Is CC skewing our view on college admissions?

juillet
Fri, 28 May 2010 15:28:14 +0000

Not everyone. There will always been some applicants who are not qualified to go to the schools - some people with below average stats will apply to those schools either out of ignorance or blind home, and there’s also some students who are just on the cusp who apply “just to see” but have no intentions of actually attending these Ivies. (I had a friend who’s parents made her apply to Harvard just so they could brag that she got in, if she did. She didn’t want to go to Harvard, and didn’t.)

College Confidential, in my opinion, does have a skewed view of what’s competitive. For one example, look at kman146. A 2180 SAT score is in the 98th percentile of all test takers. A 2130 is likewise in the 97th percentile. And assuming a score of 710 per section, that’s in the middle 50% of accepted applicants at even the tippy-top of schools. A 2130 doesn’t disqualify you for entrance anywhere - and yet I’ve seen people get told that they need at least a 2200 to be competitive. Even the Ivies’ published stats don’t hold up to that statement. I think CC students also misjudge how many legacies, athletes, and especially underrepresented ethnic minorities get into these schools with below-average stats.

I also think that CC artificially inflates the importance of going to a handful of colleges (some of the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, etc., some others) while really undervaluing some of the other really great schools in the country. Seems the only colleges you ever hear about on here are in the top 20, maybe top 30 of U.S. colleges and universities while leaving out the vast majority of the other over 2500 schools in the country - including the other 70-80 in the top 100 colleges and universities. It’s like if you don’t get into a top 20 school your life will be ruined forever, you’ll never be able to get a decent job or go to graduate school, and what will the neighbors think?