Hi everyone
A few weeks ago, I got rejected from my top school Northeastern. At first I was really distraught and self evaluating myself. I wondered what was it that I did wrong, if I should’ve taken the SAT’s way more seriously and I compared myself to the many kids from my school who were accepted. I know it’s probably wrong that I compared myself to others. But I couldn’t help but notice that one of my friends with a lower GPA, lower SAT and ACT scores, less extracurrculars, less leadership, an easier course load and less volunteer work was admitted into Northeastern. Of course I was happy for my friend but it made me question the entire admissions process and come to the conclusions that affirmative action was at hand. I come from a school with 49% African American students and obviously the need for diversity at northeastern is in high demand. Just because I’m Asian American doesn’t mean that there should be higher standards for me. Although I am nearly in the top 5% of my class (just barely not making it) with a 4.4 GPA, I am not the archetypal Asian genius people assume all Asians to be. My SAT score was only an 1840 and 29 on the ACT. Despite my average test scores, a girl with even lower test scores was admitted into the university with higher standards. Do you think affirmative action is fair?
This is an issue that seniors around the country have every year. Their friend, who supposedly had lower everything, got in while they didn’t. It’s not a debate on anything. You didn’t see her application. You didn’t see her essays, her recommendations, her activity list, or her home environment. It’s not your place to judge.
Additionally to what whitespace said, your scores are below NEU’s 25% easily - I think at that point, with scores that low for both people in question, other factors of the application are going to make the bigger difference.
On top of that, extracurriculars, leadership, and volunteer work all carry very little weight or are subjective. Northeastern very much emphasizes quality of quantity from what I have seen - it could be the case that they wrote their essay and framed their application in a specific light that NEU liked more.
All of this is before even considering affirmative action - I don’t think it’s right or fair to assume that she got in due to affirmative action. Whether or not affirmative action is right or wrong is a subject people have written tons of papers on for both sides of the argument, but I don’t think it’s relevant or helpful here.
It’s easy to take all of this personally, but it’s important to remember that admissions is more and more of a lottery game these days - more students are qualified for all of the top universities than they can accept - a rejection doesn’t mean you weren’t ready, but that they didn;t have enough space. With how many good schools there are in the US in particular, it’s important to remember that.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Closing thread. There is only one area on CC on which discussion of Affirmative Action is allowed, and this is not it.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1843141-race-in-college-applications-faq-discussion-12-p1.html