It’s that time of year when parents and students are left shaking their heads. We all know a handful of truly exceptional high school students that we have watched with awe through their high school years and are sure they can “name their ticket” and go wherever they choose… sadly that is rarely the case.

Let’s assume “truly exceptional high school student” wishes to go to an Ivy League school. To follow is the number of spaces in each school’s freshman class: Brown (1,455), Columbia (1,852), Cornell (3,378), Dartmouth (1,021), Harvard (1,679), Univ of PA (2,541), and Yale (1,318). The total freshmen spaces in Ivy League schools is 13,244.

Suppose your “truly exceptional high school student” isn’t so sure Ivy League is everything so he/she is also considering Duke (1,618), Georgetown(1,626), Northwestern (1,968), and Stanford (1,629). Adding these schools brings the total freshmen spots at prestigious private schools to 20,085!

This past year there were 3M public high school graduates. If forty percent went to a college or university that means there were 1,200,000 public college applicants (private/parochial high school graduates not counted…so nos are low) and our “truly exceptional high school student” needs to be in top 20,085 (top 2%) of all high school graduates (not just those at your high school). Though a extrapolation I would caution that the “truly exceptional public high school student” should be in top 1% of country to take into account private school graduate competitition.
A growing factor to add is the increased number of foreign students attending undergraduate colleges in the United States. This number is expected to continue to grow with the weak dollar. These foreign students who offer international and ethnic diversity at little cost to college.

So recognize how stiff the odds are and congratulate your “truly exceptional high school student” if they are accepted at one of these top private schools! And of course hope that its a good match not merely a prize?!