<p>Are you worried about going from the top of your class to the middle of the pack at your reach school?</p>
<p>I never have had to to challenge myself in high school with the exception of a couple classes (Honors Physics, AP Calc) and still managed to be in the top 5% of a large class. I think I’ll really need to step it up to get good grades in college when competing with geniuses, crazy pre-meds, workaholics, etc. </p>
<p>Am I alone in this fear?</p>
<p>Middle of the pack doesn’t sound too bad at Stanford considering the great minds that are going to be there. Yes, there’s a certain unease, but I figure I’ll just do my best.</p>
<p>i feel the same exact way. i’m first in my class at a small public school, i’ve never had to work too hard and things have always come easily to me. middlebury is an amazing school with some great students and i feel like i’m going to flunk out lol. But the way i look at it is that i have to challenge myself. i would much rather go to midd and be at the bottom than at a crappier college and be at the top.</p>
<p>average admitted GPA of bioengineerin kids at UCSD: 4.22</p>
<p>I am still going there.</p>
<p>Competition just pushes yourself to try harder.</p>
<p>raindrop, i feel the same way… funny thing, i recognize you from Rice forum and i will be going there. but as you probably know, Rice students seem pretty relaxed about thigns like that and if you need some help I’m sure people won’t mind helping you out.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m definitely going to my farthest reach I could ever imagine…like a million miles reach, and that’s MIT. At first, I was really worried. I mean, I pulled everything I could out of my high school, but it’s still not that great. And I know I’m in the bottom of the freshman class. But I’ve heard that everyone (except for the super geniuses) kind of evens out after the first year. And I’m not really worried because I putting myself in that position to be challenged and all that good jazz, so I want it to be ridiculously hard, if that makes any sense???
And I’ve decided that the admissions officers wouldn’t admit you if tey didn’t think that you wouldn’t hack it out and eventually end up contributing SOMETHING to their school. I have faith in admissions…at least right now…</p>
<p>for the guy appling to MIT, I would do an interview there just to strength your rep.</p>
<p>I’d only be concerned about a few schools that are known for intense studying and brutal curves and weeding: MIT, Caltech, Swat, Chicago, Cal. Middlebury and the like are pussycats.</p>
<p>I’m not a 2010er, but honestly I think the competition would be refreshing for me. Maybe it’s just because I go to a way underachieving school, where I’m the best in a lot of stuff or at least near the top (not to brag lol), but I would honestly love the competition as it takes that for me to work even harder. I guess I thrive in competition, I’m always trying to better on tests than everyone else or on projects, and I constantly compare myself to everyone else. I guess that’s why I want to get into a prestigious school, so I can be better than everyone at my school as to which college I got into, and to meet some kids way better than me, which would push me to my maximum.</p>