- [Narrator] Striving for the Golden Ticket.

- My top dream school, Harvard.

- My dream school is Duke.

- Yale University.

- Georgetown University.

- The first to go to college to make it.

- [Narrator] A record number of students are competing to get into America's top colleges.

- They're constantly picking schools that are in the top 50 and the number of applications that they receive are ridiculous.

- I think going to college has become a prestige item.

So sort of like what kind of car you drive.

- [Narrator] They hope these schools will open doors to success.

- [Person 1] Yay.

- [Narrator] What does it take to get a yes.

- My weighted GP is about a 5.2.

- It's been go, go, go.

And I just keep doing that and doing that and doing that.

- On the SAT, my super score was a 1590.

- I actually helped with a research project that studied endoparasites within the Alaskan march in rodents.

- The expectation is that you are as perfect as possible.

- When I realized I got a B, it just felt like I ruined my future.

- The pressure to perform is starting as early as elementary school.

- [Narrator] And that pressure can be overwhelming.

- I just had a full-blown panic attack.

- What parents don't understand now is that the competitive nature of college admissions is so much greater than it was 20, 30 years ago.

- [Narrator] And their best might not be good enough.

- Ready?

- [Person 2] No, no.

Okay.

- I've been deferred.

And when I got deferred I cried for a good like two days.

(bleeps) you're not going there (bleeps) them.

- No.

- Yeah, didn't get accepted.

I'll get accepted somewhere.

- Four years of all that work and how do they not accept her?

- [Narrator] So how do universities decide which students make the cut?

- Time out, time out.

She has all of these extracurriculars plus two part-time jobs.

- [Narrator] We take you inside the decision room and we travel coast to coast going straight to the decision makers, getting answers to students' tough questions.

How does income, address, race and gender affect admissions decisions?

Is college worth the price?

- Is it tougher to get into college today or does it just seem that way?

- [Narrator] Does it matter where your degree comes from?

We journey through the admissions process and find out if Gabe, Dee, Sean, Nailah, Juan or Abby earn a seat at their dream school.

(upbeat music) - My name is Deandre Leyba.

I am 17 years old and I'm from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I've been dancing since I was five years old.

I guess I could say I am a perfectionist, so I'm really, really hard on myself.

- [Narrator] Deandre Leyba is a senior at St. Pius, a Catholic high school.

- I am very quiet.

I've had some people in class and once I start opening up they go, oh my goodness, I didn't know you talked.

And I love my family a lot.

I love my friends.

I would do anything for them.

- [Narrator] And while she loves home, she also feels she has to leave.

- There's just so much more out there.

And if you don't get out of Albuquerque when you have the chance, you never do.

Getting into literally any school out of state is so important to me because it's a way out.

- [Narrator] Notre Dame is her top pick.

- It has everything you want in a college.

Like mix up in like little bowls.

I would just love to go there.

- [Narrator] Her parents support her dreams but worry about how they'll pay for it.

- I looked at some of these letters, I was like, oh my god, there's just no way I can afford that.

It's very difficult to tell somebody that's worked so hard that they can't have what they need.

- [Narrator] The odds of acceptance are slim.

About 88% of applicants to Notre Dame are rejected.

Scott Daigle, an education consultant says for elite schools, top grades just aren't good enough.

- Every school receives more applications than the number of people that they can take.

So what'll happen is you'll get a school that gets 50,000 applications and 45,000 of them have the grades and test scores to go there.

So now what?

So you've had a kid who just studied their heart out, got the best grades, worked with a tutor, got the top test scores and still get rejected for nothing to do with the amount of effort that they put in because the school's looking for that demographic, a boy girl in-state outta state, athlete, are they a legacy?

Do they have the money?

That type of thing.

So there's so much of it now that's out of your control that causes this anxiety because you can't do anything about it.

- [Narrator] Deandra feels the pressure to impress admissions officers.

- It's definitely emotionally exhausting and from everything I definitely feel emotionally drained.

- [Narrator] While trying to excel in her honors and AP classes she also has clubs and volunteering and as captain of the school dance team, she's trying to lead her teammates to state competition.

(indistinct chatter) At times she's needed help managing that pressure from a mental health professional.

- This year I had my first panic attack and it was wild.

The depression and the anxiety, I definitely worry that it's not gonna get better.

- [Narrator] Her best friend Sean Mignon understands her struggles.

Sean's dream school is Yale and the pursuit of academic excellence has also taken a toll.

- Some of my own friends, there are several in counseling.

I have actually been in counseling in for OCD in my freshman year.

Whole nights I wouldn't sleep just stressed about the process being started.

- [Narrator] Sean would spend hours redoing even the simplest assignments until he felt they were perfect.

- There is an incredible amount of pressure to perform.

- [Narrator] Dr. David Ruby is a child and adolescent psychiatrist.

He says there are many reasons why reports of anxiety and other mental health conditions are on the rise in teenagers.

One reason is social media, which he says clearly adds to the pressure on high school students.

- Kids are now competing with not just in their local environments, but the box or the sandbox that kids are playing in now extends nationally or internationally.

It's not just keeping up with the Joneses, it's now keeping up with the massive amounts of Joneses throughout the world.

- [Narrator] To compete for a spot at an Ivy League school, Sean takes six AP courses.

His days are also full of extracurriculars from clubs to sports to volunteering on a research project at the University of New Mexico studying forest ecosystems.

- I've been trying to diversify my own application, but I don't know if it'll be enough.

- [Narrator] About 94% of students who apply to Yale will get rejected.

- I often question and if my work throughout these last four years is worth getting into one of these schools.

- [Narrator] Sean's mom wonders too.

- He believes he needs this school in order to do reach the goals that he wants to reach.

I believe he can reach those goals wherever he goes.

- [Narrator] Sean and Dee say their stress is self-inflicted, but that society makes kids believe success is tied to elite schools.

- Even like growing up with like Disney Channel movies and stuff.

I've noticed that a lot of the final episodes when the main characters are going to college, they all go to these Ivy Leagues and things like that.

They're usually focused on like Yale or Harvard.

Or just super high up their schools.

So I think that gives everyone an expectation that they also have to get into those schools.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Their classmate, Gabe Neel says he's working hard to live up to his parents' expectations.

- My parents always told me that if I don't go somewhere to school or if I like stay here just because it's the easy choice to do and that they'll say that they failed as parents.

So I don't know that's kind of like a big pressure that I have on me.

- The thing he doesn't realize for us, he doesn't have to get into one of those top tier schools for us to be proud of him.

I mean, I think we think he can and I wanna push him to not just settle for the first college that says, okay, come on.

- [Narrator] Gabe's mom calls her son's days crazy busy.

It starts with a 5:00 AM workout.

He plays varsity basketball and football along with his rigorous coursework.

He's also senior class president.

He volunteers tutoring children and teaching Catholicism classes.

He even became an Eagle Scout even though he didn't want to.

- Everything that we've pushed him towards honestly is to check the box.

You know, get your eagle 'cause like as he told you, he wasn't thrilled about being in scouts.

Everything's been done to check a box 'cause if you don't, you're not in a position to even apply.

- One of the biggest stresses is all these families and all these kids thinking that they need to look like everyone else.

Meaning I need to be president of this and I need to lead this.

- [Narrator] Mandy Adler's founder of a private consulting firm that helps students pursue their dream schools.

After graduated from two Ivy's, Harvard and Penn.

But says things have changed when it comes to admission to elite schools.

- It is harder to get into colleges today.

So what we're expecting our children to do is a lot more than we were expected to do.

- [Narrator] Gabe says his parents believe West Point would be his best option.

- It could be a free education and you would be able to go into the military right after that.

That would be like a great honor for the family.

They're like, that would be the best education in our family anyone on either side of our family's ever gotten.

So they're like, they're always like, I don't know, pushing me for that.

And I was like, well I don't know.

What if I don't want to go into West Point?

What if I wanna have a normal college life?

- [Narrator] Gabe's top pick is Duke.

- Ever since I was little, I've always watched Duke basketball.

I've always had my eye on Duke.

- [Narrator] 2000 miles away Nailah Allen in Miami also has family on her mind when it comes to college goals.

- My grandmother's dream ' cause she always wanted to go to college.

My mom wanted to go to college and women don't necessarily get education where we come from.

And so he'll be like, how do I say this?

Kind of like make a history for our family.

- [Narrator] Nailah's mom believes a college degree will make life a lot easier.

- A lot of the things like the struggles that I've been through, I never try to sugarcoat it or hide it from Nailah.

She's my first child.

So I always show her the decisions that I made.

I'm where I am and I took this road.

You understand not having to being hardheaded.

And what I want from her is for her to be open to see.

You don't have to grow up like this.

- [Narrator] At Booker T. Washington High Nailah takes advanced courses and is involved in 10 clubs.

She's hoping her 4.0 GPA is enough to compensate for SAT scores that aren't as high as she'd like.

Nailah wants a spot at one of the most popular public universities in the Sunshine State, Florida State University in Tallahassee.

- You know, I love entrepreneurship so I'm like, well they have a school.

This definitely looks like it's it.

- [[Narrator] Well Florida's public universities have some of the most affordable tuition rates in the country.

The cost of room and board is a problem for Nailah.

- 'Cause I know I can't afford like a $3,000 tuition.

- [Narrator] Money is also a big concern for Juan Bustamante.

He doesn't want to add to the financial pressures facing his parents who immigrated to the US from Columbia when he was two.

- They had their jobs but they gave all that up for me and my brother to come here.

So that gets me thinking now I owe them.

Now it's up to me to go out and and do what they brought me here for.

- His father and me tried to work very hard because his future is dedication.

- [Narrator] Now divorced, his mom worked several jobs so Juan and his brother can afford to live in this neighborhood near Fort Lauderdale.

That way Juan can attend Cooper City High, a top performing public school.

- There's been times where the money that comes in isn't enough to pay for essentials such as the electricity here at home.

- [Narrator] That means there have been nights of doing homework in the dark and in the stifling heat.

- And I've tried just try to make the best out of it.

If the power goes off, I'll light a candle.

I'll continue doing what I do and truck through it.

But otherwise, if now I have electricity, I feel grateful.

- [Narrator] Juan doesn't complain about his situation.

His only regret is the family can't afford resources that could improve his SAT scores.

- Applying to college costs money.

Taking these tests that are required to apply to these colleges also cost money.

You do wish sometimes that you had more money just to be able to buy a test review book or be able to be tutored, get that extra help.

- [Narrator] Georgetown is his dream one he thinks could help his family.

- I see them working as hard as they do for the low amount of salary that they get compared to others.

It makes me feel the pressure to go out, get this education, get a career and not end up in the same situation that they are in now.

- [Narrator] Juan's classmate Abbie Tuschman faces different pressures including perfection.

She says that expectation of being among the best in her class comes from within and from classmates.

- Sometimes people will say to me, Abbie, you seem so calm, you have it all together.

How are you not pulling your hair out with stress?

My hair is falling out from stress.

They just don't see it.

I think-- - [Narrator] Are you joking?

- No, no I've gone to the doctor because of how much hair is falling out.

- [Narrator] Is that stress?

- Yeah.

- [Narrator] Abbie is president of the school's honor society and editor of the school paper.

She's got a weighted GPA of 5.2 and a nearly perfect SAT score.

- I guess my lowest point in high school was after I got a B in a class, which sounds ridiculous saying that now I just felt really idiotic for getting distracted enough that I let myself get a B.

And saying things like that makes me realize how much I've let grades consume me at times.

- [Narrator] Abbie wants to attend an Ivy league.

Yale is her first choice, but her mom worries Abbie's chances of admission will suffer because of things outside of her daughter's control.

- Do I believe that it hurts Abbie that we live in a nice neighborhood?

Yes, but her whole life she's benefited from that.

But for college, if she was an underrepresented minority or our last name was not Jewish, she would have a better chance of getting in.

- So how important are things like wealth, legacy and diversity in the admissions process?

That depends on the school, admissions teams can use very different factors when judging applications, particularly when it comes to public versus private schools.

- [Narrator] Of course schools generally consider academic performance the core of an application.

But at top schools where the number of applications have skyrocketed, so many students earn top grades and high SAT and ACT scores.

It's much tougher deciding who deserves a seat.

- With the greater number of applications, there are more people overly qualified.

So what happens is they gotta find like tiebreakers to weed you out.

So did you run your own business?

Do you have a pilot's license?

Do you speak three languages?

Were you student body president?

- [Narrator] Charles Murphy is an admissions officer at the University of Florida ranked in the top five in the country for public institutions according to US news.

Murphy says, while academics are the priority for admissions at UF, it is not a formula decision.

- We feel in our admissions process that there's value in giving an individualistic holistic review of an applicant.

So that can lead to some decisions where someone with maybe a slightly higher test score or a slightly higher GPA would not be admitted over a student who has a slightly lower test score GPA.

- [Narrator] In a holistic review, admissions officers look beyond grades and test scores and consider the whole student from an applicant's special talents to their community service.

- And for decades, many schools considered race as a part of that holistic review, federal law had permitted the use of affirmative action in admissions as long as schools didn't use racial quotas.

- [Narrator] Dana Thompson Dorsey teaches education law at the University of South Florida.

- The court basically said race could be used as a plus factor.

It was added to many admissions policies at universities and particularly those are highly selective elite universities admissions policies.

- [Narrator] Harvard has said race was used as a tipping factor and when we visited George Washington University, their admissions officer Ben Toll, shared how race played a role in their admissions process.

- So at GW we have a very strong commitment diversity.

There are times where it'll play a role in how we look at files.

You know, and that's something that the university's been out loud about it.

- [Narrator] But in a historic 2023 decision, the Supreme Court struck down race conscious admissions policies.

That means schools admissions practices must be colorblind.

Even as university leaders strive for diverse campuses.

- There are some factors that have often been considered proxies for race and socioeconomic status is one of them.

So you will have more universities focusing on those who are economically disadvantaged, maybe first generation students, maybe even geographical locations because those things that you may consider may also bring in more students who are racially and ethnically diverse.

- [Narrator] Thompson Dorsey believes race won't be completely eliminated from the process because students can still talk about ethnicity in their essays.

- The case at no way impacts students' right to be able to talk about things that are important to them, that have impacted their lives, that have shaped who they are.

Race may be one, maybe being poor or being homeless or being Jewish and maybe having to deal with antisemitism.

All those things may be mentioned in one's personal statement.

So admissions can consider all of that's a holistic review of that individual.

- [Narrator] All of our students want diverse campuses, but how to even the playing field for applicants isn't simple.

- I think economics should definitely be considered in an application just because a kids don't have like a choice of how well their economics is.

But I don't think you should make the standards less per se.

- I believe they do try to diversify their class as much as they can.

And I believe this is fair to the country.

Diversity within a student body I believe is one of the most important things these schools can look for.

That's not necessarily fair to the random individual student.

- [Narrator] Sean is Hispanic.

He's not sure what impact, if any, it had on his application at Yale, one of the most competitive institutions in the world.

Sean applied before the Supreme Court decision.

He also applied early admission, which can increase the odds of getting in, but he was deferred, which means he'll have to wait while Yale considers him with the regular applicant pool.

- My deferral letter said, please understand that this is not based on your hard work, it's based on the needs of our student class.

So I understand that.

However, it doesn't mean you emotionally understand that.

- [Narrator] Campus diversity is more than just about race.

Ellen Chow is the dean of undergraduate admissions for Johns Hopkins University, one of the country's top private higher ed institutions.

- We do try to maintain some sense of balance across all the different aspects of our student body.

And those can be a factor for students as they apply to different schools.

- Balance for a student body can mean admissions officers consider things like female to male ratios or admitting students from all 50 states or as many countries as possible.

Another factor students can't control is the impact of legacy.

Some schools give students whose parent or loved one attended that school a leg up in the admissions process.

Do legacy families have an advantage in the admissions process?

- Sure.

I mean I think that answer is gonna vary at different institutions.

At GW, is it, are we excited when we see a legacy applicant?

Yes obviously we like to see the students that have that affinity for GW, but is it gonna cause me to select one student over a more qualified one?

No.

And so sometimes maybe you're at the point that it might be helping to break a tie when we're in a really tight spot and trying to figure out what's the right decision and that that can help get a student over the edge.

But it's never gonna move above the more core academic parts of how we evaluate students.

- If I had the power to, I would get rid of legacy preference at colleges because I understand the holistic process and looking at someone's socioeconomic background and the hardships that they've overcome because that shows grit, it shows endurance and that's important in college.

But looking at where someone's parents went to school, I think it's just undermining the meritocracy ideal that you would imagine elite schools having.

- [Narrator] In 2023, just 3% of the 56,000 plus students who applied to Harvard were admitted.

But legacy applicants have had a significantly higher rate of acceptance.

- 30 to 40% of the incoming freshman class at Harvard were legacies.

- A 2023 study by researchers at Harvard and Brown universities found that the most elite colleges do enroll a disproportionate share of legacy students.

The weight of legacy can vary greatly from school to school.

Some institutions don't consider it while at others it can play a significant role.

- I think that the college admissions process is not fair because it favors some students over the other.

- [Narrator] Angel Perez leads the National Association of College Admissions counselors.

He says Legacy admissions still exists because it fosters generational loyalties and can help a university's bottom line.

- The majority of institutions in this country, the two biggest sources of revenue for them are tuition and philanthropy.

And so they're always also going to be looking for families who are going to make, be able to make generous donations to the institution.

- [Narrator] Regardless some schools have announced an end to the use of legacy and other institutions are examining the fairness of it in their admissions policies.

- Family income can also be a part of admissions.

Schools are looking for a certain percentage of students that can pay full tuition.

- When I was a chief enrollment officer at an institution of higher education, every year I had to bring in a certain amount of money in tuition revenue in order for the institution to thrive and to meet its budget.

And so every year I had to balance my revenue needs with what's right for students.

And I think that's a model that this country really has to grapple with.

The issue in our country is that we don't fund higher education as if it's a public good, as if it's good for society.

We kind of fund it as if it's good for the individual and that conflict really ends up coming to play in the admissions process.

- [Narrator] And a student's lack of income can also be part of weighing applications.

- There are some schools who are what we call need aware and so they will look at whether students intend to or have applied for financial aid.

- [Narrator] That means a private college that has budgeted, for example $20 million in financial aid will accept a class that doesn't exceed that amount.

Perez remembers the frustration of not being able to give everyone a seat.

- One of the things that I used to do when I worked at colleges is I would show my trustees every single year the data on the students I couldn't admit because I couldn't fund them and I would give them some demographic information.

Here's how much more diverse my class could be if I had more funding.

Here is how much more academically talented my class could be if I had more funding.

And so most schools keep that data, but they're certainly never gonna make that public.

- [Narrator] Sometimes the nation's most elite universities can actually afford to be more generous with financial aid.

That's because they have large endowments.

That's money and assets that have been donated to the institution.

And while public universities may not have as large of endowments, they do get public dollars that substantially reduce the cost of student tuition.

And so what you want the price of a degree often determines where, or even if a student goes to college, incomes haven't kept up with the cost of an education over the decades and student debt has exploded.

Doug Shapiro is research director for the National Student Clearinghouse.

- Students and families are being asked to pay a much larger share of the burden of their education than we've done in this country in many, many years.

- [Narrator] According to a survey by US News, a student at an in-state public college in the 2022/23 school year paid on average more than $10,400 in tuition and fees.

That doesn't include room and board, out-state students at public colleges paid nearly $23,000 and students at private institutions paid nearly $40,000.

- What's really important is for families to have a conversation about what am I willing to pay while I'm in school and then what kind of monthly payments am I willing to make after I graduate?

And the conversation has to happen not just with students but also with the parents.

Because many parents are taking out parent plus loans, which are loans specifically for parents.

- I need you to be clear on what you're saying.

- [Narrator] Nailah's very tight family budget is the main reason why she now considers Miami-Dade College, part of the state's community college system her backup plan if she can't afford a state school or doesn't get admitted.

- Miami-Dade it's a lower tuition and my debt rate wouldn't be as high and then maybe I'll go somewhere else maybe give it a second chance.

So I just think that Miami-Dade, it's not a bad place, it's just like more of a backup.

Okay, you didn't get to where you wanted to be, but you're here right now so what are you gonna do now?

- I worry about throwing my family into debt 'cause of the money.

Especially because not my whole life.

They've been helping me out and they've essentially been paying for everything and it adds another pressure to do super well and get a super good job at super good graduate school because I feel like if I go to college outta state somewhere expensive.

And I don't do as well as I was anticipating, then I'm just wasting their money.

- Many seemingly small factors like a student's choice of major can also impact their odds of admission.

- At the University of Illinois, the applicant pool for the College of Engineering when I was there was very large, very strong.

Had high average GPA and test scores.

But as a comparison it would be easier to get into the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

So students have no control that while the program that I'm interested in is more competitive than a program that I'm not interested in.

- At GW we do kind of look at students by broader themes.

Like we look at engineering versus liberal arts versus international relations and business and so on.

And we do look to try to make sure we have certain number of students in each different area.

- [Narrator] For Juan, that means the competition for Georgetown will be very steep since he wants to major in international relations, the school is coveted for its public policy program, which is ranked among the best nationally.

- If Georgetown says no, I'm gonna have to accept the fact that they said no.

It's pretty difficult.

Especially when you set your eyes on a school for so many years.

- [Narrator] Murphy says students need to accept there are a list of factors outside of their hands.

- They also have no control over institutional priorities.

So what's important for a particular institution?

At one institution it may be having an outstanding music program is an institutional priority.

So someone who has outstanding music talent is going to have an advantage in the admissions process.

- [Narrator] The quality of an application is also important.

All six students have been doing their best to showcase their strengths, talents and achievements.

Dee isn't sure she did all she could to sell herself in her applications, especially the essays.

- I think you do have to be aggressive in the admissions process because if you're not aggressive then you're kind of just in the background, your background character and you need, it's super important to stand out.

I do feel it's become that way to where people have to pretty much give them their whole backstory and they love hearing about struggles and stuff, even if it's kind of weird because some people really like to keep those things to themselves.

- [Narrator] Perez disagrees and says it's about being real.

- The one thing that I admire the most was authenticity.

I think students often forget that admissions officers know that they are 16, 17, 18 year olds who are just teenagers.

And so we wanted them to write their essays in a teenage voice.

I didn't expect that it was gonna be a Pulitzer Prize winning essay.

I didn't expect that students were going to Costa Rica to save the rainforest as many students actually told me that they felt they needed to do in order to get into college.

And so that's the kind of pressure that students put on themselves that actually admission officers are not expecting.

- [Narrator] Sometimes Nailah can feel overwhelmed by the process because no one in her family has earned a college degree.

She wished she had more support.

- It's more like, I don't know how to do this.

I'm getting a little stressed out, I'm crying, like it's okay I'm almost there.

I'm not good at this, but it's okay 'cause I know school isn't everything that I know I'm gonna go out in the world and I'm gonna do something with myself.

- [Narrator] Where Nailah and her peers get admitted lies with a group like this.

This is the admissions team at Florida International University.

The state university in Miami, the day we visited, they reviewed student appeals to admissions decisions.

- His family member that's ill in the summer.

That could affect how we perform in those classes.

- That's why, yeah, that's why I'm thinking, I think we can, I don't think that falls the option.

- When I look at the high school GPA, she did well in terms of her entire academic career.

Up until at least from I'm seeing from a high school or from a senior perspective.

She's a 4.10.

- You saw that.

- I did circle it on my paperwork.

- Yeah.

So that right there is my biggest pet peeve of any essays.

- [Narrator] Jody Glassman is assistant vice president of admissions at FIU.

- We're going beyond the quantitative.

And looking at qualitative characteristics.

Such as the strength of schedule.

Did the student take challenging courses all the way through their high school curriculum?

Were they taking the most challenging classes for them?

- [Narrator] Making admissions decisions will remain especially difficult for schools like the University of Florida.

There are several reasons why the number of applications to these highly sought after schools continues to grow.

Many schools are now test optional when it comes to SAT and ACT scores and the common app also made it easier to apply to many schools with one application.

- The difference between, for lack of a better term, the last 10% that get admitted and the first 10% that do not get admitted, there is very, very little difference between those two groups.

However you slice it sometimes students think those differences are bigger than they actually are.

So if a student scored 20 points higher on an SAT than another student, that's essentially the same score.

- [Narrator] Acceptance rates at these highly competitive schools have dropped in recent years because of more applications.

Glassman says she's seen an unreasonable amount of pressure on some students to get into the right schools and parents can be a part of the problem.

- We have seen parents writing students' essays.

We have seen parents writing emails to us pretending to be the student.

That's not okay.

Your student has to have a vested interest of where they're going.

They're the one who is going to be here.

- So I think part of the anxiety has to do with our economy.

I don't know, I don't know what the future's gonna look like, but as a parent, I'm with my children for 17, 18 years.

What I can control is perhaps putting them into a really good college to give them the best advantage they have.

So I think that's where some of the fear comes in.

- We see a lot of anxiety of young people in the college admissions process and it starts early even in middle school.

And it's disheartening.

It's up to all of us to really find ways to get people to just relax.

- [Narrator] But relaxing after years of striving to get into a dream school isn't easy.

When decision day came for Gabe, the rejection from Duke wasn't what he expected.

- I didn't get in.

I always assume that if I give something my all and I don't hold anything back that I'll be able to achieve and succeed it.

And in this case I wasn't able to, but I learned a lot from that, so.

- [Narrator] Dee also faced disappointment.

Notre Dame said no to her application.

As for Nailah.

- [Person 1] Can you read a little bit of it to me?

- It says after a careful review of your application, we regret that we are unable to offer you admission as a first year student to the Summer Bridge program through care in Florida State University.

So yeah.

- [Narrator] But Nailah had the comfort of knowing she had already been accepted to another state university.

- I didn't expect to get accepted to everything or everywhere.

So it's just like, okay, you wouldn't accept me.

It's okay I'll go somewhere else.

You know what I'm saying?

So it's just like I'll find my place somewhere.

Yeah.

- [Narrator] Juan also got a no from Georgetown and Abbie who had hoped Yale would say yes, did not.

- Rejected from Yale.

- Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Abbie, that doesn't mean anything honey.

We love you, it doesn't mean anything.

- I, yeah, I'm fine.

- They're idiots.

I am so angry at them because she's amazing and she would be an amazing asset to any school.

So I'm really, really pissed off.

- Yeah, I don't think I'm surprised.

I think based on my test scores, grades, the rigor of my course load, I was qualified but they're looking to build a class and I guess they just didn't need me in it.

- [Narrator] Abbie was waitlisted at Harvard, meaning it might give her a spot if there was space and she was accepted outright to other institutions.

- Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon or Pit is going to be so lucky to have you.

- Okay.

Yeah, I'm fine.

- [Narrator] Still, Abbie thinks she could have done more.

- I don't think that I reached the ceiling in terms of living up to my potential in high school.

- I disagree with that.

- I could have done more.

- I think they needed a tuba player from Wyoming or something weird to make their class there.

- I just think there are a lot of students like me.

- There's only so many hours in a day.

And she took classes every summer.

She has been working for the newspaper the whole time and the National Honors Society and being the president.

I don't know what they expect from these kids.

- [Narrator] Abbie doesn't have any regrets about working so hard, but she does think her story might be a lesson to others.

- Maybe people will be able to ask themselves before they take on like five AP classes in a year and a million extracurricular positions.

Do I want this?

Because I mean you can work really hard like me and then not get into any of the Ivy League schools you apply to like nothing is guaranteed.

- [Narrator] And then there was Sean who finally got his answer from Yale after his initial deferral.

- Oh, I got in.

(audience cheering) Yay.

- [Narrator] Sean's not sure what pushed him over the edge, but he was meticulous in his application and that includes an essay which reflected on a meeting with a stranger that made him want to help Alzheimer's patients.

- I began to wonder how such a powerful intricately engineered instrument of biological machinery could fail yet continue to feel.

Eventually this interest advanced into my inner passion for psychology and neuroscience influencing me to pursue a career in medicine and the sciences.

- [Narrator] The fact that Sean was the only one of the six students who got into his top pick was not a surprise to our experts.

- I will tell you that I spent the majority of my career as a dean of admission at highly selective institutions.

I used to tell the faculty every year that I could take the admitted class, remove them and take the same number off the wait list and my class would be just as strong, maybe even stronger.

That is how many talented students were in my applicant pool.

- [Narrator] All five students admit the rejections hurt, but it appeared they got over it fast.

There were big moments on the calendar, albeit celebrations like graduations were virtual as they were the first class to graduate during the COVID pandemic.

But there was also a little time to prepare for the next big steps.

In Juan's case he needed to get to Alaska for a summer job.

- Just to have this money on the side that I could use to pay off any debts that I get from dorming.

- [Narrator] Nailah decided to go with her most affordable and convenient option, Miami-Dade College.

- Well I don't have a car and I didn't have a lot of scholarships.

- [Narrator] To avoid any debt she planned to get her associate's degree online, then transfer to a state university for her business degree.

Gabe followed his parents' advice choosing a free education at West Point Military Academy in New York.

Dee flew across the country to pursue a pre-med degree at Gonzaga University in Washington State.

Abbie plans to go pre-med too.

She chose John Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Sean also had plans to follow in his mom's footsteps as a physician and as sweet as it was knowing he had achieved his goal.

The goodbyes were not any easier.

- Sorry.

- [Narrator] Oh that's okay.

That's part of the process.

It would be crazy if you didn't cry.

- Yeah, I'm supposed to be happy.

- [Narrator] I wanna cry with you.

- I'm just at home anyway.

It's okay.

- [Narrator] We wondered whether Sean's acceptance to his dream school Yale would give him an advantage post-graduation over his peers.

Yale has one of the largest endowments in the world to pay for groundbreaking research and top faculty.

- Well the biggest factor in determining future earnings is your major, what you get into.

There's just certain majors that pay and a lot more than others do.

- [Narrator] Martin Van Der Werf is the director of editorial and education policy at Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce.

- In certain places what you're buying, if you go to an institution like Georgetown, you're buying basically the group of people that you're going to meet and the reputation of the school.

However, there's a number of industries in which we find that getting a degree from a super expensive institution really doesn't matter in terms of your future earnings.

A good example is nursing.

They might get it from the local public institution.

They might get it from a very expensive private institution.

But we find that actually it doesn't matter that much.

In a lot of professions, it doesn't matter.

It's the high professions when you're really trying to get into leadership roles, there's a reason why there's so many CEOs who went to the top 100 institutions in this country.

You're buying your way into that clique, if I can put it that way, that where everyone watches out for one another.

- The nice thing about having gone to Harvard and having gone to Penn is that quite frankly I have a lot of unsuccessful friends.

So I can look these parents in the eye and I can say to them, just sending your child to UF or Harvard or Stanford is not a ticket to success at all.

It's not.

- [Narrator] So what success did our students find at the schools they chose to attend?

- There are a lot of things about Yale that I realize now would not have meshed well with my personality.

But I think the name recognition played so much into the schools I applied to.

- [Narrator] While pursuing a career in medicine would likely be lucrative wherever Abbie went to college.

Johns Hopkins has a world renowned medical school.

She also has a writing major she's excited about.

- It does seem crazy to me now that I was so focused on getting into a school that didn't have the major I actually wanted.

Yeah, I was just so caught up in the name of the university that I didn't really pay attention to whether I'd be happy.

- [Narrator] Dee says when she applied to Gonzaga, a small private Catholic university in Spokane, she never really thought she'd actually end up attending.

- It definitely was an interesting journey.

If I'm being 100% honest, my freshman year of high school, I didn't know what Gonzaga was.

I'd honestly never heard about it.

- [Narrator] Dee told us she thinks it's a better fit for her peace of mind than Notre Dame because of the size of the institution.

- I feel amazing.

I do think that size was definitely a factor.

I think if it was a lot bigger I would definitely be super overwhelmed.

- [Narrator] Dee admits she's still concerned though about the price tag.

- So I'm definitely a little bit worried about money 'cause I mean it is an expensive school, but also I'm kind of just going with it through the next four years.

- [Narrator] Juan says pursuing his bachelor's degree at FSU instead of Georgetown turned out to be a blessing.

Studying in Florida's capital of Tallahassee still gives him a connection to politics and there's a big financial benefit.

- I remember looking into schools in Washington DC I would've been stuck paying a lot of money and probably would've graduated with a lot of debt.

And then, looking at a school, a public school, they're pretty generous with financial aid.

I'm gonna leave here getting paid to go to school, so that is ideal for anybody.

- [Narrator] Months later, Nailah decided business was not the right fit for her and switched to pursue her passion for writing as an English major.

But soon after that she decided to take a break from college.

- Honestly, going through like the years of doing it, like it was kind of making me a bit miserable.

- [Narrator] Nailah never felt comfortable attending college in person and instead decided it was time to look for a job.

She plans to keep writing her poetry.

- You'll get your degree, you'll get a job, you know what I'm saying?

And you're gonna be okay from there on.

But now things have changed.

You don't really need a degree.

You know, sometimes you just need a certificate in certain things like to do real estate or different things.

And so from what I'm doing, I'm thinking I don't really need a degree so it's like I can be doing something else.

- [Narrator] Nailah's dilemma about whether to even get a college degree is a far more common worry than whether a student can get admitted to an elite university.

High school graduates often choose to pursue a paycheck instead of a degree, but research shows that for most people, getting a degree does matter when it comes to future financial earnings.

- Typically the data shows that what we call the earnings premium for a person with a bachelor's degree over a high school graduate has been pretty steady at around 80%.

So you would make about 80% more during a lifetime as an adult than you would if you only had a high school diploma.

- [Narrator] Gabe's education didn't come with the typical college price tag.

He and his fellow cadets get a stipend during their time at the military academy and after graduation, he'll have to commit to five years of service in the military.

It's a choice he's grateful he made.

- Getting used to all the standards and rules and the way things, the way people do things around here was really tough.

But now honestly the hardest part is the academics.

This week I had four papers due and two projects and so I was like, man, I really could be at a regular college taking 14 credit hours, not worrying about a whole lot.

But then I realized I want to be here and honestly, there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

- [Narrator] Gabe says, looking back, he appreciates his parents pushing him to go to West Point and leave home.

- For my parents feeling like I failed if I didn't leave Albuquerque or New Mexico.

I see what they were saying.

I have experienced so many different people and different things just coming here.

I kind of opened up my perspectives.

Everybody has such a different perspective on like what is America and what values they hold that it's just coming here has really allowed me to grow in my understanding of what it means to be an American and what it means to be a good person.

And then I guess there's something to say about the saying mother knows best, my parents wanting me to come here really did affect where I went.

I want to make them proud and I want to earn that.

So I guess that was a big decision, a big factor.

- [Narrator] He should be proud.

It's not easy to get in.

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Tolman leads admissions at West Point.

- We receive more than 10 applicants for every student that gets admitted.

So most of the letters unfortunately that we send out are two students who will not get admitted and I received one of those as a high school senior and I know how devastating that can be.

So students should not tie their self-worth to an acceptance by a selective institution.

- [Narrator] Tolman was only admitted to West Point on his second try.

- So it's important to realize that you can reapply and try to get in a second or third or fourth time.

And also it's important to think about what your larger goals are, so maybe you can accomplish those same goals going somewhere else.

- [Narrator] Sean also believes he can reach his goals without a Yale degree.

He says that while clearly loving his life in New Haven, Connecticut.

- How does it feel to be at Yale?

- No, it feels, as I hoped, it feels humbling to be around such immensely brilliant young people.

It feels competitive.

- And do you think it's any different than another university?

- I think in general, no.

I think life is the same.

It's the amount of attention you put into your work, the amount of tension you put into what you wanna do in the future.

However, I think the expectations might be higher.

- [Narrator] And Sean is taking advantage of these opportunities.

- You definitely have professors who are at the top of their fields and they very well integrate their current research into the class material.

- [Narrator] Between classes Sean volunteers as a student researcher in Yale's neurobiology labs.

- So it studies the pathobiology of neurodegeneration primarily in Alzheimer's disease.

So I've been thankful to have the opportunity.

- [Narrator] Sean estimates he puts in five to seven hours of studying a day and more on weekends.

- Friends as well as just people in classes.

You realize how brilliant they are and how much they've already done at such a young age.

You wonder if you actually do fit where you are.

Thankfully, I think that it's okay to think that to a certain extent to see that you can learn from them.

- [Narrator] He also feels a pressure to not let his parents down.

They're paying for his bachelor's at Yale and Sean wants to make sure their investment pays off.

- Most likely my parents will have to work longer just for me and my sisters to go to school.

- [Narrator] How do you feel about that?

- Definitely guilty.

I think anyone who would be in that position would feel guilty.

- [Narrator] Sean does not take his parents' hard work for granted.

- Almost every day I feel privileged of what my parents have sacrificed for me to be here.

- [Narrator] Sean is fortunate.

Less than 1% of students will attend an Ivy League university.

Those elite schools are few and far between.

Of the roughly 4,300 institutions that grant degrees, the majority of those schools admit most people who apply to them.

- There's a huge amount of schools out there that do some really wonderful things for their students and are really great institutions and people graduate from there and live happy and fulfilling and successful lives.

I mean, I get it.

I understand like parents, you want what's best for your kids and you want your kids to have everything they've ever dreamed about and I totally understand that.

But teach them that it's okay if their dreams are just to be a happy and healthy and loving person and everything else will fall into place.

- It's something about the earth, it's worth saving, something about me, this fondness, it's something you see about living seconds and moments seem worth it.

- [Narrator] A lesson all of our students agreed with.

- Right now I'm glad I didn't go to Duke.

I don't think I would've enjoyed it as much.

And I think that West Point's a much better fit for me.

- One of the biggest advice they give you in high school, especially from guidance counselors, is that where you end up is where you are meant to be.

And to be honest, I've found that to be true even amongst my friends.

- [Narrator] That seems to be true, especially for Abbie.

She considers it a blessing she ended up at Johns Hopkins.

- I wouldn't have the friends I have here if I'd gone to Yale or any other school and it's cheesy, but I'm really happy here.

- [Narrator] Time and distance have made them see their stress during high school very differently.

- I'm sure 14 year old me would be very proud of me.

- [Narrator] Nailah's success is something she's trying to define for herself and that might not include a university degree, but maybe a certificate and finding a way to express herself in an artistic way.

- I just feel like people who are in the same position like me, like kids of immigrant parents, they put a lot of pressure on themselves to be the first to take care of their family.

And I just feel like sometimes you have to step away from the whole family thing and think about yourself.

What do you really want for yourself?

- [Narrator] Sean has let go of the perfectionism from high school.

He has a new confidence.

- I have definitely struggled in a few classes, but I'm okay with that.

I'm just glad to be in a situation where I can struggle and know that it'll be okay.

- I mean, looking back the all, the stress of trying to get into a school that, I mean, it might be your dream school, but maybe you just think it's your dream school and I actually just got a thought about getting into top tier schools.

I think a lot of the part reasoning behind it is just the name.

Like if it's labeled as an Ivy, it's seen as amazing.

It's kind of like, I don't know, like a Gucci belt versus a belt that you can buy at Target.

I mean, they both do the same thing, but one's more expensive and one gets a lot more hype, but the belt at Target is just as great.

I don't know if that makes sense, but that's kind of how I see it.

- [Narrator] Perhaps a dream school is just the place where you start making your dreams happen and that can be anywhere you want it to be.

- I think how far I make it in life is how I choose to live my life, how smartly I choose to live my life, and how much work I put into it.

- I'm going to be reapplying for grad school, so we're gonna go through it all over again.

You know, I'm a little bit nervous, but I'll handle it when I get there.

(gentle music) (upbeat music)