<p>It is an interesting thread though. This year’s graduating high school class was the largest in history, about 3 million.</p>
<p>To share a bit, my kids have gone and go to what the state ranks as the top academic public high school in the state. It’s a tremendous school, clearly the equal of the very expensive private school I went to. It is academically challenging and both socially and economically diverse. </p>
<p>This school has a large number of extremely high achievers. Many kids come from very intellectual families and are internally and externally driven. And the school as a whole is a success-driven, achievement-oriented culture. </p>
<p>Think what this means for college. We had 60 apply to Tufts, 40 to Wesleyan, 35 to Washington U, 35 to Brandeis, an astounding 55 to Brown and 46 to Cornell. With admission to Yale et al now a total crapshoot, the very, very top achievers are applying to most if not all of these schools, which means that 7 kids who got into Washington U may overlap with the 9 who got into Wesleyan and with the 5 who got into Yale. You can see how this process drives very good students from tier to tier of “prestige” schools. </p>
<p>It also affects other kids because now their reaches and “safeties” are harder to get into. 75 applied to Northeastern and 25 were accepted, compared to 36 of 89 the year before. 74 applied to Vermont and 36 were accepted, compared to 48 out of 60 last year. UMass-Boston (not Amherst) accepted only 20 of 50, compared to 40 of 57 last year.</p>
<p>Look at UMass. 190 kids applied to UMass from our high school and 75 were accepted. Last year, UMass took 136 of 171. Even allowing for some difference in quality from year-to-year, that is tougher.</p>
<p>BTW, the average gpa entering UMass this last year was 3.55.</p>