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My question is...
Is it worth it to go to a super top tier University?
Sure places like Mudd have a high "graduate income", but you can get a good career making good money at almost any University if you put the work and time in... is 90k-120k a year as opposed to 50-60k a year worth throwing your entire age 15-30 experience away?
Not only that, but you basically HAVE to succeed in these schools, or you get out with massive dept and loans (over hundreds of thousands of dollars)?
I rank colleges/units as low/medium/high/top. I am 3 years into Uni at a mid level institution and am doing fine without massive stress or anything that I hear a lot of top uni students get..
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hope to keep my grades/activities the way they are at the moment in hopes to get into Northwestern/Stanford/other top tier schools.
(goals)
basically through my 2nd year and my goals i'm
3.86 unweighted (4.whatever weighted)
3 year football starter/captain
3 year track
study abroad (going to France this summer to study)
I've got a 4 on the AP US exam freshman year, and have AP gov in may...hope i can get at least a 4 on that as well.
Not sure about what i'm aiming for on the SAT/ACT seeing as i'm not particularly knowledgeable about them...
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On March 25 2011 09:55 Fulgrim wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2011 09:45 xoreyy wrote:
Holy shit, I always figured that Starcraft enthusiasts were probably an intelligent bunch, but damn, I didn't expect numbers like this. No wonder my area is considered "demographically challenged" (poor and stupid). I post some of the most impressive academic stats around here and people consider me to be really smart, a label which I wholly reject; there is NO ONE like you guys within a 50 mile radius of where I live.
4.48 weighted GPA (have only had 2 semester b's), 4's and 5's on 6 AP exams (5's on BC calc, psych, english lit and comp)
SATs were mediocre. 700 verbal, 680 math, 710 writing.
740 on the Math II
Extracurriculars are awful aside from sports (4 varsity years for cross country and soccer)
Won a lot of academic awards from the school and school system, but I doubt those count for much.
Have shit for clubs and service. Only National Honor Society and a few volunteer hours.
Schools:
JMU - Accepted
Pitt - Accepted
UVA - Find out tomorrow at 5pm, but I got what is called a "likely letter", so I'm fairly confident.
Congrats to everyone in here
Dude likely letter = in. They send it out to like the top 5% of their applicants, to keep them interested in UVA. congrats! I may see you there, depending on whether I get in or not....
Thanks! I was just about to quote your previous post until I saw this one. You should definitely get in with a resume like that. Do you live in VA?
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I'm also contemplating Rosehulman and got accepted, will you go?
If I can get some more money from them. What they offered me won't be enough. I'm going to write a letter asking if they can give me anymore, because I really would like to go. UW would then be my backup, but it's so huge... Definitely do not expect to get accepted to Stanford.
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On March 25 2011 08:36 aristarchus wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2011 08:12 awu25 wrote:On March 25 2011 08:03 wizard944 wrote:On March 25 2011 07:45 Cambium wrote:On March 25 2011 07:42 chenchen wrote:On March 25 2011 07:39 Cambium wrote:On March 25 2011 07:26 b3h47pte wrote:On March 25 2011 07:19 drag_ wrote:You got rejected from Stanford?! As far as I can tell you're pretty much the ideal student, did they give you some reason why or was it just bad luck  Naw they didn't give me a reason but I assume it has something to do with me being Chinese :\ On March 25 2011 07:21 Tiegrr wrote:Did you have any extracurriculars?  Kind of. Extracurricular as in sports..no not really aside from doing varsity swimming for 3 years. I was kind of banking on my indie game programming to get me in but oh well XD Being Chinese (or Asian in general, maybe) sucks when it comes to admissions. We rack up good numbers and have a more than solid application, but there are just too many of us =.= I have two white friends who were both around 2300, 790+ on SAT II's, 14-15 5's on APs, and solid extracurriculars (sciency, programmy stuff), who didn't really get into anywhere competitive (MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Penn). So no, it's just that Stanford is rape hard to get into. For every white friend of yours, I can name at least five (I originally typed ten, but that might be pushing it) Asian friends with equal or better stats, what's your point? I never said it was easy for "white". This is a well-known issue, called affirmative action. I don't blame them, diversity is important. Anyway, this is derailing the thread. Good luck to everyone. So I have a friend who got rejected by yale. He had a 98 GPA, a 2400 on this SAT, he's been principal clarinetist in the local youth orchestra for the past 3 years (I'll finally get a chance next year!), he has 16 5's on APs, he was a finalist in the international clarinet highschool competition, he's on varsity tennis, and he's captain of the math team, and he's the regional champion in chess. However, he's chinese...so gets rejected by yale and MIT...at least he got into REMS which is awesome! I knew someone who was chinese and probably had about the same amount of 5's on APs, valedictorian of our high school, and probably really high SAT. He got into MIT. Your friend should've gotten in, but he probably didn't have a strong essay or something. It's not just because he was chinese I went to MIT, and for a while you were able to get your admissions paperwork from their office and see what they wrote during your admissions process. No guarantees it still works this way, but it's probably similar (and similar at other top schools too). Also, I'm doing this from memory, so the details might not all be exact. They condense your application to a one-page summary. That includes SAT scores, GPA (recalculated by them to standardize). They combine your academics into some sort of overall number score. They then have a series roughly 5 attributes they can check off, to the best of my memory - academics, co-curricular, diversity, interview, and recommendations. Then there is a little box where each of the two or three people who read your whole recommendation can write a couple sentences. That page then goes to the people who actually make the decisions (and presumably borderline people there then get their application looked at again). As far as I was able to tell, you either get the diversity check or you don't, and that's all that matters there (whites and asians don't get it). The academic check is extremely hard to get. I had straight As, 1600 SATs (before it increased), perfect SAT II scores, and 5s on all of my 10 APs, and I didn't get it. (Those things go into the number they calculate - to get the additional check you presumably need to have won the Intel science fair or something.) I got the interview and recommendation checks, as well as the co-curricular one (several major extracurriculars). I got in early, so that (and my number) was apparently enough. Acceptances are kind of random. It's extremely hard. There are a lot of extremely smart people, and they don't care about sports and that sort of stuff (other than the general value of extracurriculars, of course). The admissions committee is not perfect. There are lots of geniuses, but also a couple people who aren't all that smart. There's just only so much you can tell from a college application. They get it right more than they get it wrong, but remember that it's kind of random. Don't take a decision (either way) personally.
AFAIK they only released them if you were still in your first year. Not very well advertised at all (probably intentional). I didn't know about it till I was a sophomore.
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On March 25 2011 12:42 Jombozeus wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2011 12:34 StarcraftAnomaly wrote:
From WA:
3.98 unweighted GPA
2000 SAT
560 SAT Chem
780 SAT Math II
250+ Volunteer hours
Vice President of NHS
President of Model United Nations
President of Mathletes
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology - Accepted
University of Washington - Accepted
Harvey Mudd College - Rejected
Western Washington University - Accepted
Standford - Waiting You have an extremely similar profile to mine. Except I have a lower math score and higher chem score, otherwise everything else pretty much the same. US SC for MUN and a few others. I'm also contemplating Rosehulman and got accepted, will you go? Also, UCSD is confusing me. I see you guys with such high credentials getting rejected, and I had a friend with 1850 get in. I'm 1990 SAT and I got my ass landed in waitlist... WHY UCSD, WHY SO CONFUSING?
MUN presidents unite. ><
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United States36 Posts
On March 25 2011 12:42 Jombozeus wrote:
WHY UCSD, WHY SO CONFUSING?
I just had to:
On topic:
Accepted:
UIUC
MIT
Berkeley
Rejected:
Caltech
Waiting:
Harvard
Stanford
Stats:
3.95 UW GPA.
36 ACT
2260 SAT [Sucked on writing]
SATII Math II: 800
SATII Physics: 760
SATII US History: 720
APs: Euro, Chem, Calc BC, US History, Physics C,[Taking Studio Art: 2D, Bio and Psych currently]: All were 4's except for Calc and Chem.
Extracurriculars:
National Merit Finalist
Math Team - Top 10 scorer in the state.
AIME qualifier sophomore and junior [and now senior] year, 4/3
Acadec
Lego.
Ethnicity: Korean.
Hopeful major: MatSci?
Was deferred from MIT, and expected a rejection because of my craptastic essays, but somehow got in. Pretty sure it was thanks to the art portfolio of Lego I sent in, lol.
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As weak as it sounds in comparison to the people in this thread, I was accepted to Cal Poly and the University of Washington for Electrical Engineering and was pretty excited.
Attending UW, can't justify Cal Poly's price.
@op, I have a friend that is very similar to you and also got denied from Stanford. Sounds extremely tough to get in :/
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
I have a question to people who attend the cream of the crop schools. When you get there, are the students all what you expect out of a top tier school?
No.
Do they all have amazing credentials and achievements with super amazing intellect?
About ~30% yes. About 30% I wonder how they even got in, in the first place.
I can't imagine that one school could be filled with nothing but these geniuses all with outstanding achievement
Welcome to the wonders of enforcing diversity, maybe?
Caveat: This is based upon 3 months~ of TAing experiences. Interpret at your own risk...
PS. In the sciences, I wouldn't worry too much about what undergrad you go to. To be quite blunt, the only thing that changes there is how much student debt you end up accumulating. (Optimal situation imo, is to get accepted to a decent research university + merit based full-ride scholarship)
Have some self-discipline in college, ace your classes, get stellar letters of recommendation, and you'll likely get in wherever you apply. (At least, grad school admission criteria seem far more logical)
Oh, and do research. Your PI(s) recommendation there will make or break your grad school application.
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Accepted:
UCI
Rejected:
UCSD
UCLA
Berkeley
USC
4.2 weighted, 3.9 unweighted GPA
2080 SAT
750 SAT2 Math2
740 SAT2 Bio
11 years of orchestra and 7 years of band. Drum major
That's pretty much all my extra curriculars..
Making UCI my backup school was probably really risky this year...and it's so depressing seeing people with much better stats than me get rejected everywhere T_T (RedMochi - I am so sorry...)
On a different note, it's extremely frustrating to see stupider people at my school get accepted to UCSD and UCLA....
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Accepted and commited: Cal Poly SLO
GPA: 3.8 Unweighted I think (washington)
SAT: 1610 =D never studied for it took it junior year havent taken it since
ACT: never took it
I have like 60 college credits too from running start probably have my AA before I graduate too =D
4 years in football 3 year varsity starter took 3rd in state 2 of my varisty years
countless hours volunteering with youth football and volunteering at a Together! center probably 500+ easily
Aerospace engineering yeah buddy =D
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You crazy kids. How do you have a GPA that's more than 4.0??
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On March 25 2011 12:56 CPTBadAss wrote:
You crazy kids. How do you have a GPA that's more than 4.0??
AP and IB classes (Oh, and Honors)
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3 Lions
United States3705 Posts
On March 25 2011 12:56 CPTBadAss wrote:
You crazy kids. How do you have a GPA that's more than 4.0??
As and A-s in honors classes/APs are >4.0 usually
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On March 25 2011 12:56 CPTBadAss wrote:
You crazy kids. How do you have a GPA that's more than 4.0??
Some things like IB and AP classes add +.25, etc to your GPA
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On March 25 2011 12:56 CPTBadAss wrote:
You crazy kids. How do you have a GPA that's more than 4.0??
They cheat. Any honors or AP course is graded on a 5.0 scale(A=5,B=4...), and then weight it into your overal gpa
And almost every school will recalculate your GPA to standardize it with all their other apps. So if your school doesn't weight it it doesn't matter the school will do it for you
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On March 25 2011 12:56 CPTBadAss wrote:
You crazy kids. How do you have a GPA that's more than 4.0??
It's weighted because AP classes count as 5s or something. :/
Idk if weighted is really looked at as much as Unweighted.
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What do American high school marks mean in Canada? O; And what's the difference between Universities and Colleges? As far as I know, I've only applied to universities?
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I really wish they didn't look at it at all so hard, but I can see they have little else to examine.
It's quite possible to run into a bad teacher for example... My AP Chem teacher from 11th grade had 11 students in our class. One person ended with a high B average after the year was done, I was in the middle with a low B, and over 5 of us got D/E... Either the teacher did not teach us or would give us work that did not pertain to what we were supposed to be studying for that time period.. Something like this can drop your GPA a lot :/
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On March 25 2011 12:59 Blisse wrote:
What do American high school marks mean in Canada? O; And what's the difference between Universities and Colleges? As far as I know, I've only applied to universities?
Basically Universities are larger and a collection of colleges that specialize in various things, IE your University will have a school of Business
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EPT![[image loading]](http://images2.memegenerator.net/ImageMacro/6509507/UCSD-Y-U-SO-CONFUSING.jpg?imageSize=Medium&generatorName=Y-U-NO)
