Originally Posted by Val
Originally Posted by brilliantcp
73% of admitted students had a 4.0
95% were in the top 10% of their class

Harvard (see here: http://features.thecrimson.com/2014/freshman-survey/admissions/) had "only" 54% with a 4.0, but looking at a plot of GPA vs SAT demonstrates that high GPA and high test scores both characteristics of admitted students.

See, I find this information to be really depressing. IMO, these colleges are basically saying that there's no room for making mistakes, with B+ grades (or really, even A-'s) apparently counting as "mistakes."

Personally, I believe that our society really, really needs people who screwed up, dusted themselves off only to mess up again, and eventually learned from their mistakes and made something out of them.
As the U.S. population grows while the class size of Ivy League schools hardly changes, inevitably the bar for admission to those schools is raised. Increasing numbers of very bright students will need to brush off rejections from elite colleges. I like MOOCs because students who don't get into Shiny U can still learn what is being taught there. Even without MOOCs, the Internet makes it possible to see what resources students are various universities are using. For example, Harvard physics majors are using books by (or updated by) David Morin for classical mechanics and electricity and magnetism. Before I went to college to major in physics I had no idea what "Purcell" (the classic E&M textbook) was. Now such information is easily available. My children will be playing the selective college admissions game, although I'll try to stay rational about it. But I want them to understand that there is very little that can be learned *only* at Shiny U.