Spoiler: “So after removing the international students from the calculations, and using the middle-of-the-range estimates, the conclusion: The top-scoring 19,000 American students each year are competing in top-20 admissions for about 12,000 spots out of 44,000 total. Among the Ivy League + MIT + Stanford, they’re competing for about 6,500 out of 15,800 total spots.”

It's well known that

Admission to top universities is very competitive in America and even top SAT scores (1550+ out of 1600) paired with a 4.0 GPA doesn’t guarantee admission to a top school.
Even top universities take into account race-based affirmative action, athletic recruitment, “Dean's Interest List”-type tracking systems for children of donors or notable persons, and legacy preference for children of alumni.

But many people are under the misconception that the resulting “rat race”—the highly competitive and strenuous admissions ordeal—is the inevitable result of the limited class sizes among top [...]

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First published:
April 7th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vptDgKbiEwsKAFuco/american-college-admissions-doesn-t-need-to-be-so

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

U.S. map showing state requirements for SAT/ACT standardized testing.

U.S. map showing state preferences for SAT versus ACT tests in 2022.

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“American College Admissions Doesn’t Need to Be So Competitive” by Arjun Panickssery

LessWrong (30+ Karma)