Take Harvard University for example. No less than 22,955 eager applicants applied for admission to Harvard this fall and only 2,058, or 9%, were accepted. A whopping 20,897 applicants came up short of admission.

Actually, Harvard University calls its undergraduate school Harvard College. Nonetheless, all who were admitted are certainly among the chosen few.

According to the Bloomberg News, students fared a little better at Brown University, which admitted 14% of its applicants, and the University of Pennsylvania, which admitted 15%.

The article said that "Harvard's undergraduate tuition, room and board and other mandatory fees will rise to $45,620 and financial aid will increase to the highest in the school's history, $103 million. About 26% of the incoming class is eligible to attend free of charge or at a reduced rate."

Students from households making less than $60,000 annually can attend free, and students from families below $80,000 can get a reduced rate.

According to the Harvard University Gazette Online, just over half of the incoming class are women (50.5%), and records were set for minorities, including African Americans (11% rounded), Asian Americans (20%), Latinos (10%) and Native Americans (2%). Students from 79 countries are represented in the Class of 2011.

All of those statistics are good news if you were admitted. Here are some interesting facts about some of those who were not admitted:

1) Harvard admitted 2,058 students and nearly 2,500 of the applicants scored a perfect 800 on their SAT verbal test, almost 3,200 applicants scored a perfect 800 on their SAT math test, and more than 3,000 applicants were ranked first in their high school class.

2) If every student that scored 800 on his or her SAT verbal or math test and there were no duplicates, then more than 3,600 students did not get admitted. At least 900 of those students graduating No. 1 in their high school class also missed out.

It is a good thing I did not have my heart set on a Harvard education.

I never took a SAT to get into Michigan State University. I did not need to take a foreign language, trigonometry, calculus, statistics and probability, algebra, physics or chemistry to graduate from high school, and I did not take those courses, but I did graduate.

To all of the rejects of the world, I have some good news: you can make it in the game of life anyway.

A Harvard education might open more doors to success on the job, and you may or may not feel better about yourself, after all, the competition at Harvard looks pretty stiff.

I got into Michigan State because if you lined all of the incoming Class of 1966 at Harvard for a middle distance race and fired a gun, I would have been first across the finish line. So there you have it, talents differ.

While the tree was talking big to a squirrel about how unimpressive he was, the squirrel replied that maybe he was not as big and strong as the tree, but neither could the tree crack a nut.

Here are three facts about Harvard that impress me and I believe them to be true:

1) Harvard is recognized as the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Harvard was founded in 1636 and celebrates its 371st anniversary this year.

2 Harvard was the first organization in the country to become a legal corporation. This fact really surprised me because I thought it would have been a business, not an educational institution.

3) Harvard has an endowment of $29+ billion (not million, billion). That is a lot of cash invested that allows it to help a lot of students who would not otherwise attend Harvard even though they might qualify.

I graduated from Michigan State University 41 years ago this June. Had I paid for my college education it would have cost me approximately $12,000, and I graduated without any student loans.

The cost of an education for the Class of 2011 at Harvard will be more than $182,000. Someone will pay that cost. I sure am glad it is not going to be me.

Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley