship opportunities.</p>
<p>I agree with CapnKirk that internationals complicate the calculations somewhat, but I believe this group makes up less than 5% of a typical class at Duke.</p>
<p>If your course load is most rigorous and your ECs, essays and LORs are solid, I would say your chances are pretty good.</p>
<p>As my post correctly stated 4.0 and 34 puts you in the top 3%. That is significant because that is the range in which the elite colleges look for students to be in even with their holeistic approach. I did not say or imply that those stats put you at 3%. As I correctly stated there are about 125,000 kids that are qualified for 30,000 openings.</p>