- If a student is undecided about major or career, community college is the answer.
- If a student has a GPA below 3.5, they will only be accepted at a community college.
- The university that has the best research/graduate school ranking for a field is the best place to go to study that field as an undergraduate. (At some large research universities, it can end up feeling like undergraduates are secondary because they focus primarily on that large/successful grad & research program.)
I believe in all three statements.
<1. “Success” in life is earning the most possible amount of money.> Success in life is not measurable. It is priceless. It is useless to talk about “success in life”, and any reasonable person understands it. Financial success (ability to earn money) is an important (but not essential) ingredient. We discuss financial success on CC, because it is a college-related forum. Spiritual or personal success is not discussed here for obvious reasons.
<2. Going to an elite school will cause lots of money to be earned.> Remove the word “will” and replace it with the word “may”. It is better to be healthy and rich than to be sick and poor (Jewish proverb).
<3. A student can do certain things to increase their chances of being accepted to an elite.> This is whole point of CC forum. Parents learn certain things to increase chances of their children. If you do not believe in it, I don’t understand what are you doing at this forum.
<26. Career choice is about finding that one calling that is your true love. >
May I choose spending time on the beach, watching Netflix, shopping, and receiving spa treatments? What kind of career would you suggest? How much money may I earn doing it? I think I am ready for a career move …
I get the feeling you missed the point of #26.
- Low income families and the rich have it made when paying for school because low income families get buckets of aid and the rich can pay their way, but middle income families get shafted.
- That Ivy League schools don't have financial aid for 'people like me'. (God Bless Yale.)
- I should major in whatever subject has been the easiest for me so far, because college is definitely not a place to challenge myself.
- A religiously-affiliated school is a terrible place for any adherent of a different religion, agnostic, or atheist to go.
- I can radically change my SAT or ACT results in less than 30 days.
- Highly selective admissions automatically guarantee the presence of rigorous academics and a vibrant intellectual community. 78b. Less selective admissions automatically guarantee the absence of same.
- Stereotypes about the student body - e.g. hipster, outdoorsy, preppy, etc. - are meaningful at a school that enrolls 10,000 or more undergraduates. I'll never find someone like me at a school like that.
- "I have a 4.0, perfect SAT/ACT/SAT II, IMO medalist, Expert violinist, Please Chance me for HSYPM/Ivy league"
- "you should retake a 770 SAT II Math 2, because it's not high enough"
- "People who earn +100k and live in big cities are middle class"
- "Applying to 15-20 schools will improve my chances of getting into somewhere"
^ (EDIT: @DreamSchlDropout )I don’t think 75 is a “fallacy” (however loosely we’re using that term) if you think of it in relative terms; that is, how good you are at a subject relative to everyone else should be an important (not the only) factor in deciding whether you should major in it. You can still challenge yourself…by getting even better at it. But it’s just an efficient career move to play to your strengths.
77 is usually a misconception but I’ve seen some outliers.
- Statistics show that graduates of prestigious universities make far, far more money than graduates of state schools. This must be entirely a product of the universities themselves. It can't at all be that the average student who enrolls in a more selective college is more capable to start with.
Going towards an “easy” major instead of a “hard” major is almost always the path of least resistance regardless of aptitude. Most people would find Underwater Basket Weaving easier than economics, math, or medicine even if they are talented in one of the latter fields. That doesn’t make Underwater Basket Weaving a good major.
As for relative talents, that’s very hard to gauge with the limited understanding of majors you get in high school.
- It's 12:02AM Jan 1 and I didn't get a confirmation email from my dream school. I'm screwed!
- Complete strangers can tell you the score reporting deadlines and application deadlines & requirements better than the college's own webpage.
- Why SHOULD I CALL AND ASK THE COLLEGE my very specific question? Won't my post here on CC get me the answers that I need? (No kidding-- someone asked how to retrieve their user ID and password for the school they were enrolled in on a post)
- My application portal page blinked twice instead of three times. Does this mean the school has admitted/rejected me?
- Of course being a snide and cutthroat valedictorian will be something I treasure for my entire life.
- It's definitely true, I read it here on CC.
- I'm going to share with you this very unethical situation where I get to take advantage of my peers/the college/my HS. You'll certainly agree and say "atta boy!" right?
- I owe $15K and failed most of my classes. I'll just pretend that didn't happen and apply as a freshman again. Just to be nice, I won't claim the 6 credits for those two classes I actually passed.
- I've yet to be a starter and it's already my senior year. What college football programs should I aim for?
Well, to an extent, if you’re just majoring in leisure studies because you got an A in PE. But if you’re consistently tap dancing through your advanced mathematics classes but struggle with Spanish, it’s pretty reasonable to say that you should consider a technical subject over being a Spanish interpreter. It’s not like you’re going to be challenging yourself less - there’s such a high ceiling on the difficulty of technical courses in college that you can stretch yourself just as much as you would bumbling through Spanish, except you’re also enjoying it and excelling in your field.
- Am I black?
- Am I Hispanic?
96*. Trading off your social life in favor of a barely noticeable bump in your GPA totally makes sense. It’s not as if your social circle correlates strongly with both your mental health and future career success or anything.
- (I think, some posts came in while I was typing, lol)
More questionable ideas:
- Raw college graduation rates show how well the college will help you graduate. (Never mind the strong correlation to admission selectivity that should be filtered out before making comparisons.)
(related to 84)
- Raw post-graduation pay rate averages for different colleges' graduates show how attending different colleges will affect your pay prospects after graduation. (Never mind the different mix of majors and different admission selectivity at the various colleges.)