<p>In my opinion, people are waaayy to harsh when ranking people's chances for admission on this site. GPA and SAT scores are not everything! I know people from my school who have been accepted into amazing schools with 1800's on their SAT's and 4.0's for their weighted GPA's without any major hooks. If you have good recommendations and you interview well, you can stand a chance at almost any school. </p>
<p>I AM NOT SAYING THAT PEOPLE WITH AVERAGE GPAS GET INTO HARVARD. I am saying that it does happen though, so don't give up on your reach schools just because someone on this website says you don't have a chance. </p>
<p>Does anyone else tend to notice this? Sometimes being a good, hardworking student is enough for a school, even the Ivies from time to time.</p>
<p>NOTE: I go to a average public high school and this is from my personal experience. However, if you disagree, feel free to let me know.</p>
<p>Asking random folks on the internet to review your chances at (mostly holistic) schools comes with a certain level of risk. Also, when they say “Low reach”, “safety”, etc., it’s just a probability and not a definitive answer. In other words, don’t worry about folks responses…</p>
<p>Gpa is not helpful since it varies school to school. Test scores don’t tell a school you can handle anything. Interviews, essays and EC tell the school what type of person you are and the better schools I would think consider the holistic approach. The chance threads are a joke. How can you chance and chance back based on what? A few random paragraphs where every school is top in nation and everyone claims to take hardest course load. It’s for insecure candidates. </p>
<p>I agree, I think sometimes though you can’t just tell someone “match” when we don’t know what their recs or essays and interviews are like, so saying reach is sort of just the safe way to play it but I just wish people didn’t take it so harshly. We’re only basing it off the information that is given by them and like Gator88NE said, it’s not a definite answer. It’s just our opinion and honestly, something is wrong if you give up on your dream university just because of what some people on the internet said. Regardless of the responses to your thread on chances, keep trying because you never know unless you give it a shot and work hard.</p>
<p>There is ALWAYS a reason why someone got in and why someone did not.</p>
<p>The reason can even be that: the college admissions office got drunk on a party night so they randomly accepted and rejected people.</p>
<p>But most of the times, they are usually calm people that judge applicants holistically. Keep in mind that the “judges” are not PhD professors. Their level of reasoning can perhaps be even lower than some of the people here at certain times (e.g. when they’re tired). Hence, the chancing accuracy here is not abysmal, because many of us are just like them. (I did not say they’re accurate, but they are not completely wrong or unforgiving)</p>
<p>I’ve never understood what “chancing” gives you that a few minutes looking at a school’s common data set couldn’t tell you. I especially love the threads where someone is “chanced” based off what they EXPECT their SAT score to be. And, of course, every student’s essay is awesome and unique in their own eyes. No one “chancing” anonymously on the Internet knows how good your essay is, or how your topic will be received by the person reading it. And they certainly don’t know how well you interview (for schools where that matters). </p>
<p>I think the main reason why I got into Penn State was my essay. My high school grades were terrible insomuch that I hadn’t even expected to get admitted in the first place. My SAT score is 1900. My predicted scores were… meh. My advice is, just give it a shot. Of course, applying to a university like Harvard in such a situation is too much of a stretch.</p>
<p>But then again, my high school curriculum is CBSE. Thankfully, they apparently realized the pile of antiquated rubbish that its academic system is and empathized. </p>
<p>If it makes you feel any better, while reading through the threads in this forum a long time ago, I got the impression that I would not be admitted to the worst community college on the horizon with my academic credentials. Go figure. </p>
<p>I agree. CC freaked me and my kids out so they over applied to so many schools. Still waiting on a few, still waiting for a rejection. Their test scores were ok but the rest of their applications were stellar, including amazing EC’s. </p>
<p>I don’t think it is possible to predict who gets admitted and who does not. The best anyone can do is give you some feedback on your choices. CC is a public forum where anyone can “chance” you, so you need to also take any advice along with the advice of others who know you- teachers, parents. There seems to be a predominance of high achieving posters on CC, which can be intimidating, but it also is a reality check.
There are some things you can learn from a chance thread.
Your perspective is limited by who you know. You might be #1 in your class with straight A’s, but here on CC, you will discover that there are numerous top students and they are all applying to college too.
Parents and family may overestimate your chances, because they may be thinking about when they applied to college. It is different now.
While it might seem harsh to be chanced on CC, it isn’t as harsh as over reaching and not having a college to go to at the end of senior year.
You do not have to give up on your dream college, but if that college is highly selective, all students should have less selective choices on their lists. If the consensus of a chance thread is that all your choices are reaches, then you should consider modifying your list/adding more colleges where you have a better chance of being admitted.
Chance threads can not predict, but they can be used as guides. </p>
<p>Overall, I support the idea of chancing. Obviously, if someone has a stellar profile and wants to be chanced for top schools like Harvard and Yale, it’ll be hard to gauge their chances, but if someone has a weak profile and wants to be chanced for those schools, it’s important to help them understand that their chance of acceptance may be low. Some students genuinely don’t know if Penn State is a match for them, or if UChicago is, or if their local community college is. Also, lots of students don’t know about which schools accept more URM’s, local applicants, STEM majors, etc., so they’ll think they’re more or less likely to get into certain schools than they truly are. All of these student will benefit the most from chancing.</p>
<p>I think the only “harsh” thing about CC is how rude some people can be, like telling others that they’re too “stupid” to go to a certain school. I wish more CC members, both students and parents, would be a bit more compassionate when chancing others; yes, you need to be honest, but so many students are freaking out when they’re posting on CC (since college application time is so stressful), and the last thing they need is to feel inadequate.</p>
<p>Essentially any school with 10% or less admit rate is not something anyone can predict without a genuine hook. So someone who predicts anything lower than a reach has no idea what they are talking about. The chance remains the same as percentage of admit rate (actually it is lower for general pool since there are a large number of seats eliminated from general public - athletes, legacy). </p>
<p>It is also important to ask people what their financial and admission safety school is. If someone does list all the schools they are applying to and only want to discuss HYPS - they should never be chanced in my opinion since they are not here to discuss but be offended.</p>
<p>I think some people take “chance-ing” too literally. It’s easy to forget that the person evaluating you could be 13 years old with no experience in applying to colleges!</p>
<p>None of us even those applying can chance anyone. It’s done to try an help insecure candidates. I love when a person will keep changing their grade level, gpa, act, etc until they find the right combo to have everyone say Match. Do they not know their history shows on Monday they were a sophmore Wed a junior and by Friday a senior ranked first with all APs , tons of ECs ect ect. </p>
<p>I remember seeing a similar thread in which some of College Confidential’s harshest members actually participated. Most of them seemed to be either snooty or trolls. Many of them said they attended prestigious private high schools, were national merit scholars, etc. They were all very uppity and annoying, but one comment stood out to me. I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but I think it went something like, “The way we talk about our stats on these forums is no different from how the tool jocks at our high schools brag about their touchdowns, track records, and blah blah blah.” I was always irritated by the kids on this website who bragged about their 2400 SATs and 5.0 GPAs, but his comment made me realize exactly what they’re doing. It’s a power trip. They get pushed around at school for not fitting in, so they go online and anonymously criticize anyone willing to let them. That, and, like I said before, they could be trolls. Making Ivy-obsessed high school sophomores squirm at the idea of rejection sounds a lot like something a ■■■■■ would enjoy doing.</p>
<p>I get a kick out of the chance back offers - would I value the opinion of another applicant unsure of his/her own chances? Probably not. </p>
<p>I agree with the comment above about the common data set. For most schools, their standards aren’t a big mystery. </p>
<p>Some schools - like the CSU system are really easy to chance - grades and test scores are all that matters. UCs are pretty predictable based on past behavior. Of course there are outliers but, if nobody got in with a 3.0 or less last year, this year is unlikely to be different.</p>
<p>Even the elite schools are pretty easy - odds are they will reject you.</p>
<p>Honestly, I’d say I see as many people offering false hope as I do unreasonably crushing dreams. The false hope is worse because it leaves kids stuck without options. </p>
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