Looking beyond the Harvard's of the world

No, I'm not picking on Harvard. It's a world-class institution. Think of all those ivy-covered buildings. You'll be in Cambridge - great place to go to college. You can almost picture the crew team training in their Crimson jerseys.... but can you really get in?

Analyzing Harvard's actual admissions is instructive.

In December 2017 Harvard announced they offered admission (Early Action) to 964 students of the 6,630 who applied early. That's a pretty high percentage, relatively speaking, almost 15%. What happened to the rest? 4,882 were deferred, 611 denied, and the rest were incomplete (incomplete?!?). So okay mathematicians, what are your chances of getting in at regular decision time? 

Last year 14.4% were admitted for Early Action (938 students out of 6,473) and then another 1,172 were admitted at regular decision out of another 32,568, which is a measly 3.6%. So.... if this year is like last year, not a whole lot of students will be getting in for regular decision.

Something else to consider about those lucky enough to be admitted to Harvard (and again, I'm not picking on Harvard, since this applies to plenty of other highly selective schools) when considering your personal chances. It is estimated that up to half of all spots are accounted for by athletes, musicians, children of faculty or the rich and famous, etc.  In other words, Harvard has pre-selected that second baseman, the cello player, the President's son (who might also be a legacy), etc.

If your child is not one of these chosen few then their chances of acceptance are actually way smaller than the published numbers, which are fairly low to begin with. Which leads to my point of looking beyond the Harvard's of the world, not because they aren't wonderful colleges, but because they simply are rarely attainable, and there are many truly outstanding colleges that are.