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Russian Federation396 Posts
On March 27 2011 02:30 Phaint wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2011 11:40 The_LiNk wrote:On March 26 2011 11:27 JitnikoVi wrote:applied to mcmaster - life sci - waiting mcmaster - environmental and earth sciences I - accepted western - health sci - accepted york - life sci - accepted guelph - life sci - accepted carlton - life sci - accepted u of t - life sci - waiting average is 87%, volunteer at hospital and senior home (over 100 hours combined), i recieved the queen elizabeth the II scholarship and waiting on mcdonalds scholarship (i work there  ) ive decided that im ganan go to mcmaster, right now for environ and earth sci, but if i get accepted to life sci then i might change my mind and go there isntead but mcmaster in hamilton either way  Why McMaster's? All my friends that applied to McMaster's are using it as their backup, most people are going to Western or UofT for health/life sciences. McMaster excels in Life Science if anything. The school pretty much revolves around the health sciences and they can be ridiculously hard to get into.
pretty much sums it up, western is arguably a better school than mac, but mac excels in its life sci program as was stated, my brother is also a second year life sci student at mac as well, so i guess its nice to just be able to see my brother whenever i want, at least i have some family nearby
(i live in richmond hill)
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
Would like to clear up some misconceptions here.
If you know that you want to go to grad school it's probably just as important to go to a top university. As someone who is in grad school now, and has seen many people go through the application process, I can say that students from top schools have a huge advantage when it comes to grad admissions at other top schools.
Eh...for the sciences I'll phrase it this way:
The research recommendation letter effectively decides your chances of admission (if you don't have one, 99% chance you won't get in). A "X student was in my course(s)" recommendation letter might help a lot if the professor was a grad student/postdoc in one of the faculty's groups, but this is fairly luck-based and is almost impossible to plan for.
Generally, higher-caliber universities have more research opportunities, and generally more students take advantage of them.
Thus, indirectly undergraduate name value may seem to help, but isn't really a causative factor in the admissions decision.
Practically, this means that researcher standouts at "mid-level" state institutions will have pretty good chances at getting into any grad school. Its also worth noting that grad school apps, unlike undergraduate institutions, are not crapshoots -- indeed, the admissions staff are looking for very specific things.
I don't want to make it sound like going to a "mid-tier" school is an easy way into a good grad school. You will have to work your ass off all the same. However, it can be a good financial decision.
Of course, it's easier impossible to get into, say, stanford grad school if you went to stanford.
My phrasing is more accurate.
Generally top-tier grad schools don't accept undergrads from the same institution. At the very least, I'm reasonably certain Stanford doesn't.
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I'm sure many of rejected students and college hopefuls for the big colleges (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, etc) are blaming their failure/possible failure on the numbers. "Not high enough SAT score", "3.999 GPA, oh no!", "Dang it, I haven't cured cancer yet!", and so on. To those, I want to direct you to this article.
While yes, it was written about MIT, it can also be applied to many other top schools. Basically, colleges accept you as a person, not as a resume. You should do what you love, because that way, you get accepted to places where there are others with the same drive and passions as you.
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If anyone is going to the Universityof Pennsylvania, PM me! So you can train with our CSL team lol.
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On March 27 2011 10:22 etheovermind wrote:
Did anyone here get into Carnegie Mellon? What was your GPA + SAT score?
I ED'd CMU and got into CIT. My unweighted GPA was about 3.85, and my SAT score was 2320. Did you apply for this year?
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Congrats to all BU admits. If anyone has any questions at all about the school feel free to PM me, I'm currently a senior and happy to help
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On March 27 2011 12:28 The_LiNk wrote:...
+ Show Spoiler +On March 27 2011 12:28 The_LiNk wrote:What's the average for those courses in your school? Our english average is 78 for my semester right now and I'm right on the mark. I didn't go asian 6 pack so I don't really know all the science averages but for Chemistry its around 57%. My friend that's getting 73% is 2nd highest in his class (dude likes it up his ass). I feel so inadequate right now. I'm hovering at 88% average with almost zero extra-curriculars. I was in the computer club this year but it's so terribl., It's just a bunch of grade 9s lead by a grade 12 that is totally terrible at starcraft playing on LAN for 2 hours after school every wednesday. I got an executive position though (I'm vice-president of Starleague, i arranged the first intramural starleague in our school. kids are terrible here). I have 49.5 (sad I couldnt get an even 50) hours of volunteer hours. I got so lazy last semester after winter break, I almost failed my computer science exam; got 54 on the exam and finished the course with 75 (I was at mid 80s before exam). Did you get accepted on Waterloo Comp Sci before winter break? I have a friend that has roughly the same marks as you but actually ZERO extracurriculars and he got his acceptance into Comp Sci the Friday before winter break started. I don't think he even had to write the AIF. He's going to major/specialize(not sure what's the right term) into Computer Science. Basically my school somehow gets people to understand their potential. Meaning many students don't take courses they know they can't pass well. And many students are not afraid to drop courses. Our average in English under my teacher is 67. The other English teachers are 75 or so. Our Chemistry average is 74 I believe. It was 80 first term, but people bombed the tests. Functions was mid 60s, but a lot of students dropped it, so now it's low 70s. Biology is the class I didn't take, and the highest mark is 85 I think, with the average in the 60s. Calculus is pretty skewed since we only had one mark in before report cards, but I'm expecting it in the low 60s. The Data average is 51 or 55. There are 8 students in my class, beginning at 20+, and 12 in the other, also beginning at 20+. I'm not sure about Physics, but a lot of kids complain about our teacher since he can't teach. I got accepted into CS Feb 10 I think. Be glad, I have 45 hours of volunteering from one place. 9 hours that I haven't handed in, and 30 hours that I may or may not get. A lot of people I know hover at the high 80s mark as well. It's just one or two marks dragging them down, which is the hardest thing about an average. You need to keep all your marks up, or it plummets. Consistency is probably the hardest thing to do. I try never to get lazy and take the easy route. I always go for the hardest or most work required, with good reason. Everytime I get pressured into not doing that (stupid groups), my marks are worse than they probably would have been. I'm lazy, but I like getting things done well.
I really wish they could do acceptances faster and earlier. It's driving people crazy having to wait.
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5003 Posts
Oh, to anyone who is going to University of Chicago (or accepted and thinking about it), and thinking of doing Economics/Statistics/Math (or "fake" Econ to go to finance/business), PM me and I'll definitely help you guys out and let you know what it is like :O
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Accepted
Arizona St.
University of Arizona
St. Marys
University of Colorado Boulder
3.0 gpa 1660 sat. Didn't app anywhere else
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On March 27 2011 13:02 hiyo_bye wrote:
If anyone is going to the Universityof Pennsylvania, PM me! So you can train with our CSL team lol.
I applied, very down right now doubt I'm getting in ~_~ if I get in going for sure
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On March 25 2011 12:36 GhostKorean wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2011 12:26 chameleonism wrote:
I've seen a lot of people mention that everyone with high scores is getting turned down to the top tier colleges but what you have to understand that schools like Harvard/Stanford/MIT get so many applications from students around the country with 99 percentile SAT scores w/ tons of extra-curricular that "normal" students rarely get in.
To get into these schools, you need to have some kind of edge like having family that went to the school, being in a prestigious family, winning a major competition of some sort, being a strong athlete, going to a well-known or elite private or public high school (T.J. for example), etc. Once you factor in these people who have an "edge" over you who also have equal level qualifications (they may or may not be smarter/harder working than you), there are very few spots for the really smart and talented "normal" guys.
The best advice is to not sweat it. Go to whichever school accepts you, do well and move on with your life. Many non ivy league schools have programs just as good (if not better) than many ivy league schools. If you have your heart set on a certain program or career path, do the research and find out how you can make it happen.
edit: You also need to realize that if Harvard/Stanford/MIT/etc wanted to, they could limit their acceptance to only those who scored above 2350 (or higher) on the SAT with ease. The competition at the top is fierce so if you are not above 2300 and you don't have one of my above mentioned "edges" than you are going to need a miracle or the best set of extra-curriculars known to man. RedMochi is sadly, a perfect example of this. 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? Do they all have amazing credentials and achievements with super amazing intellect? I can't imagine that one school could be filled with nothing but these geniuses all with outstanding achievement
I sort of want to address both these points. I'm a junior at Princeton atm, and got into Harvard as well. I don't have any family alumni, nor are they important people. I didn't win any major competitions, I didn't even make it to the USAMO. I did some speech and debate, but never even went to the national competition. I had 50-100 hours of service, so nothing too too special there. I'm middle-income, white, male. In other words, there's almost nothing special about me.
That said, I had perfect scores and grades. 800's/A's across the board, with a whole lot of IB courses thrown in there. If you really do have the numbers, at least in my case, that can be enough to get you into Ivy League, as long as you aren't horribly lacking in other areas. Maybe things have changed drastically in the last few years, but I don't think it could possibly have changed that much.
When I got to Princeton, I definitely expected everyone to be super-amazing geniuses. They definitely aren't. It honestly feels like all the personalities from high school are still there, the only difference is now everyone knows that eventually you do have to get your shit done, and they're all - not necessarily super-smart - but they are very efficient at getting it done to acceptable standards in very little time, and they're willing to pull all-nighters if thats where procrastination puts them.
About the credentials, I'm sure everyone had a sterling highschool resume, but you wouldn't know it. It's just not something you really talk about all that much. I think people overestimate how hard it is to make a college application look really, really good, and really that's what college admissions are a test of - how good can you make yourself look, much more so than how good ARE you.
I hope this doesn't sound bitter, or like I'm bragging, because I actually really enjoy Princeton. And while not everyone is a super-genius, as a math major, I definitely do have some of those super-geniuses in my classes. (Definitely not one of them myself!)
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On March 26 2011 10:12 HolyArrow wrote:
Really, being a Bay Area asian male isn't that terrible. I fall into that exact demographic, and I got into all the top UC's, along with Duke, while some guys I know, also Asian males, got into places like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. Their scores weren't even that amazing - strong, but nothing around 2300+ SAT scores. You need to be pretty good (around a 4.0 weighted, 2100+ SAT, some good extracurriculars) but you don't need to be a ridiculous 4.6 GPA 2400 SAT/36 ACT student with thousands of hours of community service and 6 different extracurriculars (I'm exaggerating at this point but you get the idea) to get into a good school.
I disagree. I'm a Socal Asian, and I know multiple people in my graduating class with 36's or nearly 2400's (2350+) along with Siemens award semifinalists, Chemistry and Math Olympiad competitors, people w/ 1000's of volunteer hours and titles to boot. They are the ONLY people going to Stanford/Harvard/MIT. Only people above 2100 even made UCLA/Berkeley unless they were not Asian or had above at least 4.5 weighted GPA.
It might just be that my graduating class got screwed since we were the most competitive class in decades at my HS. You seriously do need those numbers to set yourself outside of the demographic box when applying to colleges today, unless you're from Missouri or Lousiana or some other underrepresented state.
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Accepted:
University of North Carolina Greensboro
Appalachian State University (Going to attend)
East Carolina University
Rejected:
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (Reason: Lack of foreign language credits)
I was a really poor student in high school and I just couldn't get myself motivated to do any work, I just passed the tests needed to wind up with a D in the class I ended up doing three years traditional High School before I transfered out and did two years at my local community college's Middle College program. After the first semester, I got rolling with my high school classes and started doing college course work. I was at school from 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM doing full time high school and college. After my first year at middle college, I was making A's and B's in both my High School and College courses,
I think I did fairly well on my SATs (It's been about a year since I actually looked at the scores, they were around 720~ on both math and english) and I kept my college GPA at around 3.5 for two years but I couldn't salvage my high school GPA after three years of mediocrity, I was around a low 2.something by the end of high school. I just kept putting off getting my foreign language because the Community College I went to only offered Spanish and Russian (I'm not enthusiastic about Spanish and I wasn't brave enough to try Russian, so I was really afraid I'd fail and kill my two years of work).
I wanted to get into Chapel Hill so badly just so I could show all my high school teachers my acceptance letter and thank them for pushing me even when I wouldn't listen. I had friends and family going there and I was so excited when a female coworker I talk to and like was applying too. I sent all my paper around early January and then I had the longest and most nervous wait I ever had in my life. In March, I started receiving my acceptance letters one by one from all the other schools I had applied to all the while I grew more and more anxious (I started making almost daily mistakes at work because of how nervous I was).
Finally the last letter came and I don't need to tell you how it turned out, I just sat in my car for about an hour and did nothing The next day, I told my friends that I was rejected and then went to work and told my coworkers the same. I'm over it now but for a little while there, it felt like I had worked so hard for nothing.
So last week I sent my reply to Appalachian because I know some cool people who go there. I just want to chill out and have fun (Not be lazy and fail but I mean grow as a person because I feel like my schedule in between work, school, and gaming I've had little time to really explore who I am and what I want to do).
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On March 25 2011 07:15 b3h47pte wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Find 2010 here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=116308Find 2009 here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=89400Well, it's March 24th. Early applicants should have heard from their schools already and the rest of the regular decision applicants should be rolling up within the coming weeks! For myself (from NJ): Stanford - Rejected UC Berkeley - Accepted UCLA - Accepted Carnegie Mellon - Waiting University of Illinois Urbana - Accepted Rutgers - Accepted 4.57 weighted GPA (at the end of my junior year) 2230 SAT 780 SAT2 Bio 800 SAT2 Physics 800 SAT2 Math 2 300+ volunteer hours summer internships at SIEMENS and Columbia University research with NJIT professor programmer on an indie game AP CS AB, Stat, US history - 5 I applied for computer science at all the schools. Post yours! Good luck all!
Why did you apply to California schools and not Princeton? Was Rutgers just a safety or are you considering it if they give you a bunch of money? Never mind, I figured it out
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GPA: 3.6
SAT: 1960
Service Hours: 400+
Extracurriculars: Eagle Scout, First Robotics Team (Leadership positions in both).
Race: White
Fantastic High School with the best API in the district.
Accepted:
Lewis & Clark University
UC Santa Cruz
San Diego State University
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Pittsburgh
Ohio State University
James Madison University
George Mason University
Rejected:
UC Berkley
UC San Diego
UC Davis
UC Santa Barbara
Boston University
University of Texas Austin
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Congrats everyone! I will be posting in this thread next year for my PhD applications.
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I've scored a provisional place to spend a year at University of Colorado Boulder! Studying English Lit in the UK at the moment, but this should be a great experience. Any TLers at UoCB?
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Accepted:
UCLA
UCSD
UC Davis
UC Irvine
BYU
Rejected:
none :D
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EPT
