About a year ago, I posted on chanceme and got some really harsh and patronizing advice but some gems of kind advice within it all. I just figured I’d check back in and say I’m happily going in for my second year at UCLA this fall and with a 3.8 GPA which is about an A- average I can’t complain!
Ended up going into Human Biology and Society but recently changed into the school of Public Health since they opened it to undergrads :).
Folks honestly told you that for OOS students, UCLA was a reach with a 13% or so acceptance rate. That wasn’t harsh or patronizing. It was fact. Students do get accepted to reach schools, which you did. Congratulations.
Here is the original chance me thread (most of which is quoted above)…and the responses, in case anyone is interested in reading them.
Exactly. The way schools are categorized for admissions purposes isn’t a judgment on how a student might do if and when they are accepted and attend.
Congratulations on a great year OP!
Schools are a reach because of the low acceptance rates, not because you cannot do the work.
From my perspective, this is just confirming what these colleges always say. They get many more applicants who would likely do well there academically than they can possibly admit.
And while the OP should in fact feel good about doing well, hopefully the OP does not infer that means the people who just missed being accepted to UCLA would not have been capable of doing well too.
I skimmed through your original thread and I don’t really see this. In fact, I read several posts praising your accomplishments and saying you have a good shot.
“You have great stats and extracurriculars“
“I see great accomplishments and work ethic above.”
“That is a very powerful story, and one rare among applicants to T20. Tell it well and I think you have a shot at every school in your list”
“You’re a strong narrator as well so I think you’ll do well in applications.”
Etc
UCLA is a reach school - that means admission is hard for almost all applicants. It doesn’t mean you can’t get in.
Sorry, but I don’t really understand the point of this new thread.
I am glad that OP posted this.
If OP conflated the categorization of schools for admissions purposes with the potential/likelihood of success should they attend a reach school, I expect some other teens process things similarly.
Going forward when I comment on chance me threads, I will try to be more careful and clear in what I am saying.
Thanks for the link. Looking back, OP had four chance threads.
January, 2021
April, 2021
May, 2021
September 2021
OP. It was a reach for most people. You NAILED it!! Congratulations!! I think this is a great post. I wish others would let us know how they are doing.
Now, just keep it up.
Lol
I agree. I am surprised by this assumption. I often see students state that they don’t want to go to a safety because the caliber of education, or admitted student, is lower than what they want. If they are assuming that the safeties have “easier” academics, they are probably assuming the opposite of the reaches. Definitely something that needs to be clarified in Chance Me threads.
However, I do agree with OP that some people come off as overly pessimistic/harsh to many applicants.
Yes, I think people forget that students are posting stats and details that represent years of their blood, sweat, and tears. They are tender. When they have worked so hard to stand out and share their hopes and dreams of admission to a selective school, it can sting to hear: “You are just like everyone else. That school is a reach.”
They see their dream school as a special school for special students. It is easy to translate responses to chance me threads as: “Sorry, you are not special.” And that feels like a personal attack on the resume they worked so hard to build.
That said, I think many posters and responders fail to remember or acknowledge that there are many special students who do not attend highly selective institutions.
I have definitely seen advice on CC that I think is harsh and/or patronizing. Looking back over your threads specifically, though, I’m not sure what exactly was said that you’re still “feeling some type of way” about, a year later. I see a number of instances where well-informed posters called you a strong candidate for the UC schools, and… well, there you are!
I also see posts where several people questioned why you’d pay double the cost of UMass Amherst for a UC, but I don’t think that’s harsh per se - each person needs to assess value according to their own criteria. It seems that UCLA is affordable for your family and that you are happy to be there, and making the most of the opportunities there as well. It’s especially fortuitous that you ended up being able to do a public health major after all (which UMass offered all along!), since it sounds like you have a hard-earned personal perspective that will make you a valuable contributor to that field.
I agree with others that calling a school a reach is not the same as saying that you won’t get in, and definitely not the same as saying that you won’t succeed if you do get in! Typically, the thrust of CC advice is helping students to build a balanced list, not because we’re convinced that they won’t get into their reach schools, but because it can’t be counted upon and everyone needs match and safety schools that they could be happy with. That doesn’t mean we think everyone will end up at match and safety schools; it just means we know that a decent share of students will, and we don’t want them to be miserable about it or worse, posting an “I didn’t get in anywhere - now what?!” thread in April. But none of that is mean to diminish you as a person or your strength as an applicant.
That said, are there posters here who get off on dispensing “tough love,” emphasis on the “tough?” Absolutely, and I do think it behooves each of us to think about what needs of our own we are meeting through our interactions here, and whether we’d speak the same way if we were having a non-anonymous, in-person conversation (although I’m sure some of the “tough love” purveyors would!).
Additionally, I think the same advice gets dispensed here, over and over, and it’s easy for those dispensing it to become more telegraphic over time, putting less and less effort into crafting the kind of context and disclaimers that could dispel a harsher interpretation than what’s intended.
So, feedback is good!
And it’s good to hear that you are thriving at a “reach” school and happy with how things turned out. Good luck to you!
I did a chance me thread for my son a year ago and also got a reality check on his list. Did he get into his reach school? Well, yes. He’ll be a freshman at Berkeley in about 3 weeks. Was he likely to get into Berkeley? Well, no, no one is. His stats honestly sounded low for Berkeley or UCLA because it’s difficult to gauge the context of the school a student is coming from, how good their essays are, etc… Did we receive poor advice? We didn’t. The advice we got in that chance me thread helped us craft a list with safeties he would have been happy to attend. Had everything gone wrong, he’d have been fine because we had a balanced list. My son’s best friend had a reach heavy list and is now a salutatorian who’ll be attending community college and isn’t happy about it. I don’t think people on CC try to be harsh, I think they try to be realistic.
Congrats on your success!
I didnt read the original thread but every time someone asks about a T20 school one of the first questions is always “why do you want to go to a XYZ” school and the OP has to immediately go into defending a choice.
Agreed. But that was not the case for OP. It’s a short thread with only 17 responses, so easy to read through. That thread was full of encouraging statements. The last post on that thread ends with:
“You sound like a young person who may change our country for the better.”
Isn’t that because every time someone asks about that, they phrase it exactly like that: going to a T20 school? This indicates the major/only criteria they care about is the ranking, and not specific characteristics and qualities of specific schools.
Congratulations.
On that note, I think there is nothing left to say. Closing.