^^^ YES! If a university doesn’t want you, why should you want them? Go where you’re wanted!
I’m sorry, but people seriously should not have that “I am guaranteed into at least one Ivy League school” mentality and no one should consider any Ivy League to be a match or a safety. I hear people saying “CORNELL/PRINCETON IS MY SAFETY!” and get rejected.
Sorry for not being more sympathetic, but you were not the only 4.0 2400 Valedictorian rejected from an Ivy League school. And I can’t believe that you’re whining despite the fact that you got into Dartmouth.
“Congratulations on your acceptances. Dartmouth, Cal and CMU are all top rate schools. Yes, it is shocking that you were not accepted to more of the schools you were listed. . Though I can explain and even see why, it is still very shocking and disturbing to me as I am seeing a lot of this.”
Stop it. It is not remotely “shocking” to not get into schools with single digit admission rates, any more than it is “shocking” that I didn’t win the lottery.
@Pizzagirl, I’m shocked that I don’t have enough money to buy an island yet.
Every day, when I wake up.
I understand your frustration, because your academics are incredible. To tell you the truth, even if that last SAT 2 just under 800 was a perfect 800, it wouldn’t have had an impact. Admissions is a 2 part process. First the academics, and once you qualify academically (above the bottom 25% of last year’s acceptances is a good estimate to go off of) you will be considered equally with all the other students, even with lower GPAs and test scores as long as they were above that bottom 25%. The determining factor at that point is the fit for the university. And those details needed to come out in your activity sheet and essays. If your details didn’t convey 100% of what you actually did to contribute value, the admissions officers would never know it happened.
Be grateful that you got into any schools. Our valedictorian with a 35 ACT who was an eagle scout applied to 8 top universities and was literally rejected from all of them, no likely letters to an IVY LEAGUE or anything. It depends what they’re looking for.
What’s clear is that American schools have a mission to educate American students.
Thank you, GMT. How incredibly arrogant to think that American universities owe any spots to any internationals, much less “tons.”
OP, perfect or near-perfect stats just get you on to a very crowded elevator. I’m glad that several of the doors near the very top floor opened for you.
Take a good, hard look at CMU. I’ve known several people who have gone there and absolutely loved it.
Post #30 by KKmama – awesome advice, so well put. Every student whining should read that.
As for the OP – you know, I just don’t get it. I don’t understand what the problem is here. Unless you can clone yourself or have a time turner, you can only go to one school. The goal in college admissions is to get into ONE school that you are happy to go to. That’s why you shouldn’t apply to any schools that you don’t want to go to. If you’re not ecstatic about an acceptance to Dartmouth, Cal or CMU, then why did you apply to those schools?
The goal of college admissions is NOT to get into 6 Ivies and then have to decide which one to attend. One college, that’s all you need.
It’s OK to be upset for a day, maybe two days. No one likes rejection. And it’s OK to use CC to vent your disappointment. But move on. Put the sadness behind you and embrace the advantages of the school you will be attending.
"After you’ve let the hurt out, celebrate and look forward to what you have! I was still heavily upset this morning but looked over my acceptances – Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Gtown, and USC – and reminded myself these are also schools many would be ecstatic to be accepted to. "
I think it is very odd that you look at Ivies plus Stanford as “top tier” and these other schools as seconds. Where does this impression come from?? You seriously cannot have grown adults in your life who think this way.
I would think any one of those acceptances above would have been cause for major celebration - and you have FIVE top tier acceptances. Why on earth do you think the Ivies are “better” in any meaningful way? Hearsay?
Dartmouth is a very very different place than Berkeley. If you are not thrilled about going there (which many people are), think very hard about it. Dartmouth and Berkeley are like night and day, and each of them will present challenges fitting in if you are not already jazzed to go there - particularly Dartmouth, which is very small and homogeneous (and COLD)
that it is very competitive for everyone? I think that is crystal clear
Which is obviously why college admissions results should in no way be used to measure your own self-worth.
Get over your sadness and put the schools that rejected you in the rear view mirror.
There really is a lot in life that you can control, and the rest is statistical (luck).
A coworker’s nephew went to Dartmouth to play on their hockey team. He absolutely loved it there. You don’t have all that you want, but you’ll probably be very happy with what you did get. Congrats on some amazing opportunities.
OP, I understand why you are disappointed, but come on. You were accepted to Berkeley, CMU, and Dartmouth. That’s roughly the outcome you should have expected. You clearly have more impressive stats than me but I was a competitive applicant (3.98 GPA 32 ACT/33 superscored) to the 11 “reaches” I applied to and was rejected by ALL of them. Going into the college application process, I thought to myself and said to others time and time again that I would be overjoyed with getting accepted to just 1, ANY 1 of the 11 reaches and was ultimately rejected by…
I guess that I shouldn’t be one to preach about how you should be grateful because I’m not grateful for the colleges I got accepted to (Tulane, Carleton, and RPI). However, I feel that I did everything in my power to give myself the best shot at admissions and was rewarded with results significantly worse than yours (Tulane vs. Dartmouth) so… be grateful.
^ With all due respect, despite the explosion of higher scores from the Iowa Boys, the number of students who score a 36 is still around 1,500. On the other hand, there are about 65,000 students who score above 32, with half those at 32.
In so many words, you have about twice as many 32 ACT scorers than valedictorians in the country. The students who score 36 and are valedictorian compose a much smaller number. Add the criteria of close to perfect scores on subject tests, and you end with a very different pool of students.
Nobody needs a 36 or 2400 to be admitted at the top private schools. Perfect scores do not guarantee admissions at the top private schools. But the pool of 32 ACT students is many, many times larger than it is at 36.
Those are hardly comparable, and this assumes (erroneously in my opinion) that all 36 are equal to a 2400 SAT. In my book, a 32 ACT score in 2015 corresponds to a 2040-2070 on the SAT.
@xiggi That’s one way to look at it, another way is to consider that the difference between a 32 and a 36 is probably around 5 wrong answers (out of a couple hundred). That’s statistically insignificant and, I think, indicates very little.
If you get one question wrong on the SAT I Math section, your score can go down from an 800 to around a 740. Just sayin.
@Frazzled503, Carleton and RPI are some really good options. Carleton actually isn’t far from Dartmouth and RPI isn’t far from CMU. Tulane with money would be as well (some Ivy acceptees turn down the Ivy League for Tulane with money). What are your goals?
@Frazzled503 With all due respect, I think a 760 was the lowest a -1 on the math section resulted it ( http://www.erikthered.com/tutor/SAT-Released-Test-Curves.pdf ). Also, while the difference between a 32 and 36 might only be 5 or so questions per section, that adds up to about 20 or more questions when you consider that the composite score is an average of the 4 sections, which is a more significant amount. Out of 215 questions, a 32 can be achieved by a raw score ranging from 186 to 201 depending on the scale (probably closer to the mid 190s on average - though my values are probably not very accurate since I just added up the lowest section scores from past tests - not something that has happened/will actually happen), while a 36 is at most 2 to 4 questions wrong on the entire test. 20 points is a bit more significant than 5 points. Just wanted to point that out.