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On October 17 2013 08:15 babylon wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2013 07:48 Elegy wrote:
Right, but you're missing the point.
You have no ability, right, or evidence that student athletes are, in any way, dumber than the rest of the student body. Moreover, since the admission process is holistic and includes things other than grades, you have no right to say that student athletes deserve their college education any less, nor do they value it any less than non athlete students.
You need to understand that schools want more then just booksmarts. Again, your blog stinks of jealousy or bitterness against student athletes. You go as far as to say that they don't value their education as much as other students, for God's sake...
I honestly don't know why being book smart should be valued over being book smart and athletic. :/ It's not as if they accept B-class students just 'cause they're athletes; I'm sure most of the athletes at the top schools are smart as fuck and did very well in HS, anyhow, while juggling their sports practice on top of it all.
Yep. If I was in charge, I'd take an active water polo captain who is a leader, confident, and can juggle the harshness of water polo with academic success over a kid that got a 0.2 higher GPA.
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On October 17 2013 07:51 Elegy wrote:
Oh, you're one of these:
"300 spots go to the people that are actually going to spend $60k per year studying Philosophy, religion, sociology, french literature, etc"
Perhaps you should realize that fields other than hard sciences have validity. Such ignorance of your part. You wouldn't day things to an admissions officer, would you?
So studying economics isn't going to do anything to the world, so what majors are? Make a list of what is worthy studying, how about that. The audacity of your ignorance and unjustified elitism boggles my mind.
OP, I think much of your silly rant stems from the fact that kids like you are, in the eyes of Harvard, a dime a dozen. You don't do anything that a thousand others don't do better.
/thread. You are a dime a dozen on paper. The sooner you realize this the better.
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On October 17 2013 07:36 Chocolate wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2013 07:09 babylon wrote:
If you go to the campus of a top school and ask students there if they think the athletes are dumber than they are, you won't receive a resounding, "Yes." In fact, you'll probably receive a resounding, "No."
Actually, if you go to the campuses of a top school and ask students there if they can list off anyone who they think don't deserve to be there, I'd be surprised if you get more than five names (and I'd be doubly surprised if they are all people who got preferential treatment during the admissions process). Show nested quote +On October 17 2013 06:44 Elegy wrote:On October 17 2013 03:20 Chocolate wrote:On October 16 2013 15:32 Elegy wrote:Hey OP, you're wrong. Look: If a Harvard athletic team is recruiting me, do I have to go through the same admissions process as other applicants? Yes. All prospective student-athletes must be accepted by the Harvard Admissions Office in order to play for a Harvard athletic team. Since all Ivy League schools do not award athletic scholarships, there are no signing dates for the National Letter of Intent. You will be notified of your acceptance into Harvard at the same time as all other applicants. To learn more about the application process, visit http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/. Yeah. This blog is full of unsupported evidence and reeks of little but bitterness. And what the heck? You say if we read your application, we'd think your Asian? How does that not reek of racial profiling and racism on behalf of the OP? Moreover, your point about student athletes is wrong. Look up evidence of student athlete GPA at top schools. Also, prove to me that starting some little club on campus where you solve chemistry problems is more worthy of admission than leading a champion water polo team. University is about fostering a lot more than just how good you are at solving something on paper. You're forgetting leadership, motivation, inspiration, and a host of other traits that student athletes tend to embody. You are technically right, but ivies and schools like stanford are able to say this because they don't officially offer admissions before the normal letters go out. They actually send out these things called likely letters that are basically unofficial offers of admission with the caveat that students don't do anything stupid like get straight Ds or get arrested. Also, coaches are given a rough allotment of people they can accept each year as long as their mean (or median, I don't remember) is within one standard deviation of the academic index of the college as a whole (AI is a way to combine grades, scores, etc. into one. see this article). And I think it was pretty stereotypical for me to think my application would make it appear I was a member of a certain race, but I did really well in this competition called the US National Chemistry Olympiad that would suggest that I was Asian, just from past results. If I did just a bit better I would have ben invited to their camp. You can see their names here. There have also been years where the entire camp was Asian. And I fit the stereotype with a lot of my after school activities like math team, academic teams, etc. Sorry if I offended you. If you can find average gpas of athletes at top colleges then I'd like to see it. But I honestly think that a lot of those colleges would probably not willingly release that information. You are also trapped in the naive belief that the specific ranking of your undergraduate education has some important, practical benefit later in life. In all seriousness, it really doesn't. I realize that at this point in my life going to a nice college is a good way for me to affect my future earnings and get involved in interesting research and that, you know, I actually want to go to school with mostly smart people. I know someone will accuse me of elitism, but oh well.
I like how entitled you think you are. People don't get involved in 'interesting research' unless you can prove that you are better than the other students or if you know the people in charge, even then, you have to be at least relatively intelligent. If you are better than the other students you won't have a problem.
'I actually want to go to school with mostly smart people', this statement is so ignorant.
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On October 17 2013 08:15 babylon wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2013 07:48 Elegy wrote:
Right, but you're missing the point.
You have no ability, right, or evidence that student athletes are, in any way, dumber than the rest of the student body. Moreover, since the admission process is holistic and includes things other than grades, you have no right to say that student athletes deserve their college education any less, nor do they value it any less than non athlete students.
You need to understand that schools want more then just booksmarts. Again, your blog stinks of jealousy or bitterness against student athletes. You go as far as to say that they don't value their education as much as other students, for God's sake...
I honestly don't know why being book smart should be valued over being book smart and athletic. :/ It's not as if they accept B-class students just 'cause they're athletes; I'm sure most of the athletes at the top schools are smart as fuck and did very well in HS, anyhow, while juggling their sports practice on top of it all.
book smart athletes are sexy now, all of them are the next Andrew Luck until proven otherwise.
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On October 16 2013 08:48 Chocolate wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 21:53 c0ldfusion wrote:On October 15 2013 15:05 opsayo wrote:
the lesson you should be learning is two-fold
you're not a special snowflake
and life's not fair Sorry OP, but this is the truth. Play the hand you're dealt as best as you can. You'll be a lot happier not worrying about the injustices in the world. Maybe I'm just too young, but in my opinion a defeated attitude and just a willingness to accept things the way they are is pretty destructive. There is inequality and unfairness in life, but there are also changes we can do to make them go away just a little bit. You can't just say that inequality is always going to exist and there's nothing we can do to address it; if we didn't do that there would be loads of things still wrong with our society. Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 22:55 cam connor wrote:
Nice statistics there champ
Maybe you don't get in colleges because you make grand statements without backing them up
for real you sound like a spoiled white kid who has never had any adversity in their life
if this is the most "unfair" thing that you ever go through in your life
you are a fucking lucky individual Well if I understand you then you are calling me a liar. I don't really know what to say other than that academics and school are basically the only things that I'm really good at, but you don't have to believe me if you don't want to. And of course this isn't the most unfair thing I will experience in my life but since it's a systematic thing it feels more unjust than discrimination by some thugs or random people. Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 23:12 c0ldfusion wrote:On October 15 2013 22:59 cam connor wrote:
for real you sound like a spoiled white kid who has never had any adversity in their life
if this is the most "unfair" thing that you ever go through in your life
you are a fucking lucky individual Are you talking about OP? Because if I had to guess my money is on him being Asian... Nah I'm white but if you looked at my application without knowing my race you might think I were Asian. Show nested quote +On October 16 2013 03:35 Froadac wrote:
Likewise, don't go to hte best school you get into for just that reason. Visit and seriously consider if you want to be there.
Also, it's undergrad, it's not too important. I know a girl who went to a school which is barely top 200 in USA and she's going to LSE for PhD work. Nobody cares she went to Sonoma state now. I've visited some of the "best schools" and I actually did really like MIT the best, like I honestly think I would fit in there and be happy, or at least as happy as you could be at MIT  . I think I can honestly fit in at a lot of places, since I don't have this romantic concept of some perfect college for me that's out there waiting to be discovered. Show nested quote +On October 16 2013 07:22 darthfoley wrote:
Don't get your hopes up. I went through this exact same shit last year; I applied to 13 schools, including Harvard, Cornell, etc.
I thought I had the "full package," pretty good athlete, very good academics, ECs and whatnot.
I got into 2 schools: Franklin&Marshall, and Dickinson. These were my safety schools (they're pretty good in general, just compared to Harvard...).
Spring break was one of the hardest weeks, receiving 6 rejections in 3 days. I was very down, and not excited for F&M or Dickinson.
Long story short-- I am attending F&M and playing football on the school's team, and i'm LOVING it. I've met a lot of cool people, my classes are fun, etc. (And no, I was not one of those athletes you rightly identify as needing help to get in).
Moral: If you've done your research and genuinly like every school you're applying to, you'll enjoy your undergrad experience no matter where you go. Don't get caught up in "what ifs". Well I remembered reading your blog and feeling for you, my man. It's good to know that you are happy at your safety, I'm happy for you and hopefully if I find myself in the same situation I'll be able to manage. Anyway I'm sorry that I sounded like a whiny little bitch but hopefully I'll have reason not to whine so much once March and April roll around.
Nah, i completely understand where you're coming from. Just work with what you get and you'll end up happy
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On October 16 2013 15:32 Elegy wrote:Hey OP, you're wrong. Look: Show nested quote +If a Harvard athletic team is recruiting me, do I have to go through the same admissions process as other applicants? Yes. All prospective student-athletes must be accepted by the Harvard Admissions Office in order to play for a Harvard athletic team. Since all Ivy League schools do not award athletic scholarships, there are no signing dates for the National Letter of Intent. You will be notified of your acceptance into Harvard at the same time as all other applicants. To learn more about the application process, visit http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/. Yeah. This blog is full of unsupported evidence and reeks of little but bitterness. And what the heck? You say if we read your application, we'd think your Asian? How does that not reek of racial profiling and racism on behalf of the OP? Moreover, your point about student athletes is wrong. Look up evidence of student athlete GPA at top schools. Also, prove to me that starting some little club on campus where you solve chemistry problems is more worthy of admission than leading a champion water polo team. University is about fostering a lot more than just how good you are at solving something on paper. You're forgetting leadership, motivation, inspiration, and a host of other traits that student athletes tend to embody.
Oh, come on. I know from first hand experience that while Ivies say this, it does not totally work like it.
I spoke with a recruiter from UPenn during my college search who explained that every school has specific "bands": a certain # allotted slots per GPA/SAT range. For example, UPenn could only recruit one student with (let's say...) a 1750SAT/3.3GPA, but could recruit 8 players from the 2000SAT/3.7GPA range and so on up the scales.
Those specific band numbers are made up, but the point remains. It is much easier to get into an Ivy if you're recruited.
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Anyone who considers themselves a science or math person should probably prove their competence through the Olympiads. They are the most objective way to essentially guarantee admission, and if you don't do them you are surrendering to the fact that you will need some other hook and a lot of luck to get in. I think at MIT, coming in about 1/5 of math majors were top math Olympiad folks in high school. At the end, something like 4/5 of the top 10-15 math majors leaving were Olympiad people when they came in, and I am repeatedly amazed by the strength of that other 1/5.
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United States10328 Posts
On October 18 2013 13:25 Muirhead wrote:
Anyone who considers themselves a science or math person should probably prove their competence through the Olympiads. They are the most objective way to essentially guarantee admission, and if you don't do them you are surrendering to the fact that you will need some other hook and a lot of luck to get in. I think at MIT, coming in about 1/5 of math majors were top math Olympiad folks in high school. At the end, something like 4/5 of the top 10-15 math majors leaving were Olympiad people when they came in, and I am repeatedly amazed by the strength of that other 1/5.
huh, 1/5 of incoming math majors being Olympiad people seems sort of low; maybe it's true of the *domestic* math majors... basically 100% of the foreign math majors are IMO people @_@
But yeah, I completely agree with the rest of that, except perhaps the first sentence: if you are really smart and get lucky, you can substitute good research for good competition results ~_~
Anyway, yeah, it's hard to stand out. As people have said, there are tons and tons of smart kids who have good grades and good scores and good ECs and good recs and good leadership and some sports.
It's hard to stand out 
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On October 18 2013 13:25 Muirhead wrote:
Anyone who considers themselves a science or math person should probably prove their competence through the Olympiads. They are the most objective way to essentially guarantee admission, and if you don't do them you are surrendering to the fact that you will need some other hook and a lot of luck to get in. I think at MIT, coming in about 1/5 of math majors were top math Olympiad folks in high school. At the end, something like 4/5 of the top 10-15 math majors leaving were Olympiad people when they came in, and I am repeatedly amazed by the strength of that other 1/5.
Okay, I found out about the chemistry and math one at the beginning of last year, so I signed up my school for them. In the math one I didn't even make the AIME (I missed it by one question, yes I know I'm dumb) but I got a really high score in the first chemistry one which broke a few records where I'm from (highest in the state, highest score in history of region), but on the second test I didn't do well enough to even make honors, which was weird because I felt good about the test coming out of it. I'm taking both again this year, and I'm probably going to take the biology and computational ones as well, but as far as I know the results of them will come out after my acceptances/rejections are in. I wish I had done better in both of them, but I didn't. If I get waitlisted (which is probable), do you think making the camp for chemistry would be strong enough to make it off the list, provided anyone gets off the list? The rest of my app is strong, but I have no olympiad results that could make me a lock. I'm going to take a practice AMC from 2006 or something today to see how I do, because I want to at least make the AIME next year, but at this point it doesn't really matter how well I do. if by some miracle I advance to the USAMO I will probably only get 1 right.
On October 18 2013 19:46 ]343[ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2013 13:25 Muirhead wrote:
Anyone who considers themselves a science or math person should probably prove their competence through the Olympiads. They are the most objective way to essentially guarantee admission, and if you don't do them you are surrendering to the fact that you will need some other hook and a lot of luck to get in. I think at MIT, coming in about 1/5 of math majors were top math Olympiad folks in high school. At the end, something like 4/5 of the top 10-15 math majors leaving were Olympiad people when they came in, and I am repeatedly amazed by the strength of that other 1/5. huh, 1/5 of incoming math majors being Olympiad people seems sort of low; maybe it's true of the *domestic* math majors... basically 100% of the foreign math majors are IMO people @_@ But yeah, I completely agree with the rest of that, except perhaps the first sentence: if you are really smart and get lucky, you can substitute good research for good competition results ~_~ Anyway, yeah, it's hard to stand out. As people have said, there are tons and tons of smart kids who have good grades and good scores and good ECs and good recs and good leadership and some sports. It's hard to stand out
Ha, I have no illusion of being one of the best math majors at MIT, I'll probably sign up for a high level math class first semester just to see how hard it is (if I get in ), or one of the courses that I've studied on my own.
The only thing that makes me truly stand out are my scores (the common saying that MIT could fill its class with perfect scores is not true, there are only 1000 perfect scorers on the ACT and SAT every year and not all of them want to go to MIT anyway. I've met about 8 perfect scorers and only 3 want to go, but this could be affected by my state) but they aren't going to get me in alone.
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Well, shit.
I've been waiting about two months for this machine to come in for me to be able to complete my research, and it still isn't here (the people running a lab own a business and also want to use it commercially, so lawyers are doing their thing).The people at the lab don't want to give me anything else to research for the time being (funding sucks and I am, after all, only some high school kid). So now if I want to do research for Intel I either have to find a new lab in the next week or do some theoretical research.
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On October 19 2013 01:25 Chocolate wrote:
Well, shit.
I've been waiting about two months for this machine to come in for me to be able to complete my research, and it still isn't here (the people running a lab own a business and also want to use it commercially, so lawyers are doing their thing).The people at the lab don't want to give me anything else to research for the time being (funding sucks and I am, after all, only some high school kid). So now if I want to do research for Intel I either have to find a new lab in the next week or do some theoretical research.
I hope you find a research opportunity you enjoy! At this point I think nothing you do will improve your chances, besides potentially persuading your letter-writers to write better letters. It sounds like you come from a somewhat out-of-the-way state, which could be a point in your favor. Definitely mention (but only briefly) the Chemistry Olympiad stuff, and pretend like you've never heard of the AIME. I hope you make it to MIT, because we could always use more Starcraft players . I still attend the Starcraft club every week even though I am an alumnus now. If you don't make MIT, it doesn't really affect your future options for anything except possibly investment banking. Just like in high school, the difference will be that you won't have as many people around you to compare yourself to or know how competent you have to be to achieve certain feats like getting into a good grad school. If you do motivate yourself to do such things though, you'll have a much easier time getting personal attention from professors at a place where you stand out.
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On October 19 2013 01:25 Chocolate wrote:
Well, shit.
I've been waiting about two months for this machine to come in for me to be able to complete my research, and it still isn't here (the people running a lab own a business and also want to use it commercially, so lawyers are doing their thing).The people at the lab don't want to give me anything else to research for the time being (funding sucks and I am, after all, only some high school kid). So now if I want to do research for Intel I either have to find a new lab in the next week or do some theoretical research.
you know this kind of thing happens to grad students on a regular basis. except that it only ruins their careers.
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On October 27 2013 15:47 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2013 01:25 Chocolate wrote:
Well, shit.
I've been waiting about two months for this machine to come in for me to be able to complete my research, and it still isn't here (the people running a lab own a business and also want to use it commercially, so lawyers are doing their thing).The people at the lab don't want to give me anything else to research for the time being (funding sucks and I am, after all, only some high school kid). So now if I want to do research for Intel I either have to find a new lab in the next week or do some theoretical research. you know this kind of thing happens to grad students on a regular basis. except that it only ruins their careers.
Well, I feel bad for them as well. It sucks. I don't know what you want me to say. Sorry if this has happened to you.
I managed to get another project but we are going to be working right up to the deadline. It's going to be very !FUN! But right now I'm swamped with essays for schools with Nov. 1 deadlines.
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I was able to submit to Intel.
I accidentally sent my SAT scores to Caltech late so they might defer me solely on those grounds. However, since I know that Caltech is probably one of the most selective colleges out there (not % wise, but the group that applies is very self-selecting) I'm glad that I was able to bump up a Chemistry score by a bit.
Early admissions info comes out in two weeks asdfqwieb. I'm preparing to get deferred from both MIT and Caltech and probably accepted to all my match schools, but perhaps not with an invitation to the big merit scholarships. Hopefully I'm pleasantly surprised. GL to everyone else in the application process right now.
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