top 10% of class

highschoolrules
Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:53:38 +0000

I see all the time on CC that being in the top 10% of your class is an essential part of any application to a top tier school. However, my school’s ivy acceptance rate is just over 20%, and if you include stanford, duke, northwestern, MIT, then it’s just over 30. when people say that one must be in the 10% of your class (unless there are extenuating circumstances, like being a recruited athlete or a URM) are they referring to applications coming out of public schools with lower acceptance rates? Because I’m not a math major or a rocket scientist but it seems to me that if you’re in the top X% of your class, and X% of any given class gets into ivy’s, etc, then you have a good shot with your application.

Does this logic make sense? I’m a little confused.