Seattle Fire Department: Harder than Harvard to get into

A magazine with the annoying title of 02138 (that being the zip code for Cambridge, Mass, around Harvard) grew a little testy about how elite Harvard is, even though the magazine is aimed squarely at Harvard alumni. So they did an article making some comparisons, with a surprising winner in the elitism sweepstakes: Seattle's Fire Department.

To start with the gold standard, Harvard. Last year, the magazine says, Harvard drew 22,955 applicants for 2,058 places in the freshman class. That's about 9 percent getting in. Now look at the Seattle Fire Department, which a year ago fielded 2,800 applicants for only 31 openings. Boot camp weeds out a sizable portion of those who make it that far. The resulting acceptance rate is 1.1 percent.

Others on the list include Stuyvesant High School in New York, where 27,000 vie for 800 hotly desired seats in the elite public school (3 percent score). Manhattan preschools, where the rat race really begins and prices approach $30,000 a year, score in the 1-5 percent range. The Juilliard School, top of the heap in music instruction, lets 7 percent of applicants into its halls. You're more likely to get a Rhodes Scholarship (2.1 percent) than to become a Seattle fireman.

Also tough to land a job is Infosys in Mysore, India, here 1.3 million apply for jobs each year and only 1 percent get one. Most exclusive club of all? American Idol, of course, the Fox reality show, which winnows 100,000 applicants to the 12 who appear on the show. Eat your heart out, firefighters. That's 0.01 percent.