Hardest to Enter American Universities

Huffington Post (huffingtonpost.com) has just released the “list of hardest schools to get into“, which is American English for “list of American colleges or universities with the lowest ratio of number of admitted students to number of applicants”. Here are top three from the list:
1. Harvard University: 2,110 accepted out of 30,489 applicants (6.9%)
2. Stanford University: 2,300 accepted out of 32,022 applicants (7.2%)
3. Yale University: 1,940 accepted out of 25,869 applicants (7.5%)
The reason I am writing about this is that the percentages are eye openers. For such coveted institutions, these percentages seem to be too big. Students in India are used to much more competitive percentages. Compare the numbers to any reputed Indian institute.
Based on 2008 figures, there were around 300,000 students for 1350 general seats for IIMs (0.45%). (Source: Rediff News)
According to this website, about 2% of applicants get into IITs and about 0.5% get into “a decent department”.
So, is it much easier for you to get into Harvard if you are in the US, than it is for you to get into IIM if you are in India? I would say so.
However, before you get all upbeat about India’s high standard education, read Kamal Sinha, who has broken a number of myths about the “supremacy” of Indian educational institutions on his site, which seems to have been made in a layout that pre-dates blogs.