| The competition to get into the highest ranked colleges | | | | pool is granted admission. |
| & universities in America has become increasingly | | | | So the good news is it's not nearly as difficult to gain |
| fierce in recent years. Sometimes it starts as early as | | | | admission to highly-ranked institution offerings quality |
| nursery school when parents will call Ivy league | | | | educations. But on the flip side if you're intent is to |
| admissions offices asking for advice about the best | | | | attend one of the few dozen institutions that is |
| nursery schools to prepare for admission. As high | | | | extremely selective your chances are actually |
| school graduation nears more and more parents are | | | | decreasing. In the past decade applications to schools |
| paying college admission consultants thousands of | | | | such as Duke, Notre Dame, Stanford, Northwestern |
| dollars for their assistance in helping their child fill out | | | | and any of the Ivy league schools have risen |
| college applications and write college admission | | | | dramatically making an extremely competitive |
| essays. Whether or not this really helps is debatable | | | | admissions process even more difficult. For example |
| but it certainly happens. | | | | Harvard University's admissions office received over |
| Don't be discouraged. While there are a few dozen | | | | 9,400 applications from high school seniors with SAT |
| elite schools flooded with applications from highly | | | | scores higher than 1400 & fewer than 2,000 of |
| qualified high school seniors, the fact of the matter is | | | | these highly qualified applicants received acceptance |
| that most of the 2,200 four year colleges and | | | | letters in their mailboxes |
| universities in America are still in competition with each | | | | There's no need to lower your expectations |
| other to attract qualified applicants. The majority of | | | | concerning which college or university to attend the Ivy |
| schools actually accept more than two-thirds of the | | | | schools have not stopped admitting freshman classes, |
| applicant pool and hundreds of other colleges and | | | | it has only become more difficult to be accepted. A |
| universities grant mission to virtually any student with | | | | good plan might be to make an honest assessment of |
| the high school diploma. Some of these institutions are | | | | your qualifications and if they truly warrant strong |
| "diamonds in the rough" with superb academic | | | | consideration you should absolutely complete your |
| programs and excellent track records based on the | | | | application and send it in prior to the deadline. But don't |
| accomplishments of past graduates. | | | | put all your eggs in one basket or you may be setting |
| Now you know the "dirty little secret" most colleges | | | | yourself up for a major disappointment. Just in case |
| and universities hope you never discover. They'll send | | | | things don't work out at one of the elite schools you |
| you letters in the mail putting up a front about how | | | | should apply to one or more other schools where your |
| selective they are in the admissions process but when | | | | admission is more certain to be accepted. There are |
| you take a step back and look at the actual statistics | | | | plenty of great colleges and universities from which to |
| you'll see that only a few dozen institutions are actually | | | | choose. |
| so selective that less than 25% of the annual applicant | | | | |