[ForHackernews]

FYI, schools deliberately try to drum up interest from students they would never dream of admitting. The way US News & World Reports ranks schools, they look better if their admit percentage is lower, so the more chumps (no offense) they can talk into paying the application fee and then reject, the higher their score.

When I was in high school, I got all sorts of recruitment mailers from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. and there's no way those schools seriously considered me a viable prospect.

[guyzero]

Right, is it really any "harder"? If we assume rational and consistent grading of applicants (I know, I know, but we have to make some assumptions) then if you're in, say, the top 3%, is it actually any hard to get in? Are the new applicants for any given school actually good or are they simply optimistic students who didn't apply before?

I mean, how many people who Harvard (say) would accept don't already apply? Probably a pretty small number. The issue with getting into Harvard remains a number of factors, but other applicants in't really one of them. That is, the quality of the applicant pool of people accepted hasn't changed much.

[aet]

Donate a million (or ten) and apply again.. :)