In the Times, Sam Dillon writes about the wave of applications to Ivy League schools this year. (It's already the most e-mailed piece on the Times' website.)

It was the most selective spring in modern memory at America’s elite schools, according to college admissions officers. More applications poured into top schools this admissions cycle than in any previous year on record. Schools have been sending decision letters to student applicants in recent days, and rejection letters have overwhelmingly outnumbered the acceptances.

A few factoids: Harvard accepted nine percent of its applicants, the lowest in its history. Columbia, accepting 8.9%, was even more selective than Harvard With 23, 956 applicants, Stanford attracted about a thousand more potential students than did Harvard.

The cliche, of course, is true: Those of us of a different generation would almost surely not get in to these schools were to be judged by current standards.

But the question is, How much pressure can modern kids handle? How many extracurriculars can they perform? And are they sacrificing their childhood in the process?

I wonder if there won't be some kind of a backlash coming, or if the pressure to do more and more earlier and earlier will just continue to build. Anyone checked out teen suicide rates lately?