Getting up at 6 a.m. to drive to Orange County is not my idea of fun, but last week's meeting with admissions officers from Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, Pomona College and Loyola Marymount University was worth the trip.

These and other highly selective schools are flooded with impressive applicants. In 1995, the SAT was re-centered, resulting in a huge compression of high-end scores. The average grade point average rose one whole point in the last 15 years. So there are a lot more kids with strong grades and test scores.

When 80 to 90 percent of applicants are qualified and 10 to 20 percent are accepted, the vast majority of excellent students will not be admitted. Schools have their own institutional needs. As admissions officers assemble a freshman class, they have to satisfy coaches who need players and administrators who want to keep alumni happy by giving their children extra consideration.

They want to maintain gender balance and increase economic, ethnic and geographic diversity. The school's marching band needs a tuba player. The engineering school wants more women. A rejection really is not personal.

With the huge numbers of students presenting strong academic records, what stands out is intellectual curiosity. Admissions officers said a recommendation letter describing a student as diligent and hardworking is the kiss of death. This wouldn't be the case at less selective schools, but schools like Stanford, Penn, Duke and Pomona are looking for students who are excited about learning and who have made an impact, contributing both in class and in extracurricular activities.

Students who plan to apply to these schools should take a rigorous senior year curriculum with five academic classes. Attending summer school so you can take a lighter course load during the academic year makes admissions officers wonder if you can handle the workload at a competitive college. Even though a college might not require physics or calculus or a fourth year of foreign language, at highly selective schools you're at a disadvantage without those courses because so many students will have them.

Several admissions officers said when they see students who take community college courses instead of AP courses, they wonder if the student is trying to avoid the more challenging AP class. There are times when scheduling conflicts require a student to take a course at community college, but admissions officers are savvy about the strategies students sometimes use to lessen their workload. While some schools do look at the number of AP classes, others care more about quality and see some AP courses as "AP light."

Admissions officers have seen it all. When a student's activity list exceeded the number of hours in a week, the impression he created was not what he intended. Plus his counselor's letter didn't mention any of the activities.

A polished, beautifully written essay from a student whose writing score and English grades are weak and whose teacher recommendation says nothing about a gift for writing also raised a red flag.

Then there was the student who wrote that he wanted to attend Boston University because it's a member of the I.V. League. Since BU is not in the Ivy League and does not administer intravenous medication to students, this application was amusing but not successful.

Looking to the future, this is the first year that Penn is accepting the Common Application, and their numbers are up. Stanford is moving to the Common Application next year, and they expect an increase in applications.

One admissions dean predicted that next year, when Harvard and Princeton no longer offer early admissions options, students who previously applied to one elite school will apply to many more. The schools won't be able to predict which students will enroll, so they will accept fewer students initially and rely more on the waiting list to fill in the freshman class.

On the good news front, Princeton just announced they won't raise tuition next year. Let's hope that's the start of a trend.

Audrey Kahane, MS, MFA, is a private college admissions counselor in West Hills. She can be reached at (818) 704-7545 or audreykahane@earthlink.net.