There is no doubt that college is not necessarily easy to get into. Even if you have good grades, test scores, and extra curricular activities, you may find that you will not get accepted into your dream school.. Top schools are incredibly competitive and often accept less than 10% of those who apply. Even if you meet the criteria required in order to get into a particular college or university, you must strive to set yourself apart from the competition. Show the admissions officers that you stick with whatever hobby or activity it is that you enjoy and that you do it well.
The hardest colleges from which to gain acceptance tend to be ivy league schools. Some say this is in order to filter out the people who they expect to succeed from the people who will not succeed at their school. Difficult coursework means they need to set much higher standards and expectations than other colleges do. Others realize that personal and family politics often play a role when these colleges are determining whom to admit. Legacy applicants, those lucky enough to have alumni in their families, are often accepted when they otherwise would not have been. Others are accepted because their parents are incredibly rich. Ivy league schools like Yale, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell are always looking for more money to add to their endowments. Luke Weil, heir to the Autotote gaming fortune, once remarked that despite attended less than 8 class periods during his freshmen year at Brown University, the school would not kick him out. Instead they sent him a letter voicing their confidence in the future of his academic career.
Of course, Ivy League schools are not the only hard colleges to get into. Other public and private institutions have stringent standards for admission and are also very demanding of their students. In order to determine which schools you should apply to you must ask yourself what it is you intend to accomplish by attending. Ivy league schools tend to have a liberal arts focus and less majors to choose from where state schools tend to have a greater variety of choices and more practical programs. The University of Virginia, University of Michigan, and UC Berkeley are all very respected and competitive state schools. Caltech, MIT, and Carnegie Melon are as hard if not harder to get into than many Ivy League schools, however, one would only attend these schools if they were interested in the physical sciences. Engineering tends to be a popular major.
All of the schools mentioned in this article are incredibly difficult to get into. Even applicants with perfect grades and SAT scores will often be rejected as there just aren't enough spots in the freshmen class to accommodate every qualified candidate. Some say an applicant either has the stats to get in or they don't. If they do then they still might only have a 50/50 shot at admission so spread a wide net and apply to as many schools as possible.
