<p>You will have as good of a chance as every other amazing student who applies to ivys and ivy-caliber schools. But you have a really great chance.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>@RedsFan17
Thanks! I’m just hoping the music will set me apart so they see that I do have something unique to bring to the table.</p>
<p>@redwall1521
I get what you are saying, but the problem in that article is that they made the flawed statement that being a “c” student gets you success (aka Gates, Zuckerberg, Jobs) and being a valedictorian gets you failure (aka the “poor” dad). What the article should say is that you don’t need to be a valedictorian in order to be successful and that not all successful people got A’s in school, but it doesn’t.
It goes beyond that by claiming that being well-rounded enough to earn the title of valedictorian is a key to future failure. Well the counterargument to their claim that valedictorians didn’t focus enough on one area is that focusing on one area really limits your choices in the future. What if you focused on chemistry throughout high school with the sole intention of being a chemist and getting that Ph.D in grad school, while letting your grades for the other classes drop, only to get to the point when you realize that jobs in pharmaceutical companies are being outsourced to India and China? What would you do then? Basically, the idea of focusing on just one thing to guarantee yourself success is wrong in that it can also guarantee failure. With only chemistry as you strong area, it would be very hard to make up for what you missed by slacking off in classes that you didn’t think you needed in high school.
And to counter the argument of valedictorians not being creative or having innovation and guts to take risk, there is quite a hefty list of highly successful valedictorians. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dr. Seuss, Douglas MacArthur (not saying I like him or agree with him in the least; but you cannot deny that he was successful), W. E. B. Du Bois (famous civil rights activist), and Coretta Scott King were rather famous and successful, just to name a few.</p>
<p>Harvard and Princeton are reaches for everyone, but you have great test scores and good ECs. You have a much better chance than many people. Good luck!
Chance back? <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1644843-chance-a-dorothy-who-wants-to-go-to-the-coasts-will-chance-back.html#latest”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1644843-chance-a-dorothy-who-wants-to-go-to-the-coasts-will-chance-back.html#latest</a></p>