Ackshually it was an 89.5 WEIGHTED?
Anyway I think a gap year is in the cards unless I get off the WL somewhere. Or I fall in love with Binghamton. I honestly think I bungled my apps this year, and retaking for a 35/36 and pulling an 800 or two on some subject tests could help. FWIW I am looking at a 3.7-3.8 this semester based on my professors’ estimates/prior grades I’ve received.
As I told my kid, when you have a B, the school doesn’t know if it’s because you didn’t try or you worked your butt off and it was the best you could do. They will assume the latter in assessing your capabilities. While it could be that you were simply an underachiever and could have knocked it out of the park had you tried, it could mean that you lack the skills to learn and use material, you don’t follow instructions, you miss nuance, you can’t pull together a big project-- any of the necessary academic skills to succeed at a highly selective college.
I feel for you. Regret is a horrible thing to carry. You have confidence in your ability- put it to use in your next 4 years and you will be able to let go of it.
I find it interesting that you find grades resulting from 9 months of evaluation to be “letters on a piece of paper” but numbers on a piece of paper from 3 hours of filling in circles are “objective measures of knowledge”.
Sorry you’re bitter about the results and lashing out with whatever you can find. With 6 posts of decreasing coherency in 12 minutes you’re obviously on tilt and it’s not really worth trying to have a logical conversation in this situation.
I’ve hesitated about whether to jump in on your thread or not because I’m not sure anything I add will be useful. I do agree with you that I wish more schools placed less emphasis on things I find of lesser value (in my case, sports ability). As someone who personally tests well and whose kids generally test well I like finding systems where some sort of testing is the primary measurement- whether that’s for college admissions or choosing a major that relied on exams rather than writing papers, etc.
(My husband grew up in Australia where at the time (not sure if this is still the case) university admissions were completely exam-based. You chose your 12th grade subjects and took statewide exams at the end of the year and ranked your choice of undergrad major and then depending on how well you did and which exams you took, you’d get offered a spot. So for instance, if you took math, chem, and physics in year 12 and did well in your exams and wanted to do mechanical engineering you’d get offered a spot for it. )
Anyway, that was slightly beside the point. Or not. It’s a good system but I think too difficult to implement nationwide in the US. Maybe some state could do it for their state schools.
My oldest kid has a friend that went to Harvard. She isn’t the smartest kid we know. But what she is, and what Harvard saw in her application, is the most energetic. She was involved in everything in high school and hit the ground running when she got to Harvard, from performing arts groups to community service and outreach. She’s not sitting around just studying and watching Netflix. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… I’d say that’s probably what most kids are doing and what most adults do with their free time but the tippy top schools are looking for the leaders of the future and those are the go-getters.
BTW legacy usually only helps in the early decision round - did you apply ED to Wes?
Last point and the reason I keep coming back to this post - gently OP, a 34 ACT is a great score but it doesn’t mean you are such a super rock star that you’ve just proved you are ready for any college’s upper division course work. If I saw a 34 ACT and a B+ GPA as an admissions person I would think one of 3 things: a) untreated adhd, b) lazy, c) kid thinks he’s a special snowflake. With a big stack of applications from kids who have even higher ACT scores (yep, lots of 35s and 36s applying to these schools) and higher GPAs, they aren’t going to take a chance. Especially if your essay was flippant.
Anyway, I hope you can move past the disappointments and find your niche. There will be plenty of very smart kids wherever you go… lots of brilliant kids end up at the state schools for many reasons - money, needing to stay near family, etc. Yeah, it doesn’t impress the neighbors like saying you go to Harvard, but really, most people don’t go to a top name school for undergrad and manage to have a good life.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: This thread has run its course. Closing.