<p>Exodius:</p>
<p>“1. I’m not sure that any of these schools except CalTech has fewer backdoors than Harvard et al.”</p>
<p>I’m quite certain that UChicago/Reed/Mudd/Cooper Union care far far less about how good an applicant is at sports than Div1 HYPS (Swarthmore cares less as well, but still cares some). In fact, does CU even have sports teams? Mudd doesn’t have its own and forms teams with students from other Claremont schools.</p>
<p>“2. Variation in the quality of graduates probably afflicts all schools.”</p>
<p>Indeed, and so I’m not impressed by anyone simply because of where they got in or went for undergrad (in the US; some of the top French Ecoles are tiny). Some folks seem to think that just getting in to/graduating from a certain school should gain them admiration or something, though. </p>
<p>“1. Chicago and Swarthmore seem to have almost as much grade inflation as Harvard and Stanford.”</p>
<p>The question is how much harder they have to work for their grades. Traditionally (and the stereotype still is that) U of C kids and Swatties have to study harder to get the same grades that Harvard and Stanford students do. </p>
<p>I did add all engineering in later. I’ll add high GPAs in philosophy/math/physics from top philosophy/math/physics departments as well.</p>
<p>In short, I’m more impressed by what people do beyond HS than what they do during HS.</p>