<p>Are there any members on here who've applied to a college knowing most of their stats were below average-average compared to the accepted applicants from their high school and just did it thinking "what the heck? why not give it a shot"? And got in to the school?</p>
<p>I think I'm going to get fee waivers for application fees so the money doesn't matter but has anyone ever had this mentality and got in?</p>
<p>why would you do that? so if you got in and you are in a hyper intense atmosphere and you fail out or struggle , what did you gain? status of a name?</p>
<p>I had a 3.1-3.2 UW GPA, top 40% class rank, and no hooks. I’m at Vanderbilt right now, and I also got into UNC Chapel Hill (OOS) and Carnegie Mellon. Don’t be afraid to aim high</p>
<p>Not saying NO to you but also consider the burden you place on your guidance counselor. Willy nilly dropping apps at ridiculous schools may impact the quality of the package he/she will eventually sent to your primary target schools. Do you really want them to be rolling their eyes when they see your stack of requests? </p>
<p>How do I know this? Because they talk about it to me – they notice. And I’m only a volunteer recruiter. Can you imagine what they say among themselves and other staff?</p>
<p>And just because you can get fee waivers, don’t abuse the system. That’s frankly unseemly. Don’t act entitled.</p>
<p>If you are truly “below average-average compared to the accepted applicants from their high school” then it probably merits further consideration.</p>
<p>The real problems come when an applicant fixates on a single aspect of their application and ignores their glaring deficiencies. It doesn’t matter if your GPA is solidly in the college’s range if your test scores are in the bottom quartile and you have not taken any AP classes. Or, you observe that your test scores are slightly higher than the guy who was accepted two years ago while skipping over the fact that he is now the star linebacker on the college’s football team.</p>
<p>The application process is frantic enough without students adding to the mayhem with “lottery ticket” applications. As T26E4 points out, it increases the demands on the GC, as well as LOR writers and adcoms.</p>
<p>i’m not going to fail out bruh. dw.</p>
<p>and sweet imsobored encouraging to hear that! Thanks man. What’s a hook btw o_O. </p>
<p>and you can blow the yak kid, ill do whatever i want to the system idc if it places stress on my counselor, it’s her job. she gets paid for it.</p>
<p>Eh, you might find yourself caring if she doesn’t put in as much effort on your more serious applications. Part of her job is time management, and if there’s not enough time to do a good job on all of 'em, well, that’s part of the job! :)</p>
<p>^Great, so she can write a worse recommendation letter for you. And no, it shouldn’t be encouraging because imsobored is an extreme outlier, if he/she actually did get into those schools.</p>
<p>okay that makes sense cortana, is 20 colleges still too much? </p>
<p>they’re not like mind-blowing reach schools</p>
<p>From my school the average grade point average accepted to Upenn ED is a 99.48 while i have a 98.01. And the average ACT score is a 33 while i have a 32. It’s not THAT much of a stretch is it? I’m not expecting to get in. I just have that why not try mentality right now… idk lol</p>
<p>Since you’re such a noisome individual, I don’t know whether to pull for your being accepted at PENN ED just *so it will eliminate your possibilty of applying to my alma mater *</p>
<p>or just not waste any energies knowing that karma’s a b**** and you’ll end up exactly where you deserve.</p>
<p>I think I’ll opt for the latter option.</p>
<p>GL with your “great” guidance counselor rec, pal.</p>
<p>Yes, 20 colleges is too much in my opinion. Put it this way, if you’re accepted to all of them, could you really see yourself at all of them and have to choose among 20 schools? I had a list of schools around that number initially but after visiting and talking with students I cut that number down to 5- 2 reaches, 1 match, and 2 safeties- mainly because i spent a lot of time in deciding which schools I honestly would attend if accepted. I would say 5-10 schools is a good number, 2-3 safeties, 2-3 matches, and 2-4 reaches (depending on how strong academically you are).</p>
<p>Someone get imsobored to tell you the rest of his story- what made up for the lower than usual stats.<br>
Also, Penn is holistic in admissions.
From my school the average grade point average accepted to Upenn ED is a 99.48 while i have a 98.01. And the average ACT score is a 33 while i have a 32.
That’s below average for Penn? I don’t know what the point of this question really is. You don’t get rejected because your stats are 1% off some other kids in your hs. You get rejected because your app package doesn’t make you compelling. Holistic.</p>
<p>ps. watch the 'tude about the GC. You don’t know how letters can read and what they can scream between the lines.</p>