[M T]

I basically agree, but I am biased as I wrote basically the same argument.

But, a comment.
It is not clear that the total number of high school graduates is necessarily a relevant denominator for the "how difficult to get in" question at the most selective private universities, as the average student (for example) simply does not have a chance. It would be something like the number of students within X range of the top 0.05% of students. ....

And a question.
Which link has the HS graduation numbers going way back? I only saw back to 1996-7, but probably didn't look hard enough.
My impression is that the largest cohort of 18 year old Americans was towards the latter Baby Boom (born circa 1960, reached 18 circa 1978), but of course hs grad rates may have changed a bit as well.

Sorry, I should have referenced your post.  I started trying to pull together these numbers back when the discussion was just started but I couldn't find them quickly.  As I was missing some of the numbers, I wound up having to rewrite it more generically than putting what I had in a table.  One point I didn't make was that the number of non-resident aliens that enrolled was less than I expected.  I was trying to base it for the US high school graduate population vs admissions (not enrollment). (Stymie mentioned that the international student admission numbers rising.)

Most of the nces.ed.gov data show graduation rates, either for high school freshman, or for an age group, but they don't show graduation numbers per year.  The numbers in http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/t...7_100.asp  go way back from 2003.  http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/...ble_12.asp has more recent numbers to 2009 and projections to 2022

Yes, there was a peak (3.15M) of HS grads in 1976-77 with a low (2.46M) in 1993-4.  We had a (projected in these tables) peak (3.4M) in 2011, with 3.4M being hit again in 2021.    Although I spoke of parents and children, the peaks are further apart than the usual gap between generations, but maybe is two generations apart (1970-1982, 2007-2022+).

Edit:  Two other interesting pages on scores of Stanford admissions/rejections are
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/basics/...ofile.html
http://www.parchment.com/c/college/colle...rsity.html (I have no idea who their members are, but they have a couple of stats on their rejected group from 2012)

[M T]

I basically agree, but I am biased as I wrote basically the same argument.

But, a comment.
It is not clear that the total number of high school graduates is necessarily a relevant denominator for the "how difficult to get in" question at the most selective private universities, as the average student (for example) simply does not have a chance. It would be something like the number of students within X range of the top 0.05% of students. ....

And a question.
Which link has the HS graduation numbers going way back? I only saw back to 1996-7, but probably didn't look hard enough.
My impression is that the largest cohort of 18 year old Americans was towards the latter Baby Boom (born circa 1960, reached 18 circa 1978), but of course hs grad rates may have changed a bit as well.

Sorry, I should have referenced your post.  I started trying to pull together these numbers back when the discussion was just started but I couldn't find them quickly.  As I was missing some of the numbers, I wound up having to rewrite it more generically than putting what I had in a table.  One point I didn't make was that the number of non-resident aliens that enrolled was less than I expected.  I was trying to base it for the US high school graduate population vs admissions (not enrollment). (Stymie mentioned that the international student admission numbers rising.)

Most of the nces.ed.gov data show graduation rates, either for high school freshman, or for an age group, but they don't show graduation numbers per year.  The numbers in http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/t...7_100.asp  go way back from 2003.  http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/...ble_12.asp has more recent numbers to 2009 and projections to 2022

Yes, there was a peak (3.15M) of HS grads in 1976-77 with a low (2.46M) in 1993-4.  We had a (projected in these tables) peak (3.4M) in 2011, with 3.4M being hit again in 2021.    Although I spoke of parents and children, the peaks are further apart than the usual gap between generations, but maybe is two generations apart (1970-1982, 2007-2022+).

Edit:  Two other interesting pages on scores of Stanford admissions/rejections are
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/basics/...ofile.html
http://www.parchment.com/c/college/colle...rsity.html (I have no idea who their members are, but they have a couple of stats on their rejected group from 2012)