I know college confidential is full of a lot of really high-achieving people, but I’m just wondering, how strong are the strongest applicants (i.e. those who can get in basically anywhere they want)? For instance, some people at my school have stats like (well a subset of):
2400 SAT, 800 SAT IIs (or 36 ACT)
4.0/4.8+ gpa
10+ APs taken (all 5s)
Senior course-load involves a bunch of independent study and college courses
+
USAMO/USAPhO/USNCO/USABO/USACO/NACLO qualifiers/campers
Summer programs like MOP, SPARC, etc.
Top-level National awards in Science Olympiad, MUN, etc.
+
A bunch of academic clubs w/ leadership + sport(s) + music(s) + volunteering(s) + job(s), having both extreme depth and breadth
Not really trying to make a boast thread, but just to see how insane people can get (like there’s top 100 school insane, then top 20 school insane, then ivy insane, etc. - but how good do people get?). Is there anyone you’ve seen/met who just has an unbelievably unbelievable application?
There was some thread done on this before, maybe you can find it using search. They linked ‘Chances’ posts. But isn’t it pretty funny that someone so well qualified is posting a chance me thread?
@BrownParent Hmm I can’t seem to find a thread like this… do you know which one it was? I’d be interested in checking it out. Also the “stats” were actually a strict “superscore” of people at my school (not me) (note the “strict”) (note the “superscore”), so I’m not actually that qualified - and not really a chance thread, but just to see like how qualified people can get.
@ARandomGeek this thread can also serve as ego control for a lot of the people on college confidential but there’s probably enough of that already lol - but btw those “stats” were (as mentioned above) a strict “superscore” - not a single person
though if anyone gets an ego boost from this thread pleaseeee post
2400 superscored SAT
practically a 4.0 unweighted gpa (idk what his actual unweighted was)
100% Hispanic
won many science awards
his father went to MIT
fluent in 3 languages
state level swimmer
deferred from MIT.
(this is not me just some kid I sort of know whose wayy more qualified than me)
-36 ACT
-3.97 UW GPA (one B in Spanish)
-9 AP’s
-USAMO Honorable Mention + Blue MOP + TST group
-Wrote a large paper on Olympiad Geometry currently used in the AwesomeMath Geometric Proofs class, which I will TA this summer at Cornell.
-Qualified to NFL Nationals and the Tournament of Champions for Public Forum Debate
-(for reference I got into MIT and UChicago so far, but was deferred from Caltech)
To be honest though, I know a person who has won USAMO and gotten a gold medal at the IOI, a person who has gotten a gold medal at the IMO and made USACO camp, a person who won USAMO multiple times and won Intel, a person that was USAMO Honorable Mention, got a gold medal at the IPHO, and made Biology and Chemistry Camp, etc… These people don’t post on CC a lot but trust me, there are people with accomplishments you wouldn’t think possible.
There are about 500 students each year that score 2400 on the SAT out of 2.2m US students and maybe 200k foreign students applying. There are 1150 students with 36 ACT scores. Maybe 50 or less students get perfect scores on both tests. When you look at the total number of AP tests taken, there are only a few thousand students each year that have taken 10 or more tests and usually this would mean slightly less AP courses. The students and parents who spend time on college confidential are not really representative of the total population of students entering college each year. Colleges admit people not statistics. It is important to know where you stand relative to others in terms of statistics that are important for admissions but all of us know students with less compelling stats and winning personalities with tons of charisma and students with world class stats who cannot interact with other humans
@Wje9164be true - I’m pretty sure for the most overqualified people they don’t really care much about SATs or ACTs anyways since what makes them really stand out (as Kobayashi said) are these really insane awards/ECs. Standardized tests IMO are basically just sieves that sift out people who really aren’t academically qualified (and also provide a rough estimate of where along the academic spectrum one lies), but most of the admissions focuses on the other aspects.
What I was thinking with this thread was to consider not just stats/awards, but also these qualities - i.e. someone who maybe has USAMO winner but only that wouldn’t be per se as qualified as someone who might only have USAJMO HM but also does sports and has leadership, etc. (from which colleges infer personality/charisma since it’s hard for them to do from other sources).
I guess someone with both compelling stats and winning personalities? (i.e. my friend is a USAMO winner + qualified for USAPhO camp, and turned down an I_O, but also has like varsity tennis (top few teams in the state) + performed at Carnegie and a lot of places (piano) + has had 3 girlfriends so far (the current one is not superficial) + is fun to be around + talks and interacts well with almost everyone in school, including the non-Asians) - so basically completely OP in every field…
@Kobayashi lol USAMO winner + IOI gold, USACO camper + IMO gold… that would make a pretty nice chiasmus… hopefully I’ll know more of these people soon (currently I know a 4x IMO gold, an IMO gold who turned down IOI and ILO since he was lazy, an IBO winner, an IPhO winner + IMO gold - pretty damn insane… it’s kinda scary when you think about it)
lol i think this thread just turned into an extreme ego-crushing thread
Reality is, when you are at work talking at the water cooler, there are likely some folks who kicked butt in HS yet they are still your colleagues - or your subordinates.
I just tracked three people I knew with perfect SAT scores, graduated HS in the 1980s. One is dead (and sad story in the few years after HS, but died recently), one is in the same job I am teaching college but at a school with a lower reputation, and the other is unemployed and still finding herself. Does it make me feel better about myself? Nah, but it makes me feel that the ego-building of high achievers needs to be tempered with impending reality.
rhandco, perfect SAT scores don’t mean anything. In fact, I would say even someone with a 2400 SAT/36 ACT, perfect GPA, and an obnoxious number of AP’s didn’t necessarily, as you put it, “kick butt in high school.” All these results mean is that someone has the ability to force themselves to sit through menial tasks and I have no doubt that like you said, many such people do not have success in later life.
However, I believe the point of this thread (as asuna69 mentioned) is to discuss people with amazing accomplishments, which likely includes anything from a USAMO qualifier to an Intel Finalist to a championship swimmer.
From personal experience, EVERY single person I know who did amazingly well in math competitions (which granted is not TOO large of a sample size) is extremely successful right now, doing things from working at hot startups to being executives at large financial companies to publishing groundbreaking academic literature. While I don’t know as many extremely successful debaters, the few I do have all at least ended up at highly selective universities.
I personally don’t think the egos of real high-achieving high schoolers need to be tempered at all - from what I’ve seen, these people have all worked extremely hard and deserve respect.
2400 SAT
4.0 GPA
National Debate Champion as a junior and several other debate awards
President of his nationally ranked Debate Club
Governor’s School of New Jersey
Several other leadership positions within the school
@thebossofbosses I’m not saying that it’s not impressive; it is. I’m just saying it is not the most overqualified I’ve seen, which is the question posed by the thread. @MITer94 gave 2 examples of applicants that would surpass him.
Also, this is actually the only applicant who I think was overqualified and didn’t get into an HYPMS school. I know a Thiels fellow who has done some unbelievable things which I won’t say to protect his identity.
I don’t know if this qualifies as overqualified, but I can only think of one person.
2310 SAT
2400 SAT Subject Tests (Math 2, Chemistry, and Physics)
5 APs, 5 on all of them (Calculus AB, Chemistry, Physics B and C, and Computer Science A)
4.0 GPA (Unweighted)
Valedictorian
Bunch of MUN awards.
A couple of lab internships.
6 time winner in a national quiz contest.
Olympiad (I think it was the IChO or IPhO) medalist.
A couple of other ECs that I can’t remember.
117 on the TOEFL.
Applied to: Stanford (Waitlisted), UIUC (accepted; currently attending, studies CS and is in the James Scholar Honors Program), Berkeley (not sure here), CMU (accepted), GATech (accepted), Toronto (accepted), Waterloo (not sure), Cornell (accepted), Princeton (rejected, I think), Harvard (not sure).
but there’s probably enough of that already lol - but btw those “stats” were (as mentioned above) a strict “superscore” - not a single person