<ol>
<li>Do not apply to a school if you do not like your tour guide.</li>
</ol>
<p>XX. If you are not accepted to the top college of your choice, you have likely been discriminated against based on race and can sue the school - no matter what your race.</p>
<p>Now for the parents ;)</p>
<p>If you can’t pay your EFC you are a spendthrift only worthy of our scorn and derision.</p>
<p>If you search for Top 50 (100) schools who award merit aid when your child is competitive for Top Three (Ten) (Twenty) schools because you cannot pay what the colleges calculate your EFC to be you are greedy and selfish and only worthy of our scorn and derision.</p>
<p>From the student forums:</p>
<h2>. If you are deciding between two or more schools, just choose the one higher ranked in USNWR.</h2>
<p>Admissions reps are here on CC, as well as your MySpace and Facebook reading your every word , and comparing your stats to the ones on their desk, so you’d better watch what you say!</p>
<h2>There’s a well thought out rationale behind each decision.</h2>
<p>** Admissions committees never make mistakes.</p>
<p>++ Life is fair.</p>
<p>Student ranked #100 at “highly competitive top-ranked” high school is, without question, much more brilliant and hard working than anyone at no-name public</p>
<ol>
<li><p>“My family makes about $100,000 a year and is middle class.”</p></li>
<li><p>Anyone willing to make a few sacrifices can attend a $45,000/year school.</p></li>
<li><p>If you aren’t willing or able to make a few sacrifices, the school will make it possible for you to attend.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The entire point of high school is not to learn, but to impress admission officials, who probably attended obscure universities and resent every single applicant.</p>
<p>(next number…) In order to get into the school of your dreams, You MUST spend your summers during high school (even better, start in middle school), doing worthy volunteer work in a 3rd world country OR assisting research at a major university. If you are unable to do either of these, you should enroll in an expensive summer study program at a top-ranked university. Those who spend summers having fun and/or bussing tables should apply to the local State U (except Berkeley, Virginia, Michigan).</p>
<p>(next number) if you are from the west coast (read “wrong coast”) your chances of attending an Ivy League school is lousy because you did not attend an east coast elite private prep high school. </p>
<p>(next number) If you are from So Cal, you will never cut it anywhere where there is “real” winter. You will also suffer terribly from culture shock. And, if it is not HYP or maybe Brown, everyone back home will wonder what possessed you to go there anyway. They probably haven’t even heard of your college (Where the heck are Rhodes, Williams, Tufts, Haverford, Bowdoin, Middlebury???)</p>
<p>Writing a chances thread for every college in the top 25 for USNWR will help you narrow your list based on random people saying whether or not you should get in.</p>
<p>All URMs are grossly underqualified for top colleges and all the URMs who get in would not have been accepted without AA. If AA did not exist, Harvard and MIT would be over 50% Asian, and Asians would finally have a fair shot at getting into college.</p>
<p>HYPSM admissions is a crap shoot, so the only reason to apply is if you have time and money to throw away</p>
<p>You should apply to about 5 colleges if you are not a competitive applicant, but 15 if you are at HYPSM level.</p>
<p>Essays are the most important part of the application and noone gets into college without a Pulitzer Prize winning essay.</p>
<p>While colleges realize that most people change their majors 3+ times, the major you indicate on your application will be the deciding factor whether or not you get in.</p>
<ol>
<li>Nearly everyone borrows $80,000 or $100,000 or more to go to the undergraduate school of their dreams.</li>
</ol>
<p>For Parents:</p>
<p>If you don’t qualify for financial aid, but opt to pay full fare tuition at a top school, you are really really really stupid and probably very rich. Your super smart kid could have gone to a no-name school for free on a full merit scholarship, and you could otherwise retire in luxury. You are needlessly indulging your kid by sending them to an elite school with no benefit other than sheer name recognition. You can get a comparable education anywhere.</p>
<p>If you don’t get in, even with your 2390 and your 4 pages of ECs, it’s only because of that B+ in AP Lit junior year. You KNEW you should have self-studied for that one!</p>
<p>If I don’t apply ED, I won’t get into college.</p>
<p>50-something: After looking at 10-20,000 applications, adcoms call up other schools to see who applied there.</p>
<p>50-something+1: Don’t worry, ED is not really binding.</p>
<p>CCer’s, although probably ignorant in admission decisions, can actually tell you your chances for admission.</p>
<p>*If don’t you take thousands of dollars and weeks off to take your oh-so-lovely teenager around to look at schools, your son or daugher should charge you with child abuse.</p>
<p>That any child who is Top 20 material can easily and without effort get a full tuition or better scholarship at any # 20-100 College or University.</p>
<p>That it is far easier to get a top merit scholarship at a Top 50 (100) school then it is to get into HYP or any other super-select. </p>
<p>That people can hide their personal agendas from others on threads like these. LOL. ;)</p>
<p>Okay. When should we start a thread called “Things one believes after one month on CC?” Just to compare… Do posters grow in wisdom or just get addicted?</p>
<p>One of the highlights of parenting is driving through middle-of-nowhere upstate NY with a teenager asleep in the back seat of the car on the way to Cornell, Colgate and/or Williams. Said teenager wakes up long enough to plug in his IPOD (not to talk to parent) and to demand a food or bathroom stop.</p>