<p>What’s the threshhold you consider “good”? One of my friends at school, a VERY smart and capable girl, had a near 4.0, a +2300 score, was president of various clubs, had taken +10 APs between Fresh/Junior year, got 6th at a national competition, and writes EXTREMELY well. And she was still deferred SCEA. And there are HUNDREDS more exactly like her. Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, getting into Yale takes luck. Even the admissions officers acknowledge that their system for picking the incoming class isn’t perfect. Many great, great people slip through the cracks and would have done equally well at Yale as the next person who got in, given the chance.</p>
<p>The claim that you’re making is unbelievably arrogant. I really hope not all Yale students are like this.</p>
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<p>Well, let’s see. Did you get into Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Columbia, etc. etc. and all the other top 25 schools? Probably not. Just because you got into one, or a few, really great schools does not automatically make you better than everyone else.</p>
<p>Deferred is not the same thing as rejected. Moreover, despite someone’s ostensibly good essays there is no way to know their actual quality. The argument is not that one will get admitted to Yale exactly, but that one who possesses those traits will get into Ivy caliber schools. </p>
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<p>There is nothing arrogant about saying an individual who works hard will get into Yale. It is a matter of fact. </p>
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<p>No, I didn’t apply to most of those schools because I had no interest in attending. I applied to Harvard and Princeton and was rejected, which was not surprising given their practice of preventing applicants from submitting supplemental research papers. I already figured I was not going to get into those schools and I didn’t. </p>
<p>I never said getting into Yale makes me better than someone else. I had no desire to attend Yale and was dead set on going to the University of Texas at Austin, until I saw Yale’s financial aid policy.</p>
<p>This is the claim of yours that I have the most contention with. There are plenty of people who work VERY hard (in fact, I know classmates who work harder than me and weren’t accepted SCEA) and ultimately, still get rejected from, as you call them, Ivy-caliber schools. It’s silly to say that the other 90% who didn’t get into Yale are somehow lazy or stupid, because they’re just not. For the sake of argument, please stop and think about that. Are you really telling me that if you had the chance to review everyone who got rejected from the Yale class of 2013, you couldn’t find anyone who deserved to be there, the same as you?</p>
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<p>Hmm, one would think that your ability to get into “Ivy caliber” schools rests on more than just a supplemental research paper.</p>
<p>Read, that is not what I said at all. I said an individual who works hard will get into Yale, which is an absolutely true statement. I did not say individuals who get rejected from Yale didn’t work hard. A positive claim that is true does not mean that the contrapositive is false. </p>
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<p>Actually it kind of did. Otherwise no one would believe a kid developed an equation to model the probability for photons to undergo quantum tunneling on his own.</p>
<p>Semantics aside, that sure seems like what you’ve been touting the entire time. If I misunderstood, I apologize. But from what you’ve said (“that one who possesses those traits will get into Ivy caliber schools”) it seemed like you were belittling those who didn’t get in as simply not working hard enough, when that’s absolutely not true.</p>
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“Semantics aside, that sure seems like what you’ve been touting the entire time. If I misunderstood, I apologize. But from what you’ve said (“that one who possesses those traits will get into Ivy caliber schools”) it seemed like you were belittling those who didn’t get in as simply not working hard enough, when that’s absolutely not true.”[/quoite]</p>
<p>I was trying to say that getting into an Ivy is not as hard as people make it seem. If you work hard you will be admitted. Not all those who work hard will be admitted, but all those admitted worked hard. </p>
<p>Perhaps I view getting into Yale and Ivies as no big deal because I was accepted. But I know WAY too many people that got accepted to multiple Ivies to think that it is terribly difficult.</p>
<p>I don’t think I was that underprivileged considering my parents make over 100K. I am not rich, but I really doubt I am underprivileged. </p>
<p>And if I was poor, I think it shows VERY poor character on your part to insinuate that I was accepted because of it. Looks like someone still needs to learn a thing or two about tact.</p>
<p>And YOU don’t think you have offended anyone on this board by your arrogant remarks? How would you like me to tell you that I think 100000 income is poor and anyone with half of brain should be able to make a lot more than that? Even Internet is not a one way street</p>
<p>Stating facts is VASTLY different than insulting people’s economic status.
Northwestern isn’t prestigious. Cornell is the worst of the Ivy league schools. The sky is blue. </p>
<p>All of those are facts, if you have a problem with that…well i believe I already told you what you can go do to yourself :)</p>
<p>right. I spent my entire high school career drinking, failing classes, sitting on the couch, and did TERRIBLY on my standardized tests. But I still got into Yale, something that 99% of the population could NEVER accomplish. </p>
<p>Economic status is off limit, but classifying people by what school they got into (in essence calling them stupid or lazy if they couldn’t get into a school like Yale) is perfectly acceptable? The FACT is no one really knows why someone is admitted or rejected by schools like Yale. What you have wrote on this board have discounted what your classmates have achieved by getting into Yale. Most of them got in with their own merit (may it be atheletic, special musical/art talent, or outstanding academic achievement). Not to put down what you have accomplished yourself, but the fact that you could be so cavalier with your admittance to Yale, and attribut it to some other factors (location, social economic, race…), or maybe even luck, you are just highlighting your sense of entitlement and upbringing.</p>
<p>Anyone who’s admitted to Yale should be proud of their achievements, and also thank their lucky stars.</p>
<p>I’m not saying you are not accomplished. You had to be accomplished to get into Yale. But your URM status gave you a leg up in the admissions pool.</p>
<p>Why would I thank my luck stars? I had affirmative action to thank :)</p>
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<p>I know black people had to work really hard when they were oppressed. So hard work got me into Yale, it just wasn’t my hard work. Woot woot!</p>
<p>Right now I am thinking about following up with Harvard for grad school. Affirmative action got me #2, might as well use it to get #1 in a few years. Although I might actually need to pass a class or two this time around.</p>
<p>See my post where I address prestige and not the quality of the school or students:
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<p>It would be idiotic to think that people who attend Yale or Harvard or whatever are better than the people who go to Sam Houston State University (my brother’s school :)). But it would likewise be idiotic to claim that certain schools do not have more prestige than others.</p>
<p>That Cornell and Northwestern aren’t prestigious is not a fact - it’s an opinion. Just by labeling it a fact does not make it one. Even if you have very reasonable grounds for your opinions, it still does not make them facts. If it truly was a fact, I doubt people would be debating you this much.</p>
<p>Fuzzyfirebunny, oldfort, and wjb are clearly providing the most coherent argument on this thread.</p>
<p>Regarding the difficulty of admittance to Yale, acceptance rates may differ by particular demographics, but Yale, relative to the average college in America, is a very difficult university to receive acceptance to. Yes, achieving (or being genetically endowed with) the qualifications required for a more favorable admission probability is helpful, but the inordinate competition and sheer difficulty of acceptance at Yale is really an indisputable point.</p>
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<p>No one is distorting your statements to suggest that. Likewise, no one is suggesting that minority applicants are admitted to some universities exclusively on the basis of their ethnicity. Yet it would be completely irrational to believe that race was not a factor that contributed to their acceptance.</p>
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<p>Correct, but it is unreasonable to adopt some sort of ideological dichotomy regarding what constitutes prestige and what does not. Prestige is a function of a variety of factors and while many universities may clearly exceed the reputation of others, Northwestern is not devoid of factors that contribute to a higher institutional standing.</p>
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<p>Yes, you are exactly correct. But regarding his point, he is mockingly attempting to distort others’ points to mean that Affirmative Action was the exclusive factor that allowed him and other minorities to obtain acceptance. Absolutely no one is intimating that and is actually quite divergent from the main scope of the argument.</p>
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<p>I honestly do not believe that you are in the proper position to indiscriminately make these claims. The former statement is patently false; the second is largely dependent on what “worst” entails. Considering the multitude of fairly independent factors that constitute educational quality, it is irrational to assume that Cornell uniformly lags behind the remainder of the Ivy League schools in every area. Labeling it as “the worst of the Ivy League schools” without some sort of mention of your methodology or rationalization is not the soundest judgment.</p>
<p>Moreover, the individuals on the Northwestern board may have some greater knowledge of the school. If you wish to press this issue further, I would suggest that you bring your opinions of the school to them and you all can engage in a vigorous discussion regarding the educational quality of Northwestern and its historical and current reputation.</p>
<p>I can accept whatever circumstances he claims helped get him into Yale. No one is disputing that his ethnicity gave him a leg up in the admissions process. However, when he claims that the other people who didn’t get in are somehow inferior to him, and then admits that his race gave him an extra advantage - those two statements seem exclusive.</p>
<p>No one is asserting the claim that anyone was unqualified.</p>
<p>Affirmative Action is often the “tipping factor” rather than the exclusive factor that leads to admission but I believe that everyone fully realizes that ethnicity is taken into consideration in conjunction with qualifications in other areas.</p>