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I'm currently going through the painstaking task of getting all my essays, transcripts, test scores, and applications together to apply to college (university) here in the good ol USA. However, the more I read and learn about how the US system of college admissions works compared to other countries, the more angry I become. Some might say that we have the best universities in the world, which is probably true, but I think that this is in spite of, not because of, how we admit people in to college, specifically the top colleges. Allow me to rant a little bit (okay actually a lot) about why the US system sucks.
Sports are fun and a good way to relax and socialize while maintaining your physique, but for whatever reason the USA fetishizes high school and college sports to an unhealthy degree. It gets to the point that a lot of schools and even many universities become more about sports than anything else. I'm sure, regardless of where you're from, you've read about the stereotypical American high school with the popular jocks and cheerleaders and the loser nerds. Well, we actually do tend to glorify sports that much. Even some of the best schools in the country, such as Harvard (which lets in 200 recruited athletes per year, 10% of admitted students and WAY TOO MANY) decide to forget the reason that they exist in the first place as institutes of higher learning and lower standards to let in athletes. Ofc not all athletes are dumb, but they aren't on average smarter than the rest of the students at Harvard either, and they get admitted in an unfair way (they are now, in October, already getting commitments, while the results for mere mortals like me don't come back until December or March). I'm sure some of the athletes at Harvard are smart and would get in anyway, but their admission effectively locks out other people who are smarter and more likely to actually put a university education to good use (or better use).
But sports are just the beginning. Universities in the US purposefully make the application process very nebulous and confusing. Aside from being a recruited athlete, there is no real way for anybody to know if they will get in to the top colleges (e.g. ivies, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Vandy, Duke, Chicago, and more) before they get their admission results back. They do this for a few reasons, partly to lower the admission standards for certain ethnic groups while raising the standards for others in search of "equality" without explicitly stating it (please google affirmative action if this does not make sense), partly to get a lot of applications to increase the hype of the school and the prestige of the accepted, and partly so that the people who do get accepted are the most likely to show up (this is called raising yield).
In countries like China, from what I understand you basically just sit for the gaokao and that determines where you go to school. That seems kind of strict, though perhaps fair. In the US, your objective stats (your subjective ones are what schools dangle over your head to keep you worrying and to give them leeway for themselves) are basically just your test scores and transcripts (grades). We have grades, usually on a 4.0 scale with an A as a 4.0, B as a 3.0, and so on. I'd say maybe 2-3% of people get 4.0s (with actual hard schedules)in a given year, and in some schools there are more than others. Since you can choose a lot of classes that you take in high school, it is much better to take a lot of challenging, "college-level" classes to show that you are smart, so if you want to go to a good school you better take a ton of AP/IB classes (sidenote: as a white guy having taken/taking 13 AP classes I've noticed that students of a particular ethnic group tend to adore me because of some weird fetishized concept of AP classes). Then you gotta take a lot of tests. You take the PSAT 1-2 times to try to get a good enough score to get a full-ride/free/reduced tuition to some colleges that are good but not the best, and only the time you take it as a junior counts. Then you take the ACT and/or SAT 1-3 times to try to get a good score for the college you want to go to, and then SAT Subject tests to show that you also know what the fuck a parametric equation is. Even after all of those tests, most of which you have to pay money for yourself if you are not poor, colleges still pull the same bull year after year where they don't weigh them very much. Even a perfect SAT/ACT (less than .1% of population) with perfect grades (4.0) has a less than 50% of getting in to colleges like Harvard.
Aside from test scores and grades and sports, the elite colleges have several other ways to make you think you have a chance. You need 2 teacher letters of recommendation, so you better ask for one from a good letter-writer or from one who will let you write it for them, because if the teacher is uninformed or a bad writer then the universities will for whatever reason think that the teacher is not fully endorsing you and is sending some subliminal message that the applicant is not good. You have to write essays talking about how you would just love to study at Princeton and the library is just so pretty oh and winston churchill used to go there and he was like my favorite president ever, this essay is so "unique" and "glowing." You also have to write about your background, so if you grew up in Detroit this is your chance to get in even if you don't have the grades, scores, or anything else really. You can write about a curious anecdote from your life detailing that wonderful time you tutored poor old Jimmy, the kid who was failing out of 9th grade, bringing his grades all up to As and his parents to tears, but it was no big deal really, you did it for him and not for yourself. Oh yeah, and you have to write about extracurricular activities so I hope your parents could set you up to clean test tubes in some professor's lab or made a useless nonprofit for you, this totally unique NPO that raised 5k that did something that one weekend. Its also probably a good idea to create a bunch of clubs at your school, make yourself president, and use other positions as bartering tools to get other offices. Oh yeah and don't forget that you have not one, not two, but (count em) THREE varsity letters.
Anyway, that's all waving around your head, you submit everything either due Nov. 1 or Jan. 1 and get results back either sometime in December or in March. You didn't get in to Harvard. Well, let's see why not:
200 spots go to recruited athletes
200-400 spots go to under represented minorities who would not have got in otherwise, all of which would have totally been smarter if they had been of another race (in all honesty, how is this not racist?)
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that legacies at schools like Princeton have over a 40% admissions rate, so add another 100 there.
International people, which are usually actually super smart/super super rich, 200
100 spots go to Siemens, Intel STS, ISEF, and international olympiad people. If your school doesn't offer olympiad tests or your parents don't know a professor, sorry about our luck
300 spots go to the people that are actually going to spend $60k per year studying Philosophy, religion, sociology, french literature, etc.
So out of 2000 spots, we have from 1000 to 1200 left, and I didn't even include some stereotypical things like artsy people and NPO starters. Good luck competing against those 30,000 other people even with good grades.
Personally this all just pisses me off, since I'm not one of those people who goes out and does all this shit just for college (actually a lie, I do the test tube thing) but I do well enough in school/on tests that by all metrics I should be able to go wherever the hell I want. It pisses me off that some crew kid from Hartford, who studied at Exeter of course, is studying economics at Harvard so that in a few years he can get a job at Bain or Merril Lynch or Goldman Sachs when someone who could actually change the world just didn't "pop out of the page" or whatever BS college admissions people like to spout.
I know someone will inevitably say "if you don't like the schools admission policies, don't try to go there" but that represents an idealistic view that I don't agree with. If I do get in to a nice college, great, now I have lots of resources to help me, a strong network, access to some of the brightest minds in any given field, and lots of smart potential friends. But it seems silly to me that some of this access is going to people who objectively don't really seem to deserve it.
Sorry for subjecting you all to my teenage angst but hopefully you come to understand that I'm an incredibly anxious kid who is about to make a bunch of really important decisions, and I have no way of knowing what that decision will be until March of April. If you want to talk about college in general or tell me how much of an ungrateful bastard I am, go ahead.
  
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Think of it this way: What do YOU have to offer to an university?
An athlete can help the school's athletic teams and overall program, which can lead to revenue. The super rich are more likely to make donations, etc.
Second, don't get caught up too much on college admissions. After all, this is only undergraduate. Once you get a graduate degree, this undergraduate degree you have will matter much much less. And once you start working, it'll lose even more significance.
Don't let a college application board determine your destiny.
Finally, best of luck. Enjoy your final few months of high school, and enjoy your years at college. It is truly an amazing time, and make this a period of your life where you look back with pleasant nostalgia.
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to show that you also know what the fuck a parametric equation is
Made me smile 
Yes, school admissions is annoying, and perhaps unfair if it favors some groups of people.
But most of the other stuff you ranted about (which is typical for a junior/ senior in high school, don't get me wrong), stems from the competition that other students and families create, not just because the schools have stupid rules or are too strict. Every school wants the best and brightest; every school wants diversity and variety. Because why would they want to settle if they don't have to?
The only advice I can give you is to focus on what a school can offer you, and attend a university that will help you take that next step towards becoming an adult. You can party at any university, but not every Top 50 university has the best material for you. You may not even want to go to Harvard.
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In my experience there are a few unwritten guarantees. If you, for example, place in the top 30 on the USA Math Olympiad in junior year you will get into MIT. I don't know what you mean when you say that your school needs to offer Olympiad tests. In this age of the internet it should be possible to find some place to take the test, and the Computing Olympiad is entirely online. Anyway, good luck with the admissions process!
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On October 15 2013 12:03 Bagration wrote:
Think of it this way: What do YOU have to offer to an university?
An athlete can help the school's athletic teams and overall program, which can lead to revenue. The super rich are more likely to make donations, etc.
Second, don't get caught up too much on college admissions. After all, this is only undergraduate. Once you get a graduate degree, this undergraduate degree you have will matter much much less. And once you start working, it'll lose even more significance.
Don't let a college application board determine your destiny.
Finally, best of luck. Enjoy your final few months of high school, and enjoy your years at college. It is truly an amazing time, and make this a period of your life where you look back with pleasant nostalgia.
Yeah but that's not what a university is about. Do you seriously not see the idiocy and corruption of making universities a place of sports and daddy's money? It's frankly disgusting.
On October 15 2013 12:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Made me smile Yes, school admissions is annoying, and perhaps unfair if it favors some groups of people. But most of the other stuff you ranted about (which is typical for a junior/ senior in high school, don't get me wrong), stems from the competition that other students and families create, not just because the schools have stupid rules or are too strict. Every school wants the best and brightest; every school wants diversity and variety. Because why would they want to settle if they don't have to? The only advice I can give you is to focus on what a school can offer you, and attend a university that will help you take that next step towards becoming an adult. You can party at any university, but not every Top 50 university has the best material for you. You may not even want to go to Harvard.
I think no school on this planet would have to settle to admit me, which is actually really scary when put in the context that I am less likely than not to be admitted to any of the "best" universities in the US. And I understand what you're saying when it comes it what is basically fit, but since I tedn to be sort of dismissive of a lot of people, definitely a personal fault of mine, I'd like to go somewhere where I'd have less of a reason to be dismissive of the average person, if that makes sense. But it certainly would not be the end of the world to go to my state school. I actually do think that MIT has probably the best material for me but I will never know for sure since I will not be a student at every university in the United States.
On October 15 2013 12:07 Muirhead wrote:
In my experience there are a few unwritten guarantees. If you, for example, place in the top 30 on the USA Math Olympiad in junior year you will get into MIT. I don't know what you mean when you say that your school needs to offer Olympiad tests. In this age of the internet it should be possible to find some place to take the test, and the Computing Olympiad is entirely online. Anyway, good luck with the admissions process!
I am aware of this, I actually did this. I started both the math and chem olympiads at my school. I did pretty well in the chem one but missed the AIME by one question, which made me feel super stupid.But I had no idea that these even existed before the beginning of my junior year. I feel like if I had done the AMC 10 for my first two years of HS I could have done way better on the AMC.
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On October 15 2013 12:21 Chocolate wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 12:03 Bagration wrote:
Think of it this way: What do YOU have to offer to an university?
An athlete can help the school's athletic teams and overall program, which can lead to revenue. The super rich are more likely to make donations, etc.
Second, don't get caught up too much on college admissions. After all, this is only undergraduate. Once you get a graduate degree, this undergraduate degree you have will matter much much less. And once you start working, it'll lose even more significance.
Don't let a college application board determine your destiny.
Finally, best of luck. Enjoy your final few months of high school, and enjoy your years at college. It is truly an amazing time, and make this a period of your life where you look back with pleasant nostalgia. Yeah but that's not what a university is about. Do you seriously not see the idiocy and corruption of making universities a place of sports and daddy's money? It's frankly disgusting.
Thing is, a lot of universities you listed are private universities including all the ivies. It's perfectly fine for them to do that and the model seems to have worked so well over the past decades. I don't see it as being idiotic and full of corruption when some of their admission policies are both realistic and legal. More revenue/income a university gets the better for them. There are probably thousands of the best and brightest around the world that each of these universities can choose. They won't miss out if they didn't select you or 90% of the applicants as harsh as that sounds.
I wouldn't say the admission system is disgusting, but seems like you're most disgusted at your own chances. I'm sure if you or another person was admitted, a thought that the admission is "comprehensive" and "holistic" would be given the chance instead. Not that it matters, once you start college, wherever that may be, you like other millions of incoming students, won't care about admission standards at all. If you think the undergraduate admission is disgusting, wait until you see what graduate admissions is like.
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On October 15 2013 12:21 Chocolate wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 12:03 Bagration wrote:
Think of it this way: What do YOU have to offer to an university?
An athlete can help the school's athletic teams and overall program, which can lead to revenue. The super rich are more likely to make donations, etc.
Second, don't get caught up too much on college admissions. After all, this is only undergraduate. Once you get a graduate degree, this undergraduate degree you have will matter much much less. And once you start working, it'll lose even more significance.
Don't let a college application board determine your destiny.
Finally, best of luck. Enjoy your final few months of high school, and enjoy your years at college. It is truly an amazing time, and make this a period of your life where you look back with pleasant nostalgia. Yeah but that's not what a university is about. Do you seriously not see the idiocy and corruption of making universities a place of sports and daddy's money? It's frankly disgusting.
I don't see too much of an issue. For many people, college sports are an integral part of the college process (pre-gaming and tailgating Saturday football games). And colleges need funding. :p
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On October 15 2013 12:28 BirdKiller wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 12:21 Chocolate wrote:On October 15 2013 12:03 Bagration wrote:
Think of it this way: What do YOU have to offer to an university?
An athlete can help the school's athletic teams and overall program, which can lead to revenue. The super rich are more likely to make donations, etc.
Second, don't get caught up too much on college admissions. After all, this is only undergraduate. Once you get a graduate degree, this undergraduate degree you have will matter much much less. And once you start working, it'll lose even more significance.
Don't let a college application board determine your destiny.
Finally, best of luck. Enjoy your final few months of high school, and enjoy your years at college. It is truly an amazing time, and make this a period of your life where you look back with pleasant nostalgia. Yeah but that's not what a university is about. Do you seriously not see the idiocy and corruption of making universities a place of sports and daddy's money? It's frankly disgusting. Thing is, a lot of universities you listed are private universities including all the ivies. It's perfectly fine for them to do that and the model seems to have worked so well over the past decades. I don't see it as being idiotic and full of corruption when some of their admission policies are both realistic and legal. More revenue/income a university gets the better for them. There are probably thousands of the best and brightest around the world that each of these universities can choose. They won't miss out if they didn't select you or 90% of the applicants as harsh as that sounds. I wouldn't say the admission system is disgusting, but seems like you're most disgusted at your own chances. I'm sure if you or another person was admitted, a thought that the admission is "comprehensive" and "holistic" would be given the chance instead. Not that it matters, once you start college, wherever that may be, you like other millions of incoming students, won't care about admission standards at all. If you think the undergraduate admission is disgusting, wait until you see what graduate admissions is like.
Maybe I just have some strange idea of what a university should be be then. Yes, it is entirely within any college's rights to operate as they see fit (to a degree) but that doesn't mean it's a good way to run it. I have this notion that universities should be about learning and not just a business that wants to make as much money as possible. I guess most of the best universities would disagree with me in this day and age.
I actually have good chances relative to most people, probably about 40/60 (maybe less, hubris and all that )at any given school because of my test scores and grades. But it's weird that even with high stats nothing is for sure. And I know about 10 people that have been accepted to this level of university and they don't make me glad that the process is holistic, nor would my own acceptance make me glad for that. Holistic is an excuse for arbitrary and subjective masking of hidden intentions and initiatives. It was actually originally invented to keep the Jews out of top schools, since they were scoring so well.
On October 15 2013 12:34 Bagration wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 12:21 Chocolate wrote:On October 15 2013 12:03 Bagration wrote:
Think of it this way: What do YOU have to offer to an university?
An athlete can help the school's athletic teams and overall program, which can lead to revenue. The super rich are more likely to make donations, etc.
Second, don't get caught up too much on college admissions. After all, this is only undergraduate. Once you get a graduate degree, this undergraduate degree you have will matter much much less. And once you start working, it'll lose even more significance.
Don't let a college application board determine your destiny.
Finally, best of luck. Enjoy your final few months of high school, and enjoy your years at college. It is truly an amazing time, and make this a period of your life where you look back with pleasant nostalgia. Yeah but that's not what a university is about. Do you seriously not see the idiocy and corruption of making universities a place of sports and daddy's money? It's frankly disgusting. I don't see too much of an issue. For many people, college sports are an integral part of the college process (pre-gaming and tailgating Saturday football games). And colleges need funding. :p
I like football games as much as the next guy but any sizable school could have a team. I've read that most schools (not bama and co.) actually lose money from football programs, which along with basketball programs are the real shows. I'm sure all other sports also lose money. Also, does anybody really care if Harvard has a good team or not? Aside from the game vs Yale I don't even know if people watch harvard football too much. It just seems like a way to keep an old boys club going strong at the expense of other things.
I have no problem with recruiting at huge schools that are easy to get in to, but I think at some schools recruiting probably is detrimental to the student body as a whole, and unfair for people who are smarter than recruits but not big sports stars.
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Yep, applying to college sucks. On the bright side, I can almost guarantee you that you won't care about any of this crap by this time next year... everything's going to be fine.
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Haha, if only college admissions were that predictable. Come spring, you'll find that while the things you mentioned correlate well with admissions prospects, none of them matter past a certain point. I had friends with a higher GPA, higher SAT get into places I didn't. I had friends with a lower GPA, lower SAT get into places I didn't. I got into places that someone with a higher GPA, higher SAT didn't. Or mix and match any one of the parameters you mentioned. College admissions predictions are filled with people overfitting a small sample size.
But of course, I pay tribute to the obligatory dick waving contest:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=204700¤tpage=4#75
(also was a National Merit Finalist)
(UC GPA means University of California GPA, which is capped to 8 semesters of weighted courses).
(Uncapped: ~4.25)
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On October 15 2013 12:21 Chocolate wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 12:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:to show that you also know what the fuck a parametric equation is Made me smile Yes, school admissions is annoying, and perhaps unfair if it favors some groups of people. But most of the other stuff you ranted about (which is typical for a junior/ senior in high school, don't get me wrong), stems from the competition that other students and families create, not just because the schools have stupid rules or are too strict. Every school wants the best and brightest; every school wants diversity and variety. Because why would they want to settle if they don't have to? The only advice I can give you is to focus on what a school can offer you, and attend a university that will help you take that next step towards becoming an adult. You can party at any university, but not every Top 50 university has the best material for you. You may not even want to go to Harvard. I think no school on this planet would have to settle to admit me, which is actually really scary when put in the context that I am less likely than not to be admitted to any of the "best" universities in the US. And I understand what you're saying when it comes it what is basically fit, but since I tedn to be sort of dismissive of a lot of people, definitely a personal fault of mine, I'd like to go somewhere where I'd have less of a reason to be dismissive of the average person, if that makes sense. But it certainly would not be the end of the world to go to my state school. I actually do think that MIT has probably the best material for me but I will never know for sure since I will not be a student at every university in the United States.
Out of curiosity:
1. What do you want to study/ what's your ideal future profession?
2. What are your grades/ scores/ stats like (as far as your college applications go)?
3. What makes you good/ unique enough to attend any top tier school (besides great grades, scores, and stats, assuming you have them)?
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On October 15 2013 13:09 Loser777 wrote:Haha, if only college admissions were that predictable. Come spring, you'll find that while the things you mentioned correlate well with admissions prospects, none of them matter past a certain point. I had friends with a higher GPA, higher SAT get into place I didn't. I had friends with a lower GPA, lower SAT get into places I didn't. I got into places that someone with a higher GPA, higher SAT didn't. Or mix and match any one of the parameters you mentioned. College admissions predictions are filled with people overfitting a small sample size. But of course, I pay tribute to the obligatory dick waving contest: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=204700¤tpage=4#75(also was a National Merit Finalist)
damn dude it's scary that you didn't even get into UCB. I'm not applying to the UCs since they are really pricey for non residents, but still. Tbh tho I don't think NMF is such a big deal since 15k get it every year. But it's still really shocking to me that an STS semifinalist was denied from some UCs. Did you end up going to UCLA?
On October 15 2013 13:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 12:21 Chocolate wrote:On October 15 2013 12:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:to show that you also know what the fuck a parametric equation is Made me smile Yes, school admissions is annoying, and perhaps unfair if it favors some groups of people. But most of the other stuff you ranted about (which is typical for a junior/ senior in high school, don't get me wrong), stems from the competition that other students and families create, not just because the schools have stupid rules or are too strict. Every school wants the best and brightest; every school wants diversity and variety. Because why would they want to settle if they don't have to? The only advice I can give you is to focus on what a school can offer you, and attend a university that will help you take that next step towards becoming an adult. You can party at any university, but not every Top 50 university has the best material for you. You may not even want to go to Harvard. I think no school on this planet would have to settle to admit me, which is actually really scary when put in the context that I am less likely than not to be admitted to any of the "best" universities in the US. And I understand what you're saying when it comes it what is basically fit, but since I tedn to be sort of dismissive of a lot of people, definitely a personal fault of mine, I'd like to go somewhere where I'd have less of a reason to be dismissive of the average person, if that makes sense. But it certainly would not be the end of the world to go to my state school. I actually do think that MIT has probably the best material for me but I will never know for sure since I will not be a student at every university in the United States. Out of curiosity: 1. What do you want to study/ what's your ideal future profession? 2. What are your grades/ scores/ stats like (as far as your college applications go)? 3. What makes you good/ unique enough to attend any top tier school (besides great grades, scores, and stats, assuming you have them)?
1 I can't decide between CS, EE, or chemistry. If I study EE or CS I'd probably get a masters and then start working in the private sector, maybe once I figure things out try to start my own thing in CS since that's the hot thing to do. If I study chem I might try to get a phd. I've read the post and thread about PhDs and I can honestly say that, from what I know so far about it, chemistry interests me enough that I do get of kind of an itch for it. I suppose I don't NEED a super selective school for any of this but I might not want an MS in CS and I'd also like to be around smart people and smart girls 
2 pretty good. I'll spoiler them, shhhh + Show Spoiler +4.0 unweighted GPA w 12 Ap classes (some my senior year), 36 ACT, 800Math2, 800 USHist, 780 Chem
3 If I write too much here it'll give me away probably. But I do stuff outside of school that is cool and I'm pretty internally motivated. My parents actually want me to go to the local catholic university. I wish I could say I was doing Intel STS but my project fell through so I can write about research but I won't have an award per se.
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If you want a "Harvard" education bad enough, you will get it. Simple as that. You might not get enrolled into the university but at any point in your life you can opt to read the same books they read and do the same questions and subjects they did. If you're lucky, you can even get online lectures off your Harvard friends! You won't get a nice piece of paper in the end but my experience so far is that I tend to be more motivated when I'm learning for the sake of learning.
If you want to / have the motivation to excel, no "lower-tier" degrees from other universities can stop you.Don't pull the "but Harvardites get better job opportunities" as well since you just condoned the Exeter (whatever this is) guy for going to Harvard just to get a job.
I apologize if this comes out mean or bad logic, I'm really sick and nauseous due to inner ear pressure ( blocked nose ) today so I may have omitted some pleasantries. Anyways, good luck and I hope you get what you want!
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On October 15 2013 13:28 Chocolate wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 13:09 Loser777 wrote:Haha, if only college admissions were that predictable. Come spring, you'll find that while the things you mentioned correlate well with admissions prospects, none of them matter past a certain point. I had friends with a higher GPA, higher SAT get into place I didn't. I had friends with a lower GPA, lower SAT get into places I didn't. I got into places that someone with a higher GPA, higher SAT didn't. Or mix and match any one of the parameters you mentioned. College admissions predictions are filled with people overfitting a small sample size. But of course, I pay tribute to the obligatory dick waving contest: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=204700¤tpage=4#75(also was a National Merit Finalist) damn dude it's scary that you didn't even get into UCB. I'm not applying to the UCs since they are really pricey for non residents, but still. Tbh tho I don't think NMF is such a big deal since 15k get it every year. But it's still really shocking to me that an STS semifinalist was denied from some UCs. Did you end up going to UCLA? Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 13:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 15 2013 12:21 Chocolate wrote:On October 15 2013 12:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:to show that you also know what the fuck a parametric equation is Made me smile Yes, school admissions is annoying, and perhaps unfair if it favors some groups of people. But most of the other stuff you ranted about (which is typical for a junior/ senior in high school, don't get me wrong), stems from the competition that other students and families create, not just because the schools have stupid rules or are too strict. Every school wants the best and brightest; every school wants diversity and variety. Because why would they want to settle if they don't have to? The only advice I can give you is to focus on what a school can offer you, and attend a university that will help you take that next step towards becoming an adult. You can party at any university, but not every Top 50 university has the best material for you. You may not even want to go to Harvard. I think no school on this planet would have to settle to admit me, which is actually really scary when put in the context that I am less likely than not to be admitted to any of the "best" universities in the US. And I understand what you're saying when it comes it what is basically fit, but since I tedn to be sort of dismissive of a lot of people, definitely a personal fault of mine, I'd like to go somewhere where I'd have less of a reason to be dismissive of the average person, if that makes sense. But it certainly would not be the end of the world to go to my state school. I actually do think that MIT has probably the best material for me but I will never know for sure since I will not be a student at every university in the United States. Out of curiosity: 1. What do you want to study/ what's your ideal future profession? 2. What are your grades/ scores/ stats like (as far as your college applications go)? 3. What makes you good/ unique enough to attend any top tier school (besides great grades, scores, and stats, assuming you have them)? 1 I can't decide between CS, EE, or chemistry. If I study EE or CS I'd probably get a masters and then start working in the private sector, maybe once I figure things out try to start my own thing in CS since that's the hot thing to do. If I study chem I might try to get a phd. I've read the post and thread about PhDs and I can honestly say that, from what I know so far about it, chemistry interests me enough that I do get of kind of an itch for it. I suppose I don't NEED a super selective school for any of this but I might not want an MS in CS and I'd also like to be around smart people and smart girls 2 pretty good. I'll spoiler them, shhhh + Show Spoiler +4.0 unweighted GPA w 12 Ap classes (some my senior year), 36 ACT, 800Math2, 800 USHist, 780 Chem I'm not really weak in ECs or awards but at the same time I am not unique enough to really standout in my estimation 3 If I write too much here it'll give me away probably. But I do stuff outside of school that is cool and I'm pretty internally motivated. My parents actually want me to go to the local catholic university. I wish I could say I was doing Intel STS but my project fell through so I can write about research but I won't have an award per se.
In terms of the being around smart people, please chill out. Thankfully, there are more smart people in this country than can fit in its "top tier" institutions (and as you pointed out, there are a decent number of not particularly smart people at these schools) and there are also a ton of smart people who consciously choose not to be at those hyper-prestigious schools. A rejection from Harvard does not consign you to a fate of only being around dullards.
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Life's tough, get a helmet.
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Your complaint about athletes surprised me. There is the principled disagreement, but I don't think it represents a large percentage. 10% seems a bit high. And, from what I've heard, apart from football/basketball/baseball, most athletes are pretty good students.
I do agree that the process is pretty bullshit. I myself was 2nd in my class at a high school that routinely made top 100 in the nation and had every conceivable sort of accolade. I was rejected by Princeton and put on the waiting list by Rice while some other classmates got into Harvard, Rice, etc despite being ranked lower and having nowhere near the resume I had, most likely because they were Hispanic and concocted a better sob story about being disadvantaged. I agree it's a pretty terrible way to run a higher learning system by trying to use it as a tool for social justice instead of trying to find the best and brightest. I would suggest, though, that there are a few factors here that the admissions office can't be blamed for.
The first is that, obviously, American secondary education is just too decentralized to have a standardized admission process. Every high school is different and tests are inadequate. In some ways, the mathematics students and to a lesser extent the natural science students have it better in that there are several ways they could prove their chops via tests and certain competitions. Are you the next Cormac McCarthy? GLHF translating that into a college admission. Additionally, liberal arts classes are (duh) subjective and less susceptible to "brute force" and so are held to a lower standard. Why did I get second in my class you may ask? Because my only competition was somewhat better at math than me and the English and History teachers could not adequately reflect the extent (even if they had bothered testing for it) to which I stomped their guts out in prose and analysis. In short, the qualities that you would expect to find in a model student of higher education are not tested at all in high school. With a mass of students all with identical ranks and scores, who could blame them for trying to find any sort of distinguishing factor?
The second part is that I believe the American University system needs an overhaul. It faces the simultaneous problem that too many people are going to college and not enough people are being educated. Maybe trained is the better word. My solution is that there needs to be a major segregation. This would shield the true academics from the fickleness of the current system and lower the threshold for students who would not normally attend a 4 year college but would benefit from further education.
-The university system would be for students that expect to continue to graduate school: Dedicated Liberal Arts students, mathematics students, prospective MBA, Law, pre-Med/Pharm, engineering, some CS, etc
-The second system would be for students that much of university is..for lack of a better term...wasted on. The goal here is to be vocational: Natural science drones. Business drones. people who did LA because they didn't know what to do with their life, and you could have IT and managerial classes and maybe even coopt some vocational education like Farm/Ag and welding, etc.
The first thing you might think is that there would be intense competition to get into the higher tier, but I think there would be a good deal of self-selection. I think most people try to sell themselves as highly as possible because they want to have some cushion in case they fall a bit. How many students write undergrad essays about wanting to be doctors and how many actually take the MCAT? Students would be more realistic because they wouldn't be trying to compete against the cream. Furthermore, this would allow a system of promotion/demotion so students could switch horses midstream. The second issue is how would you identify the top tier students. You could suggest tests or even argue that there should be a similar segregation in high schools, but I think that the students themselves could self-direct. In graduate school, you don't just show up and say 'teach me!'; you're expected to have an area of interest and have done some reasonable amount of work in it. Undergrad should be the same way to a lesser extent. You can actually ask students to write about something they are interested in and give them a chance to sound intelligent instead of asking them to respond to some b.s. quotation.
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On October 15 2013 13:28 Chocolate wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 13:09 Loser777 wrote:Haha, if only college admissions were that predictable. Come spring, you'll find that while the things you mentioned correlate well with admissions prospects, none of them matter past a certain point. I had friends with a higher GPA, higher SAT get into place I didn't. I had friends with a lower GPA, lower SAT get into places I didn't. I got into places that someone with a higher GPA, higher SAT didn't. Or mix and match any one of the parameters you mentioned. College admissions predictions are filled with people overfitting a small sample size. But of course, I pay tribute to the obligatory dick waving contest: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=204700¤tpage=4#75(also was a National Merit Finalist) damn dude it's scary that you didn't even get into UCB. I'm not applying to the UCs since they are really pricey for non residents, but still. Tbh tho I don't think NMF is such a big deal since 15k get it every year. But it's still really shocking to me that an STS semifinalist was denied from some UCs. Did you end up going to UCLA? Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 13:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 15 2013 12:21 Chocolate wrote:On October 15 2013 12:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:to show that you also know what the fuck a parametric equation is Made me smile Yes, school admissions is annoying, and perhaps unfair if it favors some groups of people. But most of the other stuff you ranted about (which is typical for a junior/ senior in high school, don't get me wrong), stems from the competition that other students and families create, not just because the schools have stupid rules or are too strict. Every school wants the best and brightest; every school wants diversity and variety. Because why would they want to settle if they don't have to? The only advice I can give you is to focus on what a school can offer you, and attend a university that will help you take that next step towards becoming an adult. You can party at any university, but not every Top 50 university has the best material for you. You may not even want to go to Harvard. I think no school on this planet would have to settle to admit me, which is actually really scary when put in the context that I am less likely than not to be admitted to any of the "best" universities in the US. And I understand what you're saying when it comes it what is basically fit, but since I tedn to be sort of dismissive of a lot of people, definitely a personal fault of mine, I'd like to go somewhere where I'd have less of a reason to be dismissive of the average person, if that makes sense. But it certainly would not be the end of the world to go to my state school. I actually do think that MIT has probably the best material for me but I will never know for sure since I will not be a student at every university in the United States. Out of curiosity: 1. What do you want to study/ what's your ideal future profession? 2. What are your grades/ scores/ stats like (as far as your college applications go)? 3. What makes you good/ unique enough to attend any top tier school (besides great grades, scores, and stats, assuming you have them)? 1 I can't decide between CS, EE, or chemistry. If I study EE or CS I'd probably get a masters and then start working in the private sector, maybe once I figure things out try to start my own thing in CS since that's the hot thing to do. If I study chem I might try to get a phd. I've read the post and thread about PhDs and I can honestly say that, from what I know so far about it, chemistry interests me enough that I do get of kind of an itch for it. I suppose I don't NEED a super selective school for any of this but I might not want an MS in CS and I'd also like to be around smart people and smart girls 2 pretty good. I'll spoiler them, shhhh + Show Spoiler +4.0 unweighted GPA w 12 Ap classes (some my senior year), 36 ACT, 800Math2, 800 USHist, 780 Chem I'm not really weak in ECs or awards but at the same time I am not unique enough to really standout in my estimation 3 If I write too much here it'll give me away probably. But I do stuff outside of school that is cool and I'm pretty internally motivated. My parents actually want me to go to the local catholic university. I wish I could say I was doing Intel STS but my project fell through so I can write about research but I won't have an award per se.
Intel STS is hyped up way more than what it is. Here's the thing. STS results come out in January, past the application deadline for pretty much every school. For schools where something like that could have made a difference for me (UCs), it did jack shit because UCs don't consider anything after November 30th. To make it matter for privates, there better be some awesome follow-up in your mid-year report about how amazing your project was in addition to you getting the prize for it to be more than a drop in the bucket. Your stats put you in the running everywhere--and that's what's important. Stressing over the details is useless. Focus on writing great essays. What I really regret is perhaps not aiming higher. I applied to so many safety schools that I probably would never attend (it's easy to transfer in California from a CC) that I didn't really explore all my potential options. In the end, wherever you end up, you'll probably find that you're surrounded by under-qualified people.
And yeah, I'm at UCLA. Hoping to go somewhere else for grad school though.
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Sometimes the school you get into is just hard and not very rewarding. If you need to learn something you can learn it by yourself if your major is one where technology is involved. In many ways self teaching is better than going to college given today's resources. You don't have to jump through hoops doing mindless tasks for points or learn useless outdated material.
A lot of people burn out. Many in the first semester of college realize that the major or school the chose wasn't for them and change.
College admissions will seem so trivial a year from now.
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the lesson you should be learning is two-fold
you're not a special snowflake
and life's not fair
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EPT
