IF YOU ARE A TOP STUDENT AND WANT TO GET ADMITTED TO THE BEST SCHOOLS...

President Joe Biden on Friday had a 90-minute audience with Pope Francis, the first time in more than half a century a U.S. president did so at the Vatican.  Biden is a devoted man who on his wrist wears son Beau's rosary beads.  But there is that matter of abortion, and conservative American bishops don't want him to receive communion.  Well, Saturday night, with the Pope's blessing, he and wife Jill did so in Rome.  Read this article for the details, for a good Catholic undergoes this service, the one with the bread and wine, nearly half the time they attend mass.

I also found this photo of Biden meeting with Pope Benedict...a decade ago.  Joe certainly looked older then.

I was scanning through my email this morning and noticed this Quora entry:

Should I even apply to Stanford? I have a 3.5UW and 4.5W GPA, 1300 SAT, and will have taken 12 AP tests when I graduate. I have coded, organized, and currently publish on a web site dedicated to getting real news out there and eliminating bias.

Originally Answered: Should I even apply to Stanford?

I hate to burst your bubble, but Stanford’s swim coach probably won’t be interested in you unless you have senior national qualifying times, or are at least close. My daughter swam for Stanford, my son rowed for Stanford, and I am a college counselor, so this is pretty familiar territory. Without having your application supported enthusiastically by a coach, your odds are very, very slim. Stanford’s acceptance rate is less than 5%. I have worked with many amazing students who were rejected from Stanford with perfect grades, 8 or more perfect AP scores, and test scores in the 99th percentile. This year one of my students was accepted: 36 ACT, 4.8 GPA, 12 APs, summer math classes at Stanford, leadership out the wahzoo, etc. He got in, not because of those stats, but because he is insatiably curious and creative and enterprising and funny and absolutely delightful - and his application essays conveyed all of those traits. Stanford looks for a different type of character than a lot of the other ultra-prestigious schools. My advice is to keep on doing what you love to do and get good at it. You’ll find the right school; it might not be Stanford, but if you keep on pursuing your interests, they will take you where you need to be.

So I further investigated.  There are several organizations that keep track of college acceptance data.  For the past few years, I've noticed that Stanford was the hardest to gain admittance, with Harvard #2.  However, here is something from BEST COLLEGES that shows the following, with the percentage indicating acceptance rate:

                                                    SAT Mid Range

• #1    Columbia      3.9%   1510-1560
• #2    Stanford       3.9%   1470-1570
• #3    Harvard        4.0%   1470-1570
• #4    MIT               4.1%    1510-1580
• #5    Princeton     4.4%   1450-1560
• #6    Yale              4.6%   1450-1560
• #7 to #9:  Brown, Duke Pennsylvania
• #10  Dartmouth   6.2%   1440-1560

Columbia had 60,551 applicants and admitted 2,358.  48% female, 50% male and 2% other.  Students of color:  44%.  Stanford had 55,471 applicants and admitted 2,190. 51% female, 49% male.  If you scored 1450, you were in the 96th percentile.  Here is an interesting source for this type of info.

CBS News, summarizing NICHE.COM, once known as College Prowler, on their annual hardest colleges to get into in the U.S.  For 2022:

#1    Stanford  4%: was identified as the No. 1 school for athletics and known for its psychology program.

#2      Harvard  5%:  good in math, psychology, biology and political science.

#3      Cal Tech  6%:  best college for physics and a mecca of budding engineers.

#4      Princeton  6%:  chemistry and public policy.

#5      MIT  7%:  computer science and math.

#6      Chicago  6%:  economics and computer science.

#7      Yale  6%:  history.

#8      Columbia  5%:  economics and english.  (Why with 5% it was not tied with Harvard is not explained.)

#9      Brown  7%:  english and global studies.

#10    Duke  8%:  athletics and public policy.

#15    Vanderbilt  9%:  education.

#20    Cornell  11%:  agricultural sciences.

#25    Williams  13%:  liberal arts.

#30    Air Force Academy  11%:  business...not good for parties.

#35    Carnegie Mellon  15%:  information technology.

#40    Cooper Union  15%:  art and architecture.

#45    Pitzer  14%:  ?

#50    Carleton 19%:  no application fee.

Interesting that NICHE.com's ranking in 2020 had Caltech at #1, with a 7% acceptance rate, graduating 92% of students, who got an initial starting salary of $54,500.  Stanford was #4, also with a 7% rate,  graduated 94% of students who entered as freshmen, and these students went on to earn an average starting salary of $70,400.  In 1958 I got into both, but selected Stanford because they offered a lot more in scholarship funds.

We all grew up with Halloween, and till today, I did not know how this all started.  From History.com:

• The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival in Ireland and Scotland not long after Jesus Christ of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts the evening of October 31.
• This day marked the harvest and beginning of the cold winter, when more people died.

• 
  Druids, or Celtic priests, then made future predictions.
• In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as All Saints Day, incorporating some of those Samhain traditions, and called All Hallows Eve, which later became Halloween.
• The Irish carved demonic faces out of turnips, and when they came to America used pumpkins to create jack-o'-lanterns.

• 
  In the U.S., colonial New England was rigid Protestant, so the state of Maryland started the tradition.  Certainly a lot pumpkins there, here with Pearl, in Maryland.
• Trick or treating began in Europe, but has now become an American tradition.  TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT FOR THIS EVENT.

• 

  DID YOU KNOW THAT 25% OF ALL CANDY SOLD IN THE U.S. IS PURCHASED FOR HALLOWEEN?  #1 is Reese's Cups, followed by Skittles and M&Ms. We spend $6 billion annually on Halloween, making it the second largest commercial holiday after Christmas...which is something like  more than $700 billion!!

Mexico celebrates Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, on November 1 and 2.  Appropriately enough, there is a baking tradition that serves these sweet breads sprinkled with sugar and sesame seeds.

I'm showing this again, for I just found some new data about Halloween and pet costumes.  In 2019 Americans spent $490 million for them, double the expenditure of 2010.

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