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Re:“I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA” by zardeh on Monday July 18, 2016 @11:22PM (#12119352)
1,700,000 SAT takers -> 17,000 people in the top 1%.

Selecting the top 10% of those gets you 1700 students, which is quite close to the size of Harvard's acceptance statistic (of 2000)

Re:“I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA” by Godel_unicode on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @12:09AM (#12119568)
Your implicit assumption is that anyone with a top 1% SAT score would also have good ECs and 4.0+. This is untrue.
Re:“I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA” by mgkimsal on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @08:44AM (#12121374)
That was sort of my point, and I didn't finish it, although the OP just said "bunches", which could be any number.

The person you're replying to indicates that 10% is 1700, and that 10% may be more representative of the high-EC and 4.0 level.

I'm not sure a few thousand folks from around the country qualifies as 'bunches'. Thinking back to my high school days, we had only a handful of people who were both academically advanced and active in many EC - sports, music, theater, etc. Partially there's just not enough time in most people's days to get 'good' at multiple things, even if there's aptitude. Secondly, not everyone can actually afford to get involves in a lot of ECs (despite aptitude/talent).

I can't think of anyone I know from my school (class of over 600, IIRC) who was all 4.0 GPA who also did multiple EC work. We had people in both camps. And I had a pretty lousy GPA, but did much better on ACT than some of the high GPA kids.

Re:“I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA” by zardeh on Wednesday July 20, 2016 @02:03AM (#12127166)
No, my assumption is that there are perhaps 10% of people with high GPAs, and those with a top 1% sat score are no exception.
Re:“I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA” by brianwawok on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @08:44AM (#12121375)
I bet more than half do. Tend to be the over achiever life.