High School Seniors, where are you applying?

[dag12]

Also, I want to note that some of the good colleges (like the really top-tier universities) will give substantial financial aid.
These universities are need-blind, and many of them will meet full demonstrated need.
In my case, going to Yale is far cheaper than going to a state university (UC), mainly because of Yale's fantastic financial aid, which provided for the large majority of my education.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

Not only is it pretty useless for job prospects, but it isn't all that intellectually enriching (which is ultimately why we go to college in the first place). You'll find that plenty of non-English majors are not only better at writing, but are also just as good as contextual analysis/critical thinking.

I don't know what English majors you are using for your sample but this could not be more counter to what I've experienced. Science majors, and CS majors in particular tend to take the 4-year route and get a job immediately after college but often cannot articulate their ideas well to people who are not experienced with what they know.

I could write a lot about this, and I have, but I do not want to derail the thread. The problems you cite with English majors are true for Bachelor degrees in general. Most degrees that are not heavily specialized (such as those from trade schools) will not guarantee you a great job in four years and should be supplemented with a degree from either graduate school or professional school. Even Econ, which you would expect to be the moneymaking degree, is not so lucrative with just a 4-year degree. An Econ Ph.D, though, is very lucrative.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

I don't know what English majors you are using for your sample but this could not be more counter to what I've experienced. Science majors, and CS majors in particular tend to take the 4-year route and get a job immediately after college but often cannot articulate their ideas well to people who are not experienced with what they know.

I could write a lot about this, and I have, but I do not want to derail the thread. The problems you cite with English majors are true for Bachelor degrees in general. Most degrees that are not heavily specialized (such as those from trade schools) will not guarantee you a great job in four years and should be supplemented with a degree from either graduate school or professional school. Even Econ, which you would expect to be the moneymaking degree, is not so lucrative with just a 4-year degree. An Econ Ph.D, though, is very lucrative.

This is really only true for ****ty firms. Many good engineers from my school are very good at articulating themselves. It's only the foreigners that have had issue, I've found.

The problems I cited for English majors were local to those with only Bachelors though, yes.

[Reincarnate]

PS accepted Harvard/Yale/Penn/Brown/Columbia/MIT/Stanford/UCBerk/UCLA/Georgetown/UVA/Tufts/Lehigh (deferred then rejected at Princeton)


Didn't have any of the cool **** like USAMO or Intel though

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by OneHandNow

Maaaaaaaan. A Yalie. One person got in (out of 4 EA) this year from my school.


Ah well I applied already so.. gotta enjoy these 3 months! I'll get back to you guys when I start getting those acceptance/rejection letters. Good luck everyone ;_;

I predict at least one or two Ivies for you... I'd be really surprised if you got universally canned. Out of everyone I know with similar profiles to yours, I only know of one that got universally canned and they STILL got into Cornell. So, don't fret too much! "Too big to fail" is probably applicable here (don't get me started on firms though...)

[NocturneAunamic]

Originally Posted by darkshark

This thread makes me feel dumb.

My highschool GPA was like 3.0, if that. I slacked off too much..

Same

my gpa is 3.0 weighted is 3.4 with 1850 SAT im not getting into my choice schools oh well...

[infinity.]

I was talking with a stanford admissions officer a while back, and asked a question about 'brute strength' applicants, ones who simply have near perfect quantitative stats, and she told me that as long as you're within range, it doesn't matter what your numbers are, because essentially every applicant within range is of the same academic caliber. It was more holistic than anything. Don't think you can really predict if its truly holistic.

[Arch0wl]

The Admissions system for undergraduate education has become a serious cluster****. Right now it encourages hoarding extracurricular "softs". Dylan Matthews of the Harvard Crimson wrote a great article about this.

[infinity.]

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

The Admissions system for undergraduate education has become a serious cluster****. Right now it encourages hoarding extracurricular "softs". Dylan Matthews of the Harvard Crimson wrote a great article about this.

I've read this before. And I guess I have to agree, but I feel like making it randomized would just be a leeway for more corrupt admissions policies. They would randomly select maybe half of the students, and then admit all of the people to fit racial quotas, legacies, and other ridiculous hooks.

To ensure fair admissions, I feel like essays and interviews should be the most critically considered aspects of applications..

[iironiic]

Originally Posted by OneHandNow

Well, I always thought this saying to be true: you earn what you pay for.

It really depends on your major & career choice.. but going to top universities will *probably* provide you with better education compared to their state univ. / community college counterparts.

Of course you can be successful with state/community colleges and save a ton of money at that too.

But I always enjoyed that feeling of others looking up to me for my academic achievements, and I guess that's how I want to be like for the rest of my life. The feeling of people praising you and looking up to you for your academic achievements is one of the best feelings in the world. Now imagine if you were at a high school reunion. Your friends are working hard labor jobs for meager pay, while you work the same amount but earn top wage and have freedom & control over your life. It's a world of difference!

Sure, happiness =/= money, but in a world dictated by money, the gap will continue to widen between those who go to prestigious (and expensive as hell) universities and community colleges.

You earn what you paid for.

It's unfortunate how I don't have the money to pay what I deserve. I would've gone to a school that is more expensive than the one I currently attend.

Originally Posted by dag12

Also, I want to note that some of the good colleges (like the really top-tier universities) will give substantial financial aid.
These universities are need-blind, and many of them will meet full demonstrated need.
In my case, going to Yale is far cheaper than going to a state university (UC), mainly because of Yale's fantastic financial aid, which provided for the large majority of my education.

Had I known this, I would've applied to upper-tier schools

[infinity.]

Originally Posted by iironiic

It's unfortunate how I don't have the money to pay what I deserve. I would've gone to a school that is more expensive than the one I currently attend.




Had I known this, I would've applied to upper-tier schools

You can always transfer, they offer the same financial aid for transfers most of the time, as long as the transfer isn't international.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by Infinity.

I've read this before. And I guess I have to agree, but I feel like making it randomized would just be a leeway for more corrupt admissions policies. They would randomly select maybe half of the students, and then admit all of the people to fit racial quotas, legacies, and other ridiculous hooks.

Alternatively, you could just give the tests a higher ceiling, or invent even higher-level tests. The LSAT is one example. The MAT is another.

I don't think you should be judged at all by your interview, and this is coming from someone who is very good at interviews. They select for expertise in body language, character of voice, and rehearsal of interview questions. If they were a major factor, helicopter parents would just start enrolling their children in Theater and Acting classes.

Essays as well are victim to this. CIf it were more like the GRE's Analytical Writing section, I suppose it would be worthwhile to weight them more--but it's currently not, and essays are victim to even more cultural variables than the infamous verbal analogy section of the SAT was.

[iironiic]

Originally Posted by Infinity.

You can always transfer, they offer the same financial aid for transfers most of the time, as long as the transfer isn't international.

Eh, well I heard the complete opposite (at least the first semester at the new school ). Plus, I don't think it's currently worth it to transfer away from a department that is familiar with me (good way to get research and recommendations for grad schools).

[footbull3196]

I've already gotten accepted to UT Dallas, UT Arlington, TCU, Texas Tech, and North Texas, but if I can't get enough money to go to TCU, I'm probably just going to UTD for a year and then transferring to Tech

[OneHandNow]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

I predict at least one or two Ivies for you... I'd be really surprised if you got universally canned. Out of everyone I know with similar profiles to yours, I only know of one that got universally canned and they STILL got into Cornell. So, don't fret too much! "Too big to fail" is probably applicable here (don't get me started on firms though...)

Hopefully I'll be accepted RD into Wharton, or at least to one of HYP

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

Alternatively, you could just give the tests a higher ceiling, or invent even higher-level tests. The LSAT is one example. The MAT is another.

I don't think you should be judged at all by your interview, and this is coming from someone who is very good at interviews. They select for expertise in body language, character of voice, and rehearsal of interview questions. If they were a major factor, helicopter parents would just start enrolling their children in Theater and Acting classes.

Essays as well are victim to this. CIf it were more like the GRE's Analytical Writing section, I suppose it would be worthwhile to weight them more--but it's currently not, and essays are victim to even more cultural variables than the infamous verbal analogy section of the SAT was.

Interviews aren't massively important to undergrad admissions because they're really just opportunities to get to know more about the school (and to ensure that the student has a pulse and isn't a clear misfit for the school). I had an absolutely HORRIBLE Yale/Tufts interview and still got in fine. Not everyone gets an interview, either, due to availability/distance constraints (that, and not all interviewers are sound). Interviewing seems to matter more for jobs, where an employer needs to see whether or not you're the type of person they want to spend 40+ hours a week with on a team.

Essays can be gamed, though. I always advise people to write anecdotal essays with certain themes and they almost always turn out MUCH better. The admissions officers see the same tired essays over and over again -- and there are variants that actually stand out quite well.

I wrote mine about the Rubik's Cube -- but not in the way you'd expect.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Infinity.

I was talking with a stanford admissions officer a while back, and asked a question about 'brute strength' applicants, ones who simply have near perfect quantitative stats, and she told me that as long as you're within range, it doesn't matter what your numbers are, because essentially every applicant within range is of the same academic caliber. It was more holistic than anything. Don't think you can really predict if its truly holistic.

This is very much true. Scores basically get stored into cutoff bins -- so a 750 isn't much different from an 800 (it can come down to one or two questions).

An 800 on Math IIC doesn't mean much, for instance (esp. considering that an 800 is like the 90th percentile). You can get an 800 on the IIC by missing 4 questions/skipping a few extras... or you can be that guy who didn't miss a single question and would continue to not miss questions even if you made the test twice as hard and twice as long. Both would show up as 800. But the latter candidate would likely have that skill emanating through his application elsewhere. A difference between a 700 and 800 can come down to just a small handful of questions, so admissions officers care a lot more about your academic performance and course rigor.

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

The Admissions system for undergraduate education has become a serious cluster****. Right now it encourages hoarding extracurricular "softs". Dylan Matthews of the Harvard Crimson wrote a great article about this.

Very interesting article -- and I very much agree with it. A lot of people don't like to be told that their success is the result of luck or something else that ISN'T brains and hard work. When it comes from your average naysayer, it sounds like a bunch of irritable whining that gets swept under the rug and ignored. It's much easier to grow intellectually when you have a stable family with food on the table and an atmosphere of love, drive, happiness, and success.

So to counter this, they usually favor kids like myself who didn't come from an advantaged background (which is also why poorer black/hispanic demographics get a leg up in admissions). People don't seem to understand how much of a leg up you get by having educated parents to get advice/support/motivation from who are willing to grant you transportation/funding for EC's and other opportunities, etc. I came from a ****ty background but with juggernaut stats, killer recs, heavy EC achievement, and great essays -- hence my admissions success.

But the problem is that this gap is massive. You're going to have a ton of well-educated, high-scoring, well-rounded, high-achieving applicants who all come from good families. You aren't going to have many kids who came from nothing. So, in large part, elite schools are helping the rich get richer. This problem is further compounded by employers who won't even look at your resume unless you come from a reputable school, not to mention the fact that these graduates have already received the benefits and skills of their higher educations. Transferring also becomes very difficult. For instance, Wharton only accepted something like 30 external transfers when I was a junior, and they were all 4.0 GPA students from other top schools. It's really hard to be a state-school student who manages to transfer into an Ivy, for example.

This is why it's so important to get into a good school. You don't need a good school to be successful, no -- but it's going to be a hell of a lot harder. Earnings gaps will encompass your opportunity cost for life.

[Reach]

This thread is interesting.

I'm Canadian; I originally planned to go to the states for school and took the SAT, but changed my mind at the last minute. Was hoping to get into an Ivy league school.

Interestingly, all good Canadian schools are pretty easy to get into from high school. Most of our elite schools require fairly luke warm grades for acceptance, and there are no standardized tests we have to take (some provinces have them, but they're subject specific and contribute to your grade in that subject). Extracurriculars don't even count at many elite schools; most just look at your transcript.

Things only become problematic for admissions once you actually get into the school. Grad schools are becoming insanely competitive. All Canadian Dental schools, for example, have sub 10% acceptance rates right now even for in province students (for which the university takes preference), and Medicine and Law are becoming just as bad. D: !

Anyway, I wrote the first round of the new SAT and got a 2300. Nobody cares about higher scores 8) (Running the stats on the test, differential power of the test starts to break down around 2220 and the tests ceiling is somewhere around 2330; higher scores are statistically meaningless and can be considered equivalent, and I'm sure adcoms know this too).

We don't use GPA here in highschool, only percentages, but my average was 95% (rank 3/500. Defeated by both my gf and some bitch that got into Harvard and Yale)

[OneHandNow]

Yeah, SAT scores don't matter for crap once you hit 2250ish.

It's all about unweighted GPA, extracurriculars, and whether you 'click' or not.

[benguino]

I'll just list the schools I'm applying to. My stats are okay, but not phenomenal compared to other users to this site so I think it would be rather embarrassing for me to list any stats.

-University of Hawaii at Hilo
-University of Hawaii at Manoa
-University of Portland
-UCLA
-UC Berkeley
-Princeton
-MIT
-Yale
-Caltech
-Rice University
-Brown University
-University of Southern California
-Stanford