Is it really that hard to get in?

JHS
Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:06:33 +0000

In my daughter’s cohort, there was a boy who everyone knew had good grades and test scores, but none of the kids saw him as especially brilliant or admirable in the way they regarded the “top” students in their class. He was not a leader, that much was clear. He was accepted at Harvard, much to everyone’s surprise, over some much more “deserving” candidates. Except . . . he was also accepted at Yale, Stanford, and every other college to which he applied. The only conclusions one could draw were: (a) at least a couple teachers saw him as very special (and he knew which ones they were) and (b) he wrote some great applications.

If it had been just one school, one might have thought “mistake”. With a whole bunch of schools, one had to conclude that there was probably some objective merit involved, albeit merit of the sort that was not reflected in reputation or community acclamation. (There wasn’t millions of dollars of objective merit, by the way.)