<p>it seems like everyone who goes to a top school has a 2300+ SAT and a 4.0+ gpa.</p>
<p>so…what is like attending a college knowing you were a high reach applicant and are going to be in the bottom quarter of your class? for instance, you got into an ivy league with a 3.4 gpa or a 24 ACT or something. (maybe too extreme, but you get my point)</p>
<p>do you feel intimidated by everyone else?
were you able to keep up with the academic workload?</p>
<p>i won’t hear back from anywhere until april 1st, but for those top 25 schools, i would be considered a reach applicant. this is my biggest concern right now, thanks!</p>
<p>For tippy top schools, it’s a reach for everyone. Even though your classmates may have great stats, one shouldn’t feel intimidated. If admitted, the college was confident that you can contribute and contribute in a great way. Some of these have more of a competitive spirit than others – but mostly your primary motivation will be your own standards. I was a top student from a midwest urban school district. I was a first generation student and hadn’t known anyone who attended a college out of the midwest. I applied and matriculated to a HYP college. Maybe it’s my personality but I never went there comparing myself w/others. We never spoke about our HS accomplishments. In four years, I never uttered or heard about anyone’s SAT or GPA. I’m absolutely serious.</p>
<p>I loved my time. And I now give back as a recruiter/interviewer and CC denizen.</p>
<p>For the most competitive schools, everyone accepted (excepting perhaps some recruited athletes) is capable of handling the workload. If you find yourself behind because you attended an easy high school, avail yourself of the resources your college has–tutoring, office hours, etc. The variation between students at top schools going in is so small as to be neglible. What will make the difference in performance at that point as how intelligently you apply yourself.</p>
<p>okay thanks i feel better now! the workload at my high school wasn’t very difficult so i was a little nervous. but i think i’m just being paranoid, i’ll be fine. thanks for the detailed replies! :)</p>
<p>I have these feelings too. I came from a beyond mediocre high school and a just mediocre high school. Honestly, though, I’m at an advantage because I know two things: Stanford thinks I’m capable of the work and I know I don’t have the same education my peers do. That means I don’t feel shy or ashamed of taking advantage of resources like tutoring, if I need them.</p>
<p>This was my D’s situation I and it was a tough adjustment, not just for classes, but for EC’s. She once called me after yet another audition rejection, saying “I used to be GOOD at things!” Competing at EC’s bothered her more than competing in the classroom. She at times hinted at her peers being “smarter”, and struggling to contribute in discussions, but it didn’t seem to bother her.</p>
<p>Very interesting question. At least in part, success in college depends on interest, discipline and motivation. Too varying degrees these personal characteristics are not reflected in grades or standardized testing, and so attempts to guess how a 25% percentile student will do compared to a 75% percentile one has quite a bit of overlap. Or so I guess.</p>
<p>Just look at how high achieving the US domestic ethnic asian community is overall. It’s not brains, it’s work ethic and attitude.</p>
<p>The problem here is that there is a difference between handling the workload (passing) and being tops (getting a good GPA and professor recognition for recs if you’re planning on grad school). If you have a bad college GPA, even if you went to hypsm, you’ll have trouble finding a job/ pursuing higher education.</p>
<p>my friend got into both MIT and UChicago, but he’s favoring UChicago right now. He’s a prospective math/finance double major. He says there’s no way he’ll be tops at math in MIT (btw he’s pretty legit, 10ish on usamo), but UChicago will be easy.</p>
<p>I definitely agree that there is a difference between “handling the workload” and “being tops.” I think far too many people conflate these two or downplay the difference.</p>
<p>I don’t, however, fully agree with your second sentence. I will graduate from Georgia Tech this semester. Though GT is not part of HYPSM, I have nevertheless seen first-hand just how valuable connections are and just how unimportant GPA is when you’re trying to get a job. I saw many classmates with GPAs far, far lower than mine get many, many more interviews and offers than I did because of their superior networking. It was almost like the firms didn’t care about your GPA as long as it was higher than 2.5/4.0. I emphasize that I was not expecting my GPA to automatically get me offers, but I was banking on its getting me more than a measly two interviews. I doubt that the situation would be any different at HYPSM, where connections may be even more valuable than they are at Georgia Tech.</p>
<p>The part I do agree with, though, is if one wants to pursue graduate study, especially PhD study. GPA isn’t everything, but my experience convinced me that it counted a lot more for grad school than it did when I was trying to get internships. I interviewed at four schools and received offers from two, both of which were dream schools.</p>
<p>“The problem here is that there is a difference between handling the workload (passing) and being tops (getting a good GPA and professor recognition for recs if you’re planning on grad school). If you have a bad college GPA, even if you went to hypsm, you’ll have trouble finding a job/ pursuing higher education.”</p>
<p>Not true. I don’t know anyone from my Harvard class who wasn’t able to find a job get into grad or professional school. They may not have gotten into their top choice of field or post graduate studies, but if they wanted a job, they found a job. If they wanted post college academic opportunities, they found them, too.</p>
<p>I will be going to a top school as a transfer most likely but I have the confidence now that I can actually do good there and get to my goal of going to Harvard or Yale for Law school.</p>
<p>High expectations but even though I am not the brightest, strongest and prettiest guy on the block, my work ethic is unquestionable.</p>
<p>It is nice that everyone is being positive, but perhaps that is because it is embarrassing to pipe up and say, “My low GPA ruined my life.” or “I used to be confident, but I’ve lost it because everyone at Harvard is smarter than me.” Or I wasted 100K of my parents money struggling at MIT before I transferred to a college I could handle." Yet I can think of people I know that would utter each of those sentences. On the other hand, there are people who struggled the first year and then got on top of it. You have to know how resilient you are, and you have to take a hard look at assessing how much of the academic mismatch can be remediated.</p>
<p>I would be wary of assuming that because you got admitted they think you can do well. It is your education and future, not the admission committee’s.</p>
<p>Frankly, there is not much of a difference at the elite schools than there is at any well-regarded university.</p>
<p>First of all - no university has an incoming student average of 4.0 gpa or 2300 SAT - or even close to that, really.</p>
<p>What you get are a bunch of students who cared a bit more about grades and academics in high school on average.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone is intimidated by other students’ abilities in the classroom, really. Usually, quite ironically, the most annoying thing is that most people at elite universities feel greater insecurity in the new “smart people” bubble (or that perception) - so more people constantly feel the need to show you/ prove to you how smart they are - and it gets tired fast.</p>
<p>Some people were used to be seeing as “the smart one” or “the genius” or valedictorian at their high school and they were probably showered with praise and compliments often by teachers, staff, and their ever-present parents - people constantly feeding their ego by telling them how much of a savant they are. Of course, usually at a well-respected university, getting high marks in your courses is not going to dazzle or impress anyone (and if you’re secure with yourself - you don’t NEED to impress anyone or prove how “smart you are.”) Thus, some people try to “intellectually impress” people in other ways.</p>
<p>Other than minor pet peeve of mine, I wouldn’t worry about it. Be glad you got accepted, and enjoy the ride of one sweet four-year vacation - because that’s what it truly is.</p>
<p>“my friend got into both MIT and UChicago, but he’s favoring UChicago right now. He’s a prospective math/finance double major. He says there’s no way he’ll be tops at math in MIT (btw he’s pretty legit, 10ish on usamo), but UChicago will be easy.”
UChicago has one of the best math departments in the world. It is only ranked one below MIT at number 6 (there are four schools tied for number 2). There have also been 29 nobel laureates in Physics (not math but a related field). I definitely would not call math at Chicago, or any other subject for that matter easy. It is an incredibly rigorous school.</p>
<p>What my D found was that there is smart, and then there is out of the box, incredible, I’ve never encountered kids my age THIS SMART! D was the val of her hs, only NMF in her class, SAT and ACT in the 99%tile and has still had to work her tail off to do well at a top 12 school. If you are willing to work hard, if you are willing to seek out help if you encounter trouble understanding a subject, you will do fine.</p>
<p>I’m a freshman at Yale…I mean, it’s a “reach” school for just about anyone, but in high school I wasn’t the valedictorian or anything and I was used to being near the top, but not the “best.” So, on one hand I didn’t have to adjust much to not being the “best,” but I still have occasional moments when I wonder why I’m here, if they made a mistake, etc…I know they “never make mistakes,” but I do feel insecure sometimes.</p>
<p>For example: if I got a B+ in a class in high school, I knew I probably could have worked harder and gotten at least an A-. Here, I feel like I’m working really hard, I study a lot, I get help from my TAs, but I get a lot of B+'s on my papers and tests and I don’t really know what else I could have done to get a better grade, you know? Well, besides sacrificing my social life or activities, which would just make me depressed (and probably lead to me getting not-stellar grades anyway).</p>
<p>I’m constantly in awe of the people around me - how they can take difficult classes, balance a ton of activities, work really hard, get leadership positions, and generally be incredibly successful. I probably don’t give myself enough credit, but it’s hard not to compare myself to people who seem like they can achieve anything. Sometimes I feel like I can barely manage my schoolwork and social stuff, let alone be committed to multiple organizations. Don’t get me wrong, I love Yale and being here really has motivated and pushed me as a student. But it’s a different kind of experience than I would have had at a school where I was more at the “top.”</p>
<p>“The problem here is that there is a difference between handling the workload (passing) and being tops (getting a good GPA and professor recognition for recs if you’re planning on grad school). If you have a bad college GPA, even if you went to hypsm, you’ll have trouble finding a job/ pursuing higher education.”</p>
<p>Actually, there’s not much of difference. In a UChicago study, it was shown that (at UChicago, at least), there was very little variance in salary and job placement between someone with a 2.0 GPA and those with higher GPAs. Certainly there’s a difference in work input, but besides that, success later in life and academic collegiate accomplishments do not necessarily vary positively. </p>
<p>In fact, you’ll probably forget most of what you learn after 5 years of college and rarely utilize the cognative abilities you’re told to develop in college (unless you’re involved in academia, I hope). I don’t want to turn this into a “point of college” debate, but I want to point out the fact that, if you chose to apply to and were then chosen by a “reach” college, you’ve shown a) initiative and b) SOME point of interest to the admissions committee. They can recognize favorable traits, and most likely, you can utilize them to be just as ‘successful’ as anybody who seemed ‘smarter’ to you at the college.</p>
<p>Think about it. It’s not like there’s some “bottom 25% of the grade at an ivy league school(or any college that could be considered a reach)” demographic that wanders job-lessly around the Earth simply because they couldn’t/didn’t keep up their grades.</p>