<p>I’d like to point out that people with 2400 and 4.0s aren’t necessarily the smartest at their school, and definitely not the smartest in EVERYTHING. My SAT was fairly high, a near perfect score, and I <em>know</em> there’s people at my school who are much much better than me in Math/Science, whereas my strengths lie in history and english subjects. So it’s pretty much pointless to compare yourself to other people simply based on stats, because they aren’t a very good indicator of intelligence</p>
<p>^ Strongly agree; I have a near perfect SAT score, and I work REALLY hard, and I still end up with a (relatively) low GPA…</p>
<p>Some people are really, really good at video games. Is that a talent? I’ve been denying it’s not, but after a while I have to admit it IS!!! Is it useful? Probably not, probably it is. </p>
<p>Don’t know if you people factor game playing into intelligence though. There are some games I’ve worked really, really hard at (Chess, for example) and was never able to beat some people who played less or barely plays at all. Wth…</p>
<p>Hear’s the thing…I know its kinda a sports mantra but “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”</p>
<p>If you work hard, you will be able to compete just fine with people that have the stereotypical “ivy pedigree”</p>
<p>That indicates more that the stereotypical ivy pedigree isn’t as strongly associated with aptitude as everyone likes to pretend. At the top schools, there are still some genuinely smart people who you just cannot beat academically by working harder.</p>
<p>it depends on the college in question, and it depends how hard you had to work for that 3.4</p>
<p>i’m at an academically intense top school, and know people who had far lower grades, SATs, etc than most people here, who have to work their asses off every day just to do as well as the rest of us. then again, it could just be because uchicago seems to be more academically intense than other top schools (from what i’ve heard from my friends at other top schools)</p>
<p>SAT scores do mean something, but they aren’t a perfect indicator. My S actually scored lower in SAT math than his sister, despite having taken a more rigorous high school course load in math and science. He was clearly the more advanced math student and I’d say the smarter of the two in general, but his scores are lower. Go figure!</p>
<p>SAT’s/ACT’s are good for a standardized way to compare people’s basic knowledge on the covered areas who are from all over the country and have attended a wide variety of different high schools. Certainly they are not perfect and I think it is quite a stretch to say they predict something about your future. Everyone adapts to the challenges of college differently. No one excels in everything, so as some have mentioned above, if you have the basic credentials to get accepted, then it is up to you to make the most of that once you enroll.</p>
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<p>Don’t be. People here are, to be honest, pretty unremarkable on average. Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh, but after serving as a TA on an the intro CS course, and dealing with tons of freshman the last 2 years, I’ve become very pessimistic regarding capabilities of people here (and keep in mind engineers are supposed to be smarter than the other kids). Oh, there’s always the group of geniuses at the top of the class, but there’s more than enough idiocy to bring the mean down to comfortable levels.</p>
<p>I, too, anticipated that it would be a challenge to stay above the mean. Well, it’s hard get to the very top, but I am probably the laziest student you will ever meet (well, at least in the CS department), and I still get pretty respectable grades, and I am convinced my intelligence level is subpar at best. So don’t overhype the sort of academic competition you’ll face here. It’s not bad, at all.</p>