<p>I go to stuyvesant, its a public school in NYC</p>
<p>do you know dima?</p>
<p>Yes, for your state college where they get a billion applicants, GPA and SAT are used to filter. But if you are applying to schools like MIT, realize that they don't care if you memorized notes, or studied hard. They want to see innate ability. They want to see passion. Winning things like ISEF or Siemons Westinghouse, or attending RSI will get you in. Not 1600 4.0. Infact, I have noticed that the majority of 1600's/4.0's get rejected. Why? Because they seem to cast one of those, elite, I just study and study all day appearances. I know that is stereotyping, but admin officers are people to. A kid with a 1300 3.4 GPA who wins ISEF will outshine a 1600 4.0 anyday.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Quote:
What are you talkin' about? It got him a student teacher position in FlyinV's
school!</p>
<p>ahhh hahahaha!! pwn'd FlyinV</p>
<p>lol, if you give respect to someone because they have a high SAT score, lol that's just straight up pathetic.
[/quote]
Two things: First of all, his perfect SAT scores were not what landed him the internship, that was part of the masters program he's enrolled in at Quinipiac (spelling?) University. What the SAT score did was change his student's view of him in a way that made his experience much more enjoyable.</p>
<p>As for thinking its pathetic to respect someone for high SAT scores, i'd be carfeul what you say. Respecting someone for a 1600 (or 2400 nowadays) is similar for respecting someone for going to an IVY league college. Now tell me...how many people want to go to an IVY for the prestige? Pretty much everyone that applies. You just called a whole lot of people pathetic.</p>
<p>Yes extracurriculars in general make a much better picture of an applicant than standardized tests do, because very intelligent people cannot do well on standardized tests.</p>
<p>Just because someone goes to an Ivy league college doesn't mean they get automatic respect from me. You gotta earn respect; it's not just some commodity that you gain from going to an Ivy league school.</p>
<p>Perhaps our disagreement stems from our definitions of respect. You seem to be talking about a more intimate respect, like somebody you'd like to get to know and be friends with. The respect i'm talking about is a more superficial (yet just as important to the person that recieves it) type of respect. </p>
<p>For example: If your school has 5 physics teachers that you know nothing about, except that teacher X graduated from Columbia, and the rest went to a typical state university. You're probably gonna want to have teacher X. Why? Because you know off the bat that he excelled in high school in order to get into Columbia, and that he probably has a great education.</p>
<p>Obviously, its possible that one or more of the teachers that went to state universities could be a better teacher than teacher X. And teacher X may have just had really rich parents who donated alot to columbia. But...knowing nothing about them yet, teacher X is gonna stand out from the crowd.</p>
<p>Interesting topic. I agree on that people are not summed up by numbers, but you can´t deny we are judged by what can be easily judged, and that are mostly simply comparable criteria. E.g. at a job interview they won´t spend 3 months evaluating every subtle part of your personality, they will take a look at your resume first. And for now those criteria are things like SATs and which college you go to. But even if it´s not for representational purposes - usually people who care about learning & school are people who like to win, so they are not just worrying about prestige, they take it as a personal insult when they don´t make it to the best (whatever that means for the society we live in. I agree that fierce competition doesn´t bring out the best in people, but hey, obviously we humans need it.).
Anyway...I think you should be grateful for even having all those chances. You know from an early age what is expected from you, and it´s up to you if you go with it or not. If you grow up in the middle of nowhere in Europe (as I did), your possibilities are limited, and if you haven´t realized how the educational system works in other countries by the age of, say, 12, you can blame yourself for ruining your future, because nobody tells you. You´re even looked at in an odd way if you strive for all A´s. I had a teacher once who gave my best friend a B every single year, for 'educational purposes' as she said, because otherwise my friend would´ve had all A´s, and she deserved them. See, that´s what education in my country is like. </p>
<p>At the end of the day I´m really pro SAT scores and everything, because they offer you at least some way to demonstrate your skills. I live in the land of almost inverted competition: everyone who graduated from high school can go to the same colleges, no matter their grades. So what makes you want to have good grades then? In college it´s nearly the same. Stellar grades - who cares, but finishing college in record time, but with horrible grades is respected.</p>
<p>It reminds me of one quote from the movie 'The Incredibles': "Everyone is special" - "Which is another way of saying no one is special."</p>