The Ten Toughest Schools to Get Into

By toughest colleges to get into, we don't mean there's a bouncer at the door checking for fake IDs. It's a fact for every student trying to get into a top college and university that some schools just seem nearly impossible to get into. You can be an outstanding academic with an extraordinary background, but these elements will simply offer you a closer look by the review board who considers applicants from all over the world. The following is a list of top colleges, many of them Ivy League schools, who are considered the toughest of the toughest.

At the top of this prestigious heap is the capital of scholastic gadgetry geekdom, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This top college is so restrictive in their acceptance policy that even admission doesn't guarantee you'll graduate as their first-year academic program is enough to make high-school valedictorians quake in their freshmen boots. Close behind in second place is the venerable Ivy League institution, Yale University. They have so many applicants that the college admission committee considers a 5% acceptance rate quite high. Whoa!

Following the top-two ranking schools are two more Ivy League standouts - Princeton and Harvard. Just mention those names in a job interview and watch eyes open. After all, their college major rankings are considered as good as it gets, and an academic degree from one of these guys is, well, like gold.

Coming in at fifth for this college ranking of toughest schools to get into is our most diminutive ranking school, Olin College, with a highly selected enrollment of - get this - 150 students. With our sixth choice, the rival of rivals for our top college selection, the California Institute of Technology. CalTech's bootcamp-like education program also engenders a certain disdain for those other geeks at MIT. At lucky number seven, another Ivy League powerhouse, New York City's Columbia University. Their sink-or-swim approach to college life is founded on the notion that their faculty holds at least five Nobel laureates and an academic program that prides itself on an extraordinary amount of disciplines.

With number eight, we move down to the City of Brotherly Love with the University of Pennsylvania, yet another Ivy League school. And numero nine sends us back to the West coast with Stanford University, a college known for having an alumni association that includes an ex-President's daughter, one "Tiger", and various royalty from around the globe. And last but certainly not least is the most expensive school in our college ranking, Brown University. The price of tuition makes you wonder how they can be so selective, but their academics focus on helping undergraduates achieve their utmost potential.

Quite a selection of top college and universities, with many of them living up to their reputations of being as tough to get into as a hot Hollywood nightclub. Their education programs vary, but these top ranking schools offer a student life that is second to none - and admission to one is a one-way ticket to success.