<p>This can go for anyone with "subpar" stats that apply to reaches and get in, but the majority of people that face discrimination are URM's.</p>
<p>URM has become a derogatory term and an excuse for people on CC and students in the United States. I know how the pain associated with being labeled a URM who only got a job, into college, etc because of his ethnicity over the "more qualified" ORM.</p>
<p>I want to reassure you that if your test scores are lower, your accomplishments fewer in number, or anything else that you ARE NOT DUMBER. People on CC praise the 2300+ SAT 3.9+ GPA and automatically label them as intelligent. Of course they must have some intelligence to accomplish those stats, but schools are too diverse and preparation too different to allow for SAT and GPA comparison to be reliable from school to school.</p>
<p>Life varies from city to city, state to state, country to country, and it is the society that you live in and culture you retain that shape you. Coming from a small town with few resources or a large town with vast resources will, without a doubt, shape your intellectual side--they do not, however, determine your potential. Also, being from an asian, hispanic, white, etc family will change the way you live, the way you grow, and the way you act.</p>
<p>This being said, I would like to use myself as an example. My family is a supportive hispanic family that is very close. When someone needs help, one is expected to aid them immediately w/o questions. For my family, education is important, but not of the utmost importance. Going through school, my parents supported me but didn't expect me to excel, nor did the push me or require me to do anything beyond my personal best. The same, however, cannot be said for my asian friends--we would have to make up projects/study sessions so they could come over to play with us while their parents thought we were studying. (This mainly applied to my Chinese friend, but not so much to my Korean or Japanese friend)</p>
<p>I continued to do what I thought was best in school, never acting against my will and constantly questioning what I wanted to learn, why, etc. I did not put too much emphasis on grades and tests, but I did put emphasis on understanding. In high school, I became bored with the class difficulty--I would almost always receive B+ to A- w/o any effort regardless of the class difficulty. My school was, in so many words, easy. There weren't many resources, (it's a public school in deep south texas) and I wasn't asked to do much as I was already taking the hardest courseload ever given in my school (4 AP's by the end of 10th with a 4 average on the exam).</p>
<p>Junior year, sick of the inadequacies of my school, I chose to take my courses at a recently opened IB school. It was small with classes averaging thirty people in size and with the best teachers in my area; there was plenty of room for me to get the attention I wanted, and hopefully be challenged.</p>
<p>Junior year, I began to see the benefits of attentive teachers that actually cared about teaching. My math teacher challenged me, and my physics teacher did the same by teaching me relativistic physics after school once a week. I still maintained the lax attitude about grades/test scores my entire life, but I was learning a lot and was happy--I did what I wanted to, not what I was forced to do. </p>
<p>Senior year rolled along and everything was going great, but then I began to apply to colleges and realized my stats were subpar. I thought: "I won't get in because my stats aren't great and I only did what I wanted in terms of EC's, and maybe it is because I'm dumb." I retained that mentality partially because of my old teachers that never congratulated me, were apathetic toward their students, etc.</p>
<p>I didn't really feel the impact of being a URM until I got my acceptance letters back. Out of the five (UT, MIT, Rice, Princeton, Cornell) that I applied to, I was accepted at four--this is not at all what I expected. I never spoke about it to anyone because there were many that were rejected except I did tell my close friend who I forgot had a loud mouth. One day, on my way to UIL Math practice (an academic competition) my friend (the valedictorian currently at Yale) tells my coach (never was one of my teachers BTW) about my acceptances and her response is: "Well, he is a minority". This was after I won district in Team Chemistry without a partner for her. The same crap kept being stated to me over and over again essentially telling me I'm dumb and I took another more deserving kids place. The only people to congratulate me were my Physics teacher and Math teacher.</p>
<p>Needless to say, after my first semester of college I realized that I am not dumb by any means and that intelligence CANNOT be evaluated by an exam. Many of the people at Rice that enter are among the top applicants in the nation with stellar stats, amazing awards, etc. I entered Rice with 18 hours--none for math and physics because they are stingy with IB credits. My counsler, in his opinion, recommended me for the simplest and easiest courseload possible telling me that: "I believe these classes will challenge you plenty based on your test scores, incoming credits, etc". (he knew nothing about IB, but he knew I didn't have 50+ hours like many freshman AP'ers).</p>
<p>I ignored his advice and signed up with 18 hours with 3 hours of research and two sophmore level honor math and physics courses. While many ORM superachievers struggled to get past a 3.0 with the bare minimum difficulty, I managed a 3.5 without working my absolute hardest (I did try--I do not mean to sound cocky). They did not know how to adjust to college is partially the reason.</p>
<p>What is the point of this entire rant?</p>
<p>I want to give you "lucky" "underachievers" who got into good schools hope and confidence that you got in because you deserve it and not because you are dumb. I also want to make one point clear:</p>
<p>It is not what you did in high school or what college you got into that matters, it is what you do with it. </p>
<p>Whether you were the average Joe that managed to get into a superreach, or the overachieving statfreak that got rejected everywhere, your education does not stop when you get into college--it has only begun. You must learn to act and think for yourself, otherwise you might crash and burn in college with the freedom, and you must, most importantly, not compare yourself to others based on what colleges one was accepted to because that attitude will lead to failure.</p>
<p>I have more to say but I think this sums up everything fairly well.</p>
<p>Info: *I was required to take the exam in 7th because of Duke TIP, nor did I ever prep for the exam. I post this because I want everyone to see the difference good teachers can make (shown by 11th and 12th)</p>
<p>SAT in 7th grade (1000, 400 reading 600 math)
SAT in 11th (1230, 700 math, 530 reading)
SAT in 12th (2150, 760 math, 670 reading, 720 writing (12/12))</p>
<p>SAT II's in 12th (2150, 780 math iic, 760 chem, 610 US. hist)</p>
<p>AMC 12 in 12th (103.5)</p>
<p>AIME in 12th (7)</p>