"Chance me" threads

Student Lounge African-American Students
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<p>Hey, to all you college hopefuls, I just want to say that this is a great website for a bunch of information about higher education. However, one thing I will say coming from a person who used this religiously all last year as a college applicant: people on here can be harsh. And not in the "real world brutally honest" kind of way, but in the "you're not good enough, why are you even asking" kind of way. I tried being chanced and stuff like that, but in the end, it didn't matter how these people perceived my grades. They weren't admissions officers, and if they were, not for the college I wanted to attend. They were snobby people with ridiculously high SAT/ACT scores and an out-of-this-world GPA - the kind of people who couldn't understand that not everyone could/can be like that, and shut them off at the sight of an ACT score below a 30. Every year, schools look for something different in the population of students they want to admit. I didn't have good SAT scores at all, but I rocked all of my college essays and that's what made the difference. Yea, numbers are the way colleges compare students before they delve into their personalities. They're the way colleges pick out the really unpromising students from the geniuses. But they don't just stop there, which is the good news. They look for personality and drive, and any other characteristics they deem a good fit for their school, through your essays and recommendations. This is long, but it's just to tell the hopefuls that all isn't banked or lost when it comes to your test scores. I beat out the senior class president from the IB program for Boston College and trust me, her scores were all more glamorous than mine.</p>

<p>Good luck to everyone in their journey!</p>

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<p>You’re right, and that’s why the “chance me” threads are counter-productive. In the MIT forum, an admissions counselor addressed this very issue.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1084380-why-do-you-post-chance-threads.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1084380-why-do-you-post-chance-threads.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Jazz, I don’t know how to link in threads but can you find my other thread with the same title (I placed this in the wrong one but left it because I guess it means more people can see it, plus I can’t delete after I post lol) but can you post it over there, too? People need to see this kind of stuff. Thanks!</p>

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<p>Unless you have near perfect SATs it’s impossible to not feel inadequate while reading CC. </p>

<p>I personally am happy with my SAT scores, my combined score for its three parts are within the mid 50 percent of even Harvard, and yet honestly I’ve had moments when I’ve felt inadequate or over my head on the college admissions process. </p>

<p>I had a very rough junior year. I’m not gonna list my grades here. I’ll just say I took 3 AP classes, one High Honors AP feeder class, and an honors class I barely passed it was a foreign language course). My class rank ended up in shambles and I fell out of the top 10 percent of my high school, which felt awful especially when I considered that everyone I associate with was ranked high, and as a result, I ended feeling dumb and inadequate because I felt like I was doing the best I could at the time, and yet nothing seemed to work.
It happens to the best of us. I’m probably considered far above average by most people in my high school, yet even I can’t stand college confidential. Think of what the average high school student must think when he/she looks at a CC forum? Some chance me’s are ridiculous. Frankly, I think some kids use chance me’s as a way to brag about themselves. If there’s anything to be wary of once you’re at a high academic standing is 1) getting cocky, and 2) applying to a top heavy list of schools with not even a decent midrange backup. </p>

<p>I managed to get through junior year with all my AP tests 3 or above. I pulled it together near the end, and I started self studying and watching OpenCourseWare lectures daily.</p>

<p>Now I’m a senior, I just finished applying to all my colleges last week. Guess what! I’m applying to MIT, U Chicago, Harvard, and Cornell (along with 6 other schools that are a mix of upper level match schools, lower level match schools, and two safeties). I take 4 AP classes, and a dual enrollment chemistry course at the honors program of my town’s local state school that includes a lab portion that’s graded separately (it’s weighted as 2 AP classes at my school, or equal to an AP lab science like physics). On top of that I’m self studying for AP Physics C. I took a class at Harvard the summer before, revamped my study habits, and figured out I have a passion for physics and chemistry and that I want to eventually get a doctorate and become a research scientist. Can you believe that even after C’s in AP Physics B the teacher teaching Physics C is now even offering me a research opportunity? I aced the first semester of my chemistry lab and lecture course, with a 97 on the final, and a 100 on an 8 page research paper. My other classes? I’m faring pretty well. I’m just a little worried about maybe my calculus BC grade and my AP English lit grade. ok, I’m worried they’ll be high B’s instead of A’s. I KNOW I’LL HAVE TO GO TO MY LOCAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE BECAUSE OF THAT!!! (that last part should be taken as sarcasm). My 1st semester isn’t over yet, so I still have time to pull through with all A’s. I feel confident about my essays because I enjoyed writing them, I was myself and no, I did not make them a sob story about my junior year, which I realize is a really important year. I tried to give a full picture of myself, my EC’s, intellectual interests, and my personality. My point here is that behind every transcript there’s a story. Frankly, If I hadn’t learned my lesson in high school, I would have had to have learned it in college, which is where it would have hurt me even more. </p>

<p>Harvard definitely isn’t my first choice. I don’t think I can get in, and frankly it was my parents who convinced me to apply. I visited MIT (twice) over the summer though and I absolutely fell in love with the school. I already was a huge fan because of its online course materials. U Chicago (like they’ve done with everyone in this forum, I assume) sent me a lot of mail. Well, a lot of schools sent me A LOT of mail, but U Chicago ended up really appealing to me as well, so I applied, and currently it’s my favorite. What’s important is that I didn’t let myself get discouraged from applying to schools I genuinely liked.</p>