a sense of letdown after being accepted?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
1

<p>As is probably true w/ MOST of other acceptees, I was thrilled when I got my letter from Cornell...but from since then, it's been almost a drag.
I mean, I've been looking forwards to this time for four years, and now that it's here, it's such a letdown. Nothing's changed.
I still have to do senseless HS busywork to maintain my grades, still have to go to classes despite the fact that we gain absolutely NOTHING, save for pretending to do the gaggathon of worksheets and packets that we receive, and am stuck in the middle of AP hell week.</p>

<p>And in the flurry of all this, I still haven't even managed to get the time to think seriously about my schedule/ majors/ courses. <em>sigh</em> perhaps after the ap's...</p>

<p>Ugh. I'm about done w/ studying for calc.
Good luck to fellow calc bc takers...
For arts& sci, we still get credit for a 4 right?</p>

2

<p>i agree with you!</p>

<p>i worked my butt off for four years to get into a top school, got my acceptance letter, and was absolutely ecstatic for about a week or so.</p>

<p>but now reality has set in. i could have gotten into other schools if i would have worked harder, and i will be going to school a good 1300 miles away from home.</p>

<p>and nothing has really changed. i’m back to stressing about my grades and my five extracurriculars, still am dying to escape high school, and keep wondering if it was all worth it. </p>

<p>and if i thought high school was tough, i know that next fall the real work will begin…
i just hope i made the right choice.</p>

<p>hang in there :slight_smile:
(and i think you do get credit for a four)</p>

3

<p>^yes, you still get credit for a four.</p>

<p>nothing is going to change immediately, of course. something will change in the next few months, when you actually start getting yourself ready to move and then actually arrive at school. enjoy the time with your friends too! when I found school overwhelming (or when I still find it that way) I try to just enjoy the moment, all the rushing around, because I know that later I will miss it. maybe that’s not how you feel, but I think a little reflection is good for most people. :)</p>

<p>and perhaps you should enjoy the busywork before it becomes difficultwork. :D</p>

4

<p>OH. COME. ON.</p>

<p>I’m sorry, this attitude just p***es me the hell off. Letdown? Really? Oh boo hoo, I got into a top Ivy League school in a year when a record number of students applied and they cut down the acceptance rate to 16%. Also, my diamond and platinum tiara hurts my head and my wallet’s too small for all my money!</p>

<p>Let me tell you something about letdown. In India, the courses you take in highschool are hard. HARD. You have learn about 1100 pages worth of info for a single exam in order to have a hope of doing well in it. Useless information. Information presented to you without explanation so you have no idea how it works. It’s just memorize memorize and memorize. If you’re smart, we don’t care, you should be able to mug up gigabytes of info. I have friends who are truly BRILLIANT, they understand far more physics and math than I ever could, and I get more than 15% more than them in exams because I was blessed with a slightly better memory. That’s letdown.</p>

<p>One of my best friends applied to 12 universities and was admitted to only two, both of which were his safeties, neither of which he can now attend due to financial constraints. That’s a letdown.</p>

<p>And let me tell you about the Indian students who do not have the option of applying abroad. Their only hope to get into a good college is to prepare and slog for entrance exams. Each good college has a different one, and different exams for different streams too, be it law, engineering or humanities. Some prepare for two years - TWO YEARS - and about 80% of them are rejected. Think the SAT is hard? Try giving the IITJEE. You don’t know what the word difficult even means. And about 400,000 people apply to IIT for about 5,000 seats. Compare that to Cornell’s 50,000 for 5,000. And consider that YOU didn’t waste two years of your life learning info for ONE SPECIFIC ENTRANCE EXAM that is USELESS FOR THE EXAM OF ANOTHER COLLEGE. And also, that if after you get into college you change your mind, YOU CAN SWITCH. When people here are stuck with the path they choose from day one, which oftentimes is three years before they set foot in a college.</p>

<p>The freedom, instruction, living conditions, interaction with professors and EVERYTHING at Cornell far surpasses nearly every institution in India.</p>

<p>I got into Cornell, it was my dream school. I got in ED, so I think my post-acceptance HS period was longer than yours. And I too am in ‘AP hell week’. But I am grateful, not letdown, that I got into such a prestigious university and that I have somewhere to go when so many of my friends’ futures are uncertain even now.</p>

<p>Seriously, your ‘plight’ is not only unimpressive, it’s infuriating. MAN UP.</p>

<p>SUZE OUT.</p>

5

<p>Suze:</p>

<p>Everything is relative. People cannot control how they feel. In time, the original poster will come to realize that it probably is worth it. </p>

<p>There is no reason to become angry. It is a life lesson that the original poster must learn (that many people are much more disadvantaged), but there is no reason to make it a harsh lesson.</p>

6

<p>haha, guys, i’m thrilled about cornell.
what frustrates me is that i haven’t had time to really think about classes& teh things i can explore there, b/c even to the last minute of hs, i’m still tied down w/ work…</p>

7

<p>is it b/c this site is dominated by sensitive/ hormonal teens& their parents? seems like the most innocuous things i say comes off as offensive& ppl start jumping at my throat.</p>

8

<p>It doesn’t come off as offensive. It comes off as stupid. </p>

<p>If you don’t want negative comments, don’t post anything. It’s the internet, kid. Don’t use it if you’re too sensitive.</p>

9

<p>it is not stupid nor unusual…you are about to face a big change and you got 'ready" for the change by applying and getting accpted…and now you wait. and wait.</p>

<p>BUT
what you should do…is enjoy your last few months of being student at your high school with those old friends etc…graduation, prom, senior activities.</p>

<p>in August you wll think everyone you meet at Cornell is soo much more fascinating than any one from high school</p>

<p>by October you will miss not having anyone around who has known you longer than 6 weeks.</p>

10

<p>

I can, but I have an extraordinary talent.</p>

11

<p>Suze! you may want to reconsider what you put your energy into when someone expressing honest, personal feelings on the internet is “infuriating.” you will encounter a LOT of different perspectives at Cornell, and you will have a tough time if you tend to become righteously angry whenever you disagree.</p>

12

<p>This semester I worked hard in the classes that interested me, slacked off in the ones that didn’t. Try to focus on having fun because this is probably the last time we’ll ever face little to no academic pressure.</p>

13

<p>suze- i don’t know what ticked you off so badly.
but thanks for the insight into the plight of the indian kids- which i know quite well myself, being asian and all, and have cousins who went through worse.</p>

<p>ray- how is this comment even negative? did i say a single thing against cornell?
i was just expressing the inevitable sense of letdown that people feel when they spend years looking and working towards one goal, accomplishing in, and finding that hs is still hs and nothing’s going to change until we get that gown on our backs.</p>

<p>god cc ppl are sensitive. in another thread, they were tearing apart a kid who merely expressed his confusion that his college interview was being held @mcdonalds. which would presumably be disconcerting to many others, but apparently not to the cc’ers, who spend their lives basking in the afterglow of acceptance& thinking about the kids an africa and india.</p>

14

<p>“…keep wondering if it was all worth it.”</p>

<p>Heck yeah, it will be worth it.</p>

<p>Yes you have a couple months to slog through. But you are soon to embark on a very significant and special part of your life, that will change your life, I guarantee it. In a beautiful place,with tremendous opportunities, among tons of interesting, different and talented fellow travelers.</p>

<p>At the end you probably won’t want to leave.</p>

<p>Do everything you can to make the above come true, and it will. And it probably will anyway.</p>

<p>At this particular instant, a little impatience with the status quo, and even a little “buyer’s remorse”, is perfectly normal. but make no mistake, the changes and challenges you hoped for when you accepted are really truly all there, waiting for you.</p>

<p>You are lucky people.</p>

15

<p>I actually thought that while the anger is unnecessary, Suze’s viewpoint provides some perspective to the situation.

This reaction doesn’t really help your argument against “sensitive” people who express anger at other posters’ opinions. Also, avoid blanket statements; thinking about the rest of the world and avoiding narrow-minded selfishness is something to be desired of students at top schools.</p>

16

<p>I felt similarly after the college application process was over - after being accepted to all but one of my schools, I thought I might have had a shot at even more selective universities. But once fall came around and school actually started, none of that really mattered anymore. Unless you’re in the microscopic minority, you’ll probably love it here at Cornell.</p>

<p>I didn’t bother studying for any APs at all senior year, but I guess my school prepared me really well, since I got 5’s on everything but music theory (which was a 4 only because I can’t sing…at all).</p>

17

<p>LETDOWN?! child please. i agree with suze, that youre over-exaggerating your problem. and with chaoticorder, that you need to not take for granted everything you have, but instead appreciate it b/c many other ppl DREAM of being in your situation. im not trying to make this about me, but i was accepted to cornell but i cannot go because they refuse to give me even a cent in finaid. you, on the other hand, have been accepted to an IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL. and youre going to attend this fall. stop whiining please :D</p>

18

<p>I wouldn’t say it’s a ‘letdown.’ I’m just itching to get started with my life at Cornell, and I’m also a bit nervous. :)</p>

<p>oh and I can’t wait for AP’s to be OVER, but i want to enjoy the rest of my senior year and the summer =D</p>

19

<p>Forgive me for losing my temper. While I will admit that my reaction was out of order, I must still express that I find the topic of the thread to be absolute BS.</p>

<p>@OP: Whopee-do, you’re Asian. That makes me feel so much better about your insensitivity. The fact that you KNOW about the plight of Indian and African kids yet choose to make such statements really lends credence to you. I apologize for my transgression and hope you can find it in your generous and virtuous heart to forgive me.</p>

<p>@faustarp: I agree with you completely and acknowledge that such an attitude will not earn me many friends. I still feel though that while how I said what I said was incorrect, what I did say was not. When someone is making statements that you disagree strongly with you can and should call that person out. Someone who agrees with everyone is not amiable, he’s a doormat.</p>

<p>I will restate my earlier point here in more moderate terms: I know several people who were rejected from their top schools. A girl in my class will be attending Cornell too but without a shred of aid which she needs. Which means that she’ll be graduating with a lot of debt, perhaps the whole 200,000. There are far worse situations to be in after being accepted to college than continuing high school. And not being able to think about future courses is not really in the same league as having to empty your pockets in order to afford taking them. In fact, I’ll be bold enough to claim that it doesn’t even come close. We can all agree on that.</p>

20

<p>OK, now that I’ve made sarcastic and possibly insensitive statements myself, I see that there’s no point arguing. You’re right, not everyone spends they’re days thinking about the plight of those less fortunate. It’s just more apparent to me because I live here and know about it. I have no right to make such statements without knowing you personally while hiding behind the veil of the internet and anonymity. I apologize. Please do not take my comments personally because I mean no harm. I hope that you can understand and appreciate the sentiment behind them. Look at it as another input to your thread, just a slightly more … vociferous one. </p>

<p>And chill, HS will be over soon. And you’ll meet great people and have a great time at Cornell. I’m definitely more pleasant in person :)</p>