@tigerrocks13 , chances threads are the best way to become seriously depressed. And I agree 100% with @intparent about the blind leading the blind. I have never seen a single senior member on CC EVER tell a single kid they need 27 clubs. If anything, CC senior memebers will say the opposite and that it is better to do a few things that really interest you. Not sure why you would think HS students are a good source of advice, but they aren’t. As someone who has spent the better part of two years perusing this forum somewhat obsessively, I can honestly say that teenagers hear more bad information from each other than from anywhere else.
And yes, my parting advice is blunt. Your, or anyone’s, chances of getting into Top 20 schools is very very slim, because of sheer numbers. Getting into top colleges is about much much more than test scores and grades. My favorite saying is that those things will only get you to the gate. It’s all the other stuff combined in an intangible way by individual colleges that get a few through the gate. Assume you won’t get in, and if you do, you are lucky and did things right.
Hahaha, too funny! Thanks for pointing that out @GMTplus7 . Obviously with both of you behind bars, I couldn’t see your face clearly. In fact, I was wondering if you were both behind bars for playground bullying;-) Never mind, I was once put in jail for doing something I had no idea was against CC rules. As a fellow ex-con, you have my sympathy.
I think the obsession with “top” schools is ultimately worse for the mental health of a lot of these kids than the reminders that their chances are, in fact, slim. The latter is just factual information. You say “these kids know the odds” - well, maybe on one level they think they know the odds, but obviously they don’t actually believe them, because then we wouldn’t see so many posts after Ivy Day of kids who are “devastated” that they didn’t get accepted at their top choice schools. I think a lot of kids actually look at the long odds and think mostly of how much more awesome they will be when they are the ones who get accepted over the hordes of other qualified applicants.
Here’s the thing. If in fact we are grooming tens of thousands more great, top caliber students? Well, the 95 out of 100 kids who aren’t accepted to Stanford don’t suddenly become stupid. Nothing about them, or the work ethic that got them to the level where they were entering the lottery at MIT has changed. Ultimately the whole scene is going to wind up being more democratic - it has to - because the students are what make the programs. Just like we’ve seen with the recent rise of places like Chicago, Duke, Vanderbilt, WUSTL in national levels of esteem, this will continue to happen at schools around the country, by necessity, because we are manufacturing more high achieving students than the “old” top schools can handle. The best advice people can give kids on chances threads is: stop obsessing over the old, and embrace the new. Go where you fit - you’ll find yourself in good company.
I thought this thread was going to be about the negative way ppl tend to “go after” each other on here. What OP is describing is a blessing to most kids: injection of reality!
What is an “obvious app with a 15%+ rate chance”? 4.0/2400? Even then more than 15% are rejected! If you see someone who you think might “make it”, ppl usually say so, but always add that you just don’t know and ask about Matches. Too many kids see that they are in the top quartile of scores for a school and think it is a Match. Or they think statistical magic will happen if they apply to “more”.
Frankly, most posts encourage someone with 25 ECs to focus on just a few bc that many tends to look “fake”, or desperate.
They were well-esteemed a century and decades ago, respectively.
What you have seen recently is even the big top publics becoming tough to get in to.
For OOS, UNC has not been a sure thing for a long time because they restrict OOS to a small percentage (likewise the popular top UCs have been tough to get in to), but these days, UMich and UVa also aren’t sure things for those in the top 1% in stats.
I am a newbie here… I have to agree with some of what OP is saying. Solid advice is always welcome of course, but it seems to me many posters make little effort to be nice, and some seem to take glee in delivering crushing blows to the inexperienced and the clueless. I don’t get that.
That is probably why “The Neurotic Parent’s Guide To College Admissions” calls CC “…the scariest place on the internet”. (Granted it is a comedy book). Go to urban dictionary and read what it says there about CC. That is the rep of this place, and it seems to be earned. I am not asking for it or anyone to change – but the corresponding evidence does suggest the OP’s opinion is shared.
As for those that think they know all – in my short time here I have seen many, many posts where the naysayers were wrong. So nobody has a crystal ball and nobody knows everything, even those that are more experienced.
I can only effect my own behavior, and as I try to become part of this community, and learn as much as possible and contribute what I can if it might be of value… I for one am going to try and be nice, and tell people things the way I would want them told to me.
@PurpleTitan Of course Chicago and Duke have been well esteemed for some time, I’m talking about their more recent surge of popularity on a national level with the plunging admission rates to match.
And what you’re saying about the big top publics becoming tough to get into is just further to my larger point (which I think you may have missed in the urge to nitpick) which is that if we’re grooming all these top notch kids, they’re going to cascade into more and more schools.
First off there are plenty of schools for the kids winning 10th place ribbons.
You rarely see a reality check for those who think they have won the game of life for enrolling at a “top” school. (It’s just the start of the next chapter of their life…)
It’s sad when kids feel they will shame their family if they don’t enroll at the bumper sticker school.
That being said many on CC don’t understand what colleges cost, how much they can afford, how loans work, how debt can impact them, how competitive admissions can be, the importance of fit, outcomes matter, and many other pieces of this puzzle. Unfortunately some even share a fake profile to get a rise out of people which is sad…
But hey chance me and I will chance you back can provide validation, however misguided to lost souls.
Is it better to say atta boy, best of luck, you have a great chance, wow you are awesome?
@thermom, I got your point, but your examples show some parochialism. Columbia and Penn also had high admit rates once upon a time, yet I don’t hear you describe them as schools that only recently became nationally esteemed.
@PurpleTitan Okay, you win. Whatever. I was using a couple of examples of schools which in my day were highly esteemed but generally considered more regional powerhouses. It was not intended to be an exhaustive list of schools which have seen declining admission rates and rising national level reputations.
I think I’m done trying to explain what I meant. If it’s not clear by now, it was probably not a point worth making.
@Postmodern as you are new, what you haven’t seen is that many senior posters see the same desperate threads over and over and over: “Why didn’t I get in anywhere? NEED HELP, got a C this quarter, will I be rejected form HYPSM!!! What are my chances of getting into Harvard (GPA is 3.5.) Should I give up band to take more APs? (No.) Which class schedule will look best to Ivies? PLZ help, desperate to get into Yale!!! Accused of cheating!!! What do I do??? Can I still get into HYP? Freaking out, got an A- in AP Calc, are my chances shot for Ivies?”
And so on. Day in, day out, so much angst about getting into Top colleges. So you have to forgive some people for injecting a dose of reality. And IMO, rarely are posters being unkind, they are almost always just offering up truth, which very often a naive student doesn’t want to hear.
I am forever grateful for finding this site, because if I hadn’t, my kid might have been one of those posting “why didn’t I get into Brown?” Because of this site, we know why. But also because of this site, we know why she got into a bunch of other really great colleges, and we know why she was offered lots of merit aid, and we know what she needed to do to get into those great schools. I personally was delighted to be slapped upside the head by the likes of ucbalumnus, lookingforward, Erin’s dad, skieurope, and many many others. Anyway, thanks for putting me on to that book, definitely going to check it out:-)
Why not both? Are they somehow mutually exclusive? Or even the only 2 options?
My interpretation was OP was less referring to what is said and more referring to how it was said.
An example of a good way to deliver “some guidance”, IMHO: @lookingforward has linked to Brown’s site with detailed breakdowns of admit %'s for Vals and SAT/ACT. It shows at a glance how completely impossible it is to statistically predict admission to the elites. It is facts and figures and can be interpreted but not argued.
We can all find examples of the other type of posts. I will not list examples of those.
Actually, in my short time here I have seen a lot of that.
Reality is fine, and valued. Unkindness is not. OP is saying some folks are unkind in their delivery, and I agree, and showed examples of that being something of a consensus opinion of the site, despite it’s obvious value.
IMO a response saying that an applicant is excellent but that even with outstanding credentials, admission to the hyper-competitive schools (under 10% acceptance rate) is a bit of a crapshoot is appropriate. Remember that many of the higher EA/ED stats include the admissions of hooked applicants such as recruited athletes and legacy applicants so if the applicant is unhooked the numbers can be a bit misleading.
If you don’t like what other people answer, then instead of ranting here you should feel free to add a more positive response to the post.
I think there can be some pretty bad advice on chance threads, both overly positive and overly negative. If you’re a new poster, you may not realize that one person giving you advice is a sensible long-time poster, and that another is a high school sophomore.
Personally, I think students would get much better advice if they’d start threads titled “Can you help me with my list?” as opposed to “Chance me for HYP.”
You’ll be much happier and you won’t have to start a thread complaining about a useless thread, which in a meta kind of way makes this an even more useless thread than the threads you’re complaining about.