On Apr 24, 4:17*pm, Hawke wrote:


Argue all you want over the exact percentages of legacy students. It
just proves my point about getting breaks in life. All those legacy
students are getting awesome breaks getting into Ivy League schools. We
don't all get that kind of break in life, ever. I've also heard that the
reason for going to those schools is not because the education they
offer is the best you can get. I had a teacher with a PhD from Princeton
tell me that. In addition, she told me we were learning the same things
the students there were learning because she wasn't going to teach us
differently from how she would teach at Princeton.

People go to those schools because of who you meet there and where you
can get in life meeting the young elite children of America's
aristocracy. You make a lot of friends that come from the best families
in America and you get breaks later on down the road. So going there is
all about where it's going to get you. To get there you need a break or
you need to be in the 2% of the population that is exceptionally
talented in some area. I haven't heard anything that has changed my mind
on that either.

Hawke

Yep, that is how you think it is. But you really do not have a clue.
The real reason people go to the Ivy League schools is that they are
among the best colleges. I say among because of schools like MIT and
Cal Tech who are top notch, but not Ivy League. And to get there you
have to be better than in the top 2 %. If you are in the top 2
percent, you might consider applying, but you need to be better than
that to be accepted. Most of the Ivy League schools admit about 1 in
10 of those that apply. So if the top 2 % apply, then about only the
top 0.2 % get accepted. But it is more like the top 0.5 % apply and
the top 0.05% get accepted.

Harvard accepts about 1700 students. More than 1700 kids with perfect
SAT scores apply.

But I will agree with you that you have not heard anything that would
change your mind. I am pretty sure there is nothing that can change
your mind.

Dan