Can we please use this forum properly?!?!?

Applying to College
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<p>I am just one student, but I am getting seriously annoyed by all the "Chance me!!!" "Edit my essays!!!" threads in this forum. There are so many reasons why this is a waste of time!!!</p>

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<li><p>Wrong forum to post this kind of threads. </p></li>
<li><p>If you think CC can give you an accurate prediction of whether you'll get into a college of your dreams or not, you are in for a serious disappointment when your decisions come out. Save yourself the pain later on.</p></li>
<li><p>These threads are taking up space that could be filled with instead more useful posts like those about problems with Common App, questions regarding the admissions process, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Chance me threads and Edit my Essay threads are selfish: you're asking everyone to devote their time to your stuff, and react to it. </p></li>
<li><p>Essays publicly posted on this forum can be and often will be used by someone else. It's a foolish thing to do. Don't do it.</p></li>
<li><p>In the time you are worrying about your chances, you could be polishing up your essays and such. If you must, go to College Chances. But I'm telling you, you are wasting your time. If you aren't convinced, go read MITChris's posts about how not even he can predict your chances to MIT. </p></li>
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<p>Asking for your chances, and asking for your essays to be opinionated on is not a way to relieve the college admissions stress. In contrast, you will only be more saddened later on or more discouraged when you get replies to these threads. Don't waste other CCers' times. I don't care if you have the best specs in the world. Don't ask for a chance me thread. A teenager who built a fusion reactor got rejected from MIT, if that tells you anything. NO ONE CAN TELL YOU WHAT YOUR CHANCES ARE. THE ONLY DEFINITE FACT IS THAT IF YOU DON'T APPLY, YOUR CHANCES ARE ZERO.</p>

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<p>People just want some vague idea of where they stand. No one is basing any life decisions off the comments they got on their chances thread. </p>

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<p>Obviously I agree that chances threads only belong in the chances forum, but people only respond to threads because they want to. </p>

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<p>Most people send their essays to others via PM.</p>

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<p>Considering no one has ever built a fusion reactor, building one BEFORE you go to MIT probably means you don’t need to go to MIT. </p>

<p>And if you built a fission reactor before going to MIT, they probably would think you’d be a waste of time, since you’d be dead from radiation poisoning before you could graduate. Not to mention Homeland Security wanting to have a serious “chat” with you about your sources of fissile material.</p>

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<p>The only sure-fire way to find out where you stand with a selective college is to apply.
If you only want a vague idea about whether you have a realistic shot, you can get that by comparing your GPA, class rank, and test scores to the averages available in many places, such as:

  • the Common Data Set file posted on most schools’ sites
  • About.com (which posts scatterplots showing admission outcomes for GPA + SAT/ACT combinations)
  • the US News site (detailed info requires a paid subscription)
  • the freshman class profile posted to some college sites
  • Naviance (if your HS has a subscription)
  • online college matchers</p>
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<p>@ MrMom62 - Google Taylor Wilson. He has built a fusion reactor, and proposed a new method of detecting nuclear material in border checkpoints by way of neutron bombardment (I think)</p>