<p>So these are fantasy projections of what may happen to two 9th graders in the future? Give me a break! No wonder Applicant 1 looks fake. Things aren’t going to play out like that.</p>
<p>Also, there’s a big difference between “top 10%” and “weighted valedictorian.” At my kids’ school, for example, Harvard regularly takes a person or two. It’s not always the valedictorian (although it’s the valedictorian more than it is any other particular class rank), but there seems to be a cutoff around the top 10 students (roughly top 2%). </p>