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Hey TL, this is going to be a fairly depressing blog, at least in my opinion. On Tuesday of this week, my class will be wearing their own college shirts, I won't be wearing anything at all.
College Acceptances
Forward
Before I start, I should say a few things. I'm no perfect student, much of my self-worth, if I dare call it that since that is some seriously fucked up thinking, is not testable. I'm a poet, and my work isn't always so terrible, but that isn't something I get a grade for. I'm a natural cook, it's something I've done since I was tiny, when I was just stirring carrots in water with a wooden spoon thinking I was making a Souffle. I'm a writer, I'm not great, but sometimes I just make a connection with my readers, needless to say I'm no Bradbury. I'm not a math guy, I can get A's in my classes, though I didn't always get those due to me being lazy about it. Yeah, the only place to go is forward.
What I'm wearing on Tuesday
Today I woke up and put on my USC shirt, fight on. I did that until I realized I had just been denied from that school. in my place a Persian girl I know with my scores, except she is Persian, was chosen. I've been denied from everywhere that I wanted to go. Now the only place I can go is up. I'm profoundly sad, to the point where my cousin read my poetry and told me that it was good, but it was one of the scarier things she's read. I feel like I've failed myself in just about every way academically.
With all that said, I didn't want to make this blog because I spent the last 3 days having breakdowns, crying my eyes out, and even calling out to god to remember me in the middle of the night through tear filled eyes; he didn't remember me I guess. My girlfriend told me that maybe it's all part of my fate (Jews believe in this wacky fate-ish kind of deal where god knows all but we have free will, its weird, don't worry about it so much for this blog), but that doesn't help assuage the sting. Nothing helps, my friends tell me to just move forward, but really, I've lost the lottery. I was rejected from places that I saw others with worse scores and grades than myself get in, while maintaining it was all skill on their end.
Stanford, Claremont McKenna, USC, Columbia, John's Hopkins, Washington University in St. Louis, and more, all rejections. There is a certain amount of disappointment in myself. The magnitude of that disappointment ranks in the highest it's ever been. It verges on self-contempt. It's this feeling that I should have done something else, when, short of making an NGO to fight for world peace, really I feel I just lost a lottery I had no hope of winning. Hell, I had no business winning it either.
I feel like I've been broken. I didn't get into any of my schools, and the issues I've had to overcome to even get to this point have been fights in themselves. Fighting a racist head master who was later fired, fighting against a teacher who was the head master's wife who dislikes me, fighting an old school who attempted to screw me many times, fighting my own school just to keep on par, fighting family illness, and none of this is so atypical that I should find myself particularly cursed. I guess being "white" is a fight in itself, since being Jewish isn't actually being Caucasian, but that wouldn't help me very much with college.
I was denied by everywhere I wanted to go, but Tufts, who waitlisted me. Believe me, I want to go there now. I have no choice it seems. I could take the free-rides at home, that would just super-impose the failure of me not getting into any one of my colleges even more. This is not a self-aggrandizing blog; I don't want all of you to look at me and say, "AWW DA PO' DOC, HE NO GET INTO DA SCHOOLZ," because I don't think I can take much more pity. My friends say sorry, my parents say sorry, people I barely know say sorry, and I don't smile more than I was before I heard those two words. Most people follow this up by asking what I want to hear from them, and all I can say is, I just wanted to hear a yes.
I'm bitter, because I fucked up, and I've been fucked up. There are plenty of people who want to see me fail, and I guess they got their show. I don't know where to go from here. I don't know what up or forward is. I don't know if I 'm going to Tufts, I don't know if I'll get into RPI (which is way too fucking cold for me anyways), and I've been denied everywhere else I cared about. All of my friends are going where they want to, and I think I'm going no where.
afterward
I don't want this to sound emo-hair-flip-oh-god-cut-myself. I just want this to show how sad I've been in the last 3 days. I thought that I had a chance at one of these places, and though I knew I would get rejected from most, I wasn't accepted to any one of them; not one of the 10. I learned a lot from this. I learned I have to get all A's, I can't let life ever bring that down. I have to do what it takes to get ahead, if that means cheating, so be it. The die is cast in this part of my life, and my fate has been banally written into stone. I don't know where to go from here TL, I just know I have to go forward, wherever the hell that leads.
  
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United States24490 Posts
Maybe I misunderstood, but did you apply to any safety schools that you knew you would get in to for sure?
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If you don't get in anywhere, just work for a year, save up some money (assuming your parents have no problem with you staying at home) and re-apply to some easier schools next year. It's not the end of the world.
edit: Also, don't fret about going to the "best" schools. A degree is a degree is a degree. Yeah, there is a slight advantage of going to a "better" school but 5 years after you graduate,almost no employer is going to give a fuck about where you graduated from.
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On April 01 2013 06:13 micronesia wrote:
Maybe I misunderstood, but did you apply to any safety schools that you knew you would get in to for sure?
I did, I'm into 3 schools outright, none of which I want to go to. I got a free ride, a 1/2 or 3/4 ride and a 1/3 ride to each of my 3 safety schools. I'm disappointed I didn't get into anywhere that I thought I could. I thought I was prestigious school material.
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Baa?21242 Posts
you really do write some of the worst blogs
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you seem pretty confident getting into good schools.
sat/gpa/ec's?
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I completely sympathize with your sadness about receiving so many rejections; just about everyone in their life sometime has to face rejection, whether for college admissions or whatever else. However, I really don't think you should beat yourself up over it/feel like its the end of the world. Sure, maybe you didn't get into your top choices, but you are getting money for some other schools, which is a real blessing for a lot of people. I'm not entirely sure what your socioeconomic background is but places like Tufts is expensive as hell and their financial aid is relatively terrible for a top 30 institution. I know a lot of people who despite getting into these schools, could not even think about attending due to the ridiculous tuition. So feel good about getting money, its truly an accomplishment on par with getting into great schools.
All this being said, I'm a frequenter of the TL blogs and I see your posts about school and such quite a bit, and I don't think its necessary to be depressed so many times over for the same thing. Your admissions is just a product of your academics, which correct me if I'm wrong, but you had a sub 2000 SAT and sub 30 ACT which puts you into the bottom quartile for every single school that rejected you (not to mention that people in that range are usually AA admits/legacies/athletes). This is not to say that you had no chance, but you shouldn't have had such high expectations when you knew your chances were low. Being depressed about your grades is acceptable, but being depressed again for what is just a product of having those grades is putting yourself in more pain than you deserve. Just work harder in college. Plenty of people prove their worth in college even after an unsatisfactory high school record.
I understand its difficult to be motivated when you keep failing, but just remember that you're not the only one. Most of the top schools this year had admit rates under 10%, which means 90%+ got rejected. Rejection doesn't mean success, but it surely doesn't mean you're going to the depths of hell. If you're really set on going somewhere great you can indeed take a year off but I probably wouldn't recommend it. You can also think about transferring too, but I bet when you do go to college you wouldn't even want to transfer because whatever school you picked was better than you expected.
Lastly try to be less critical towards racially based admissions; the system does tend to be unfair, but typically minority families are socialeconomically much weaker. What you see is just a loophole of admissions such that rich minorities benefit a ton, but as a whole its probably better to be the average Jew than the average minority + AA. Most of the school you listed have huge white/Jew/Asian populations in their student body anyways.
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United States22154 Posts
On April 01 2013 06:43 docvoc wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2013 06:13 micronesia wrote:
Maybe I misunderstood, but did you apply to any safety schools that you knew you would get in to for sure? I did, I'm into 3 schools outright, none of which I want to go to. I got a free ride, a 1/2 or 3/4 ride and a 1/3 ride to each of my 3 safety schools. I'm disappointed I didn't get into anywhere that I thought I could. I thought I was prestigious school material.
Let me tell you a secret.
It doesn't matter where you go. It matters how hard you work and who you meet along the way.
Find your passions, work hard at them, and avoid racking up an insane college debt. With the money you save going to a full ride college, you can open your own business in whatever you love, or failing that fill your free time with activities related to what you want to do with the rest of your life.
What college you go to only determines how "fun" the next four years are for you, what you do over those four years, especially how hard you work, will determine what you do for the rest of your life.
Choose wisely.
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On April 01 2013 07:45 GMarshal wrote:
What you do, especially how hard you work, will determine what you do for the rest of your life.
Choose wisely.
This is so true, and so inspiring.
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Stop wining, you got a full ride to a college... As long as your undergraduate grades are good you can get into a good graduate program easily.
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If you want some actual analysis of why you may have no gotten in, instead of posting emo rants like this, post your application essays so folks can pick apart those instead! :-D
So what are your safety schools that you have gotten into already (full ride I assume if you're in CA?) UCLA, USC, UCSD?
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[B]On April 01 2013 05:59 docvoc wrote:
Today I woke up and put on my USC shirt, fight on. I did that until I realized I had just been denied from that school. in my place a Persian girl I know with my scores, except she is Persian, was chosen.
Is this a joke? Persians are considered caucasian on all college apps. This is pretty baseless racism, since they dont even have a commonly considered 'advantage'. Additionally, same scores but didnt get in? scores are not everything... there are hundreds of kids with your scores that also didn't get in. get over yourself.
EDIT" spellingzz/clarify
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On April 01 2013 06:43 docvoc wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2013 06:13 micronesia wrote:
Maybe I misunderstood, but did you apply to any safety schools that you knew you would get in to for sure? I did, I'm into 3 schools outright, none of which I want to go to. I got a free ride, a 1/2 or 3/4 ride and a 1/3 ride to each of my 3 safety schools. I'm disappointed I didn't get into anywhere that I thought I could. I thought I was prestigious school material.
Two things...first, getting a full-ride scholarship is a huge blessing, regardless of the school. And heck, a 3/4 ride isn't too shabby either, is it?
Second, nobody cares about where you get your first degree from. Go and work your butt off at whatever school you choose to go to and get into a prestigious graduate school. I'm finishing up my undergrad degree right now at a school whose average incoming ACT score is ~21, definitely nothing prestigious. But I made the most out of my experience and got accepted into an extremely competitive masters degree program for next year.
Keep your head up. Kick ass and take names later.
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On April 01 2013 07:45 GMarshal wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2013 06:43 docvoc wrote:On April 01 2013 06:13 micronesia wrote:
Maybe I misunderstood, but did you apply to any safety schools that you knew you would get in to for sure? I did, I'm into 3 schools outright, none of which I want to go to. I got a free ride, a 1/2 or 3/4 ride and a 1/3 ride to each of my 3 safety schools. I'm disappointed I didn't get into anywhere that I thought I could. I thought I was prestigious school material. Let me tell you a secret. It doesn't matter where you go. It matters how hard you work and who you meet along the way. Find your passions, work hard at them, and avoid racking up an insane college debt. With the money you save going to a full ride college, you can open your own business in whatever you love, or failing that fill your free time with activities related to what you want to do with the rest of your life. What college you go to only determines how "fun" the next four years are for you, what you do over those four years, especially how hard you work, will determine what you do for the rest of your life. Choose wisely.
I'm going to do this. My friends keep telling me to do this, and though I know I should, it is hard not to mope. I wrote this blog to let out these feelings, and I know they are more than a tinge overreactionary; however, getting rejection letters from 8 schools where I thought I would get into one of them because I had been told how much colleges love the IB, and where I see my friends with similar GPA's and scores have gotten into. I'll admit a lot of those schools were longshots too. Thanks for the advice GMarshal. I know you are right, and that my friends are right, I just have this feeling of regret.
EDIT: To those of you saying that this is an emo-rant or that I need to get over myself, etc. This post was written after a week of not being able to sleep or eat. Since I joined the IB I was promised that if I got A's and B's (which I had until recently when I got .1 shy of a B in math during a hard time in my life) I had a 4.23 weighted GPA and a bad SAT score in a 1920 but I did well on my SAT 2's with a 700 in U.S. history being my best score. I did not write this as a polished work. I wrote this trying to channel the rest of my negative feelings onto a page. Though the negative comments are welcome to show me how silly I've been feeling. I wrote this to evoke feelings in the reader, which it obviously did. No this is not my best work, but I wrote this to put my feelings out there before I write my next college blog which will be about where I should go from my options. This blog was not some emo-rant, this blog is a blog about feeling disappointed in myself about how I have done and the hand I've been dealt. Don't be so presumptuous to think I thought I was going to get into all of those colleges, I thought I would get into 1 of the many.
Could I have done better in highschool. Yes. Could I have not let the hard times overcome me when I needed to stay strong? Yes. Did I? To some extent, but I learned from that, which is what highschool is about in my opinion. Also, on this point, there is a lot that I have not written in my blogs about my background that make things make a bit more sense, but that I don't want to put down because it's just that, background info. I don't want to see a response with that, I want a response based on what I write.
Also, to BH, yes Persians pick caucasian on the common app, but no there are subdivisions of that pick which drastically change acceptance rates. It is a well known fact that certain races have harder times getting into college, that is not racist. I'm not racist for calling something like that out, and while college acceptances are a lottery, it is frustrating to know that a lot of college lotterying is based on what they want for diversity reasons.
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You come off as assuming you were entitled, or at least deserved, to get into one of the universities and colleges you listed. Unfortunately, so does thousands of other applicants that apply to those universities. The fact that you wrote "In my place...", "I thought that I had a chance....", "I thought I was prestigious school material" clearly set you up for disappointment.
First off, you never were given a place; you were given a chance, a 10 - 15% chance if you were indeed "prestigious school material", much less if you were an typical high school student with 4.0+ GPA and took a lot of AP classes; the world has a lot of those already.
Second, what's done is done. It is what it is. It's acceptable, natural, and expected to feel sorry for yourself on something like this for a while. Don't make any destructive decisions or actions out of this though. You can either make this event to determine the rest of your life by living in angst and sorrow, feeling sorry for yourself, or make the best out of it: be more humble, be realistic, motivate yourself that you're going excel academically in whichever college you go to.
Third, you're in a better position than most people, you got into safeties with some scholarship. Use this to your advantage, get ahead of your peers academically and financially. If you do shitty in college, then clearly you weren't meant to go to those universities you wanted to go. If you do mediocre in college, then clearly you were right for it. If you do excellent in college, well you're in a position very few graduates get to be on and the opportunities that follow.
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You said you didn't want pity, so I won't pull any punches.
in my place a Persian girl I know with my scores, except she is Persian, was chosen.
Nothing helps, my friends tell me to just move forward, but really, I've lost the lottery. I was rejected from places that I saw others with worse scores and grades than myself get in, while maintaining it was all skill on their end.
Some of it's lottery. But don't exaggerate that to "all of it = lottery." The truth of the matter is that those people with worse scores and grades probably had something going for them, but you don't know about it. Maybe they wrote better essays, maybe they did more shit in high school, maybe they just plain played the game better than you did. But looking down on them for achieving what you did not is seriously not cool. And don't play it off as "she got in, 'cause she's Persian." (Which, by the way, does not even get you an advantage. You can clump "Persians" in with Asians" pretty much as far as college admissions go.) Don't make light of the effort they also had to put into admissions to get where they are.
I guess being "white" is a fight in itself, since being Jewish isn't actually being Caucasian, but that wouldn't help me very much with college.
Try being Asian with a propensity towards math, science, and music. Yeah, it sucks hard. Yes, you are disadvantaged (not because of your race but because of your family situation, etc.), but that happens. The world isn't fair, and you were predisposed by your situation to have a weaker application than your classmates. Again, that happens. But don't use that as an excuse, or you will hold yourself back by falling on it like a crutch, over and over again, whenever you fail. Get over it, put your head down, and work harder.
You seem to be under the impression that you were rejected by factors that you couldn't control (or so I see from your lottery metaphors). That is true to some extent. But you didn't even perfect what you could control. The truth of the matter is that you probably were rejected not because of a "lottery system," but because you were just a worse applicant than the people who did get in.
The way to win these games is to control what you can to maximize your chances, and then you just have to hope for the rest.
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On April 01 2013 10:18 BirdKiller wrote:
You come off as assuming you were entitled, or at least deserved, to get into one of the universities and colleges you listed. Unfortunately, so does thousands of other applicants that apply to those universities. The fact that you wrote "In my place...", "I thought that I had a chance....", "I thought I was prestigious school material" clearly set you up for disappointment.
First off, you never were given a place; you were given a chance, a 10 - 15% chance if you were indeed "prestigious school material", much less if you were an typical high school student with 4.0+ GPA and took a lot of AP classes; the world has a lot of those already.
Second, what's done is done. It is what it is. It's acceptable, natural, and expected to feel sorry for yourself on something like this for a while. Don't make any destructive decisions or actions out of this though. You can either make this event to determine the rest of your life by living in angst and sorrow, feeling sorry for yourself, or make the best out of it: be more humble, be realistic, motivate yourself that you're going excel academically in whichever college you go to.
Third, you're in a better position than most people, you got into safeties with some scholarship. Use this to your advantage, get ahead of your peers academically and financially. If you do shitty in college, then clearly you weren't meant to go to those universities you wanted to go. If you do mediocre in college, then clearly you were right for it. If you do excellent in college, well you're in a position very few graduates get to be on and the opportunities that follow.
I realize I was never entitled to that position and that I am in a good position. I think what I didn't make clear in my blog, which is a point to work on in my writing, is that these were things I was made to think I was entitled to. When I joined the IB they told me about how much easier it would be to get into college, which it wasn't. I realize there are a lot "me," I just thought that colleges would love the actual me. I wrote my previous blog about the same thing when I had only got a few rejections and was still hopeful, now I write this blog fully knowing how many places rejected me. The colleges I got into weren't shitty. They were some pretty ok liberal arts schools and RPI (who wants me to build their humanities department), but I had my heart set on Stanford and John's Hopkins. This paired with a guy I know literally buying his way to Columbia with money and influence because his family knows the Liebermans (the senator and his powerful family) accompanied by a girl I know getting into every college she wanted to with worse grades than some of the kids in my class for "diversity programs" because she is a Nigerian immigrant (who comes from 2 doctors as parents and family in the Nigerian government) just kind of pushed me over the edge.
I'm in a good position and I need to move forward, I just need to catch my breath since I was made to think I could reach higher than actually possible.
EDIT:
@Babylon. Thank you for not pitying me. I agree with what you say, and yeah I feel for anyone who is asian with a propensity to those subjects. I know people like that and they get denied a lot. However, in my class this year, the two top students, Asians, both have been accepted everywhere and they have propensities for that stuff too; I realize that is the exception, and not the norm though.
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Holy shit dude, 5 years from now nobody will give a shit about where you went to college, and neither will you. No offense but you sound like one of those entitled suburban kids whose world revolves around "prestige." Nobody cares in the real world.
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On April 01 2013 10:37 iamho wrote:
Holy shit dude, 5 years from now nobody will give a shit about where you went to college, and neither will you. No offense but you sound like one of those entitled suburban kids whose world revolves around "prestige." Nobody cares in the real world.
I mean, I'm suburban, but I'm not entitled, though in this blog I may sound like it since this was a venting blog. I've been told that in 5 years grad school will care, and other people tell me no one will care, and others tell me that college was all that mattered to them. I'm pretty conflicted, which is partially why I wrote this. If no one cares in the real world, and I haven't been to "the real world" job wise since I'm still in the highschool-college-grad school part of my life, then I have nothing to worry about. On the other hand, other people where I live tell me the real world revolves around college and grad school. It is a lot of conflicting info.
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CA10824 Posts
Being in IB does help you assuming you get all As with a smattering of Bs in those classes. But having a 4.0 unweighted as an IB diploma candidate will not gain you admittance to the caliber of schools you were applying to if you have a sub-2000 SAT. Someone already mentioned it but the SAT really held you back. If you had gotten a 2100+ I bet you would be in a different situation right now, as you probably would have gotten into at least one of the schools on your list. I speak from personal experience, as I did the IB diploma too. I was rejected from Claremont McKenna and Pomona College, probably due to my SAT scores (1420/1600 on the old scale).
My friend was a top 10 cross country runner in the state of WA, was a fantastic writer with state and national awards for her essays, did full IB with a 3.9 unweighted GPA, and had a 2390 SAT. She was rejected from Stanford and she was devastated. And this was back in 2006 when admissions were less competitive than they are now.
The important thing to learn from her situation is how she responded. She ended up at USC on academic scholarship, competed in USC track and XC and graduated with a 3.9 in EE and is now doing her PhD in robotics at UCSD. Make the most of your opportunities.
Besides, it looks like your IB curriculum paid off after all, seeing as you got some nice scholarships to other schools you applied to.
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EPT
