There was mention yesterday in a news show that there are 4 million kids graduating in any one year. So 40,000 are in the top 1 % and 4,000 in the top 0.1%.
I remember that when my DS was born, a coworker of mine who had an Ivy League education gave me this piece of advice: there are almost 40,000 high schools in the US. Every one of them has a valedictorian and each of these schools has the top 1% who are presumably very talented (presumably highly accomplished in other things than academics). Add in the genius kids who homeschool, foreign applicants who are the cream-of-the-cream in their countries and financially very well off as well and then, add in the diversity factor, athletic recruitment, seats reserved for staff families, it is very hard to get into an Ivy. So, he told me to let my child follow his passion and that it will hopefully show up in the application process. In my area, a lot of kids get perfect SAT scores (and go to good schools and have college counselors helping them) and they still do not get into MIT and Stanford.
There was an MIT recruiter blog floating around (will post here if I find the link) that advised the same to all students desirous of a seat at MIT: follow your passions and do what inspires you and they will be able to see that in the application.
