<p>After going through the college application and admissions process and reading all these CC posts I feel as if it really is unpredictable for everyone. Anyone else feel this way, like you don't know how you got accepted or rejected to certain schools?</p>
<p>yep. our valedictorian was waitlisted and was rejected at harvard. i (salutatorian) was the inverse. i got into stanford and the she was outright rejected. we both got into penn. it doesn’t make very much sense because our intent was in different places, her scores were higher… it feels random.</p>
<p>I know, I was on Wellesley’s and Bryn Mawr’s boards and saw the stats. It’s really random. I was waitlisted at Wellesley and accepted at Bryn Mawr. Honestly, I’m not impressed by the big schools anymore.</p>
<p>oops i meant, she was waitlisted at princeton and rejected at harvard. error!</p>
<p>Yeah, it is unpredictable. But I knew that before the admissions process too, and thus I applied to more than one school. Thankfully, I was fortunate enough to be accepted by a few.</p>
<p>yes it was an effing crapshoot… especially at ivies…</p>
<p>TOTAL, crapshoot.</p>
<p>crapshoot. very.</p>
<p>i (val) got into emory/tulane/urochester (big 3)
waitlisted at brown</p>
<p>sal is going to grambling state probably (4th tier public)</p>
<p>Its sooo weird. I got into CAL and USC, but not UCLA. A couple of my friends didn’t get into CAL or SC or even San Diego, but got into UCLA… While some of the brightest people from my school with 4.0 UW, and 2300+ scores got rejected from Ivies, while someone with 2100 and 3.7 got in with no hook.</p>
<p>Here’s the thing, people: college admissions is not a merit badge for what you did in HS. Colleges choose the people they want to chose, for their own reasons. Sometimes it’s a pure assessment of academic achievement and/or potential. Sometimes it may be completely unrelated things, like they’ve already admitted a bunch of people of your “type” and are looking for someone who will add “diversity.” That’s pretty much out of your control. So accept that a rejection is not commentary on your worth as a person or as a scholar, and get on with it.</p>
<p>I think that is why a lot of kids in the northeast apply to McGill or another Canadian university - because if you have the grades they are looking for and meet their test score cut off, you are in. No rec. letters, no ECs, no essays. Just, can you do the work. And the student body at McGill is diverse - it just ends up that way. (Plus, for many people, Canadian schools are cheaper.) When we went to a McGill admitted students day last week half the people in line were waiting to hear from Williams, or Wesleyan or Middlebury that day or the next, and other schools this week. But at least everyone knew they had been admitted to a top university without the whole stressful process they go through here.</p>
<p>The process here is so stressful and a total crap shoot. And I am glad it is over.</p>
<p>ljean, </p>
<p>I have to question whether some adcoms are trying to justify more jobs in their department, rather than a more mechanical approach (grades, sats, prefs for alumn, athlestes,e tc). Full disclosure, less stressful for all.</p>
<p>
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<p>bclintonk, you said my line! :p</p>
<p>Like bclintonk said, only with a cheesy metaphor of my choosing inserted, the adcoms are trying to pick a forest. They’re looking at the big picture. But to the individual trees, it seems random.</p>
<p>I think the problem of the “randomness” is for the kids that work so hard in high school, try to do everything “right” to get into their dream school and then get rejected while the kid sitting next to him/her who was bright, but didn’t work so hard and didn’t score as well, didn’t volunteer as much got accepted. Then the other kids at school start saying “YOU didn’t get in and soandso did???” It makes the student wonder why he/she put forth the effort. </p>
<p>I know that’s a short sighted view. As a mom of 3 kids (youngest will be attending UCI in the fall but really wanted to go to Cal Poly SLO or UCLA) it was hard for him to hear about the kids he helps with calculas and physics get acceptances and he didn’t. I know in the end he will be just fine, it just seems random right now.</p>
<p><em>calculus</em> gah! Sorry for the spelling error.</p>
<p>I don’t know…I really do feel it’s a crapshoot. Each school is different and each student is different so everything’s unpredictable.</p>
<p>It IS a complete crapshoot. Just take a look at my results:</p>
<p>Accepted:
Cornell (A+S)
Carnegie Mellon
Colgate</p>
<p>Wait-list:
Bucknell
Boston College
Tufts</p>
<p>Rejected:
UVA
Johns Hopkins
Georgetown
Brown</p>
<p>Ahh, life is so… unpredictable. Isn’t it beautiful?</p>
<p>All my reflection considered, I come to the same conclusion as Jessie and bclintok.</p>
<p>yuppp def. what’s sad is that people use college admissions as a definition of self-worth. </p>
<p>That’s the true tragedy of college admissions. An arbitrary process can cause people to wonder if 4 years of their life is worth it. Or people think you’re “less smart” than other people.</p>