<p>My school gets pretty caught up in the college hype, so I know quite a few “typical CC” kids. Granted, it is a prep school, but still. I find it quite frustrating.</p>
<p>I knew some tippy top students at my high school with stats similar to the stereotypical CC posters, but they never worried if they would get in anywhere. They would have gladly gone to UCLA or UC Berkeley, but wanted to try their luck at the Ivies/Stanford/MITs and some of them got in, some of them didn’t. </p>
<p>But I actually know the other CC poster from my college, so I guess I literally know someone like someone on CC?</p>
<p>Nope. </p>
<p>I know people with 4.0 GPAs but they don’t have the classes or clubs for the Ivies.</p>
<p>Everyone in my school is basically stupid compared to the kids here on CC. There are students that try but nope.</p>
<p>I do know someone like this. Don’t think he tried for an Ivy, but he was accepted at both Stanford and USC. Chose USC, due to astounding scholarship package.</p>
<p>Seriously, we are in a generation where the college admissions process (for the very top students at the top schools) has just gone plain wrong. I see some students on CC, and, I’m sorry, but it’s clear that they either:
- Have no life.
- Have parents who are pushing them to do everything.
- Have outstanding looking EC’s that are, ultimately, pure BS (but they know how to market those EC’s to make them seem amazing).
- Go to some elite college prep school that basically does everything for them to give them good prospects in the admissions process of top colleges (I don’t mean to discount the efforts of the students at these schools, but some schools just know how to create marketable students for the college admissions process).</p>
<p>Though there are some attempts, I still feel that the college admissions process does not fully account for the differences in academic and extracurricular opportunities throughout the United States.</p>
<p>^
- True, but it’s not because of school. I’m just a loser.
- False.
- False.
- False. Would be nice if I did.</p>
<p>there are a bunch of people in my school like on CC.
we’ve only heard back from early schools and so far ~25 people are going to Ivies out of our class of ~360. crazy. (public school but #1 in state blehhh)</p>
<p>@Adodie Ok I am definitely a lot like people on CC I’m a junior, take 5 AP classes have a 4.0 UW and a 2340 SAT but I’m not like what you descibed.</p>
<ol>
<li>I have a boyfriend and a lot of friends that I hang out with every weekend, I play sports, and do things that I generally enjoy in my free time…I think I have a life.</li>
<li>My parents have said that they don’t care what my grades are as long as I try my hardest.</li>
<li>I don’t think my EC’s are that outstanding but a lot of people do actually have good EC’s…it’s not all magic and fairy dust.</li>
<li>I don’t go to a prep school, actually most kids from my school don’t go to college at all.</li>
</ol>
<p>I was interested to see if what I said sparked some comments. xD</p>
<p>Of course, I’m overgeneralizing, but I do expect there’s a decent amount of people with the super stats on CC who fit the at least one of the categories I described. There simply is not enough time to do EVERYTHING.</p>
<p>I go to a Christian school, but it’s super intense and college preparatory. The top quarter of the class all has super high SAT and ACTs visit all applying to at least one Ivy. We have a 80% four year college attending rate and a 97% overall college attending rate. We have these ridiculous kids to attend camps at Princeton over the summer, intern and run programs at Boeing, and taken every AP science offered through the College Board. I am in eight overall (over 3 years) AP classes with a 33 ACT and am considered average among the group of smart kids. Out of our graduating class of 300 I am ranked 15th because I got one B in math; honors precalculus taught by our AP calculus teacher, who is a crazy hard teacher.</p>
<p>I think there is enough time to do everything…it’s all in how you balance the time</p>
<p>What counts as having a life?
I don’t have friends, probably because of introversion/pathological shyness/physical unattractiveness/whatever. (I have acquaintances, but no one chooses to spend time with me when they could be doing something else.) I’m <em>happy,</em> though. I don’t spend all of my time on school-related stuff.</p>
<p>@awesome1114 But still, there are naturally going to be some people with many more opportunities than others. It’s not a matter of balancing time; it’s a matter of opportunities that are present for a person. Though I do truly believe that every student who gets into Harvard or Yale or Stanford completely deserves it, I also believe that there are many others who simply don’t have the proper educational and extracurricular opportunities to give them a good chance of getting into any of those schools.</p>
<p>@Adodie True. My friend and I were discussing this the other day. In my county, my school offers a hefty 15-20 AP classes, but another school just 20 minutes away offers only 4. Obviously a person who attends my school would have a better chance of getting into an elite school. But you also have to keep in mind that colleges take the opportunities available to you into consideration. If you school only offers 4 APs but you took all 4, colleges can see you took every chance you had to excel.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s just me, but the “Golden CC Standard” doesn’t seem THAT impressive anymore. </p>
<p>After being inundated with so many great accomplishments, scores, etc., I’ve come to think of the “CC Standard” as ‘the bar’ for competitive college admissions. (AKA, not the exception, but the rule.)</p>
<p>@awesome1114 And I thank goodness that colleges do take a student’s opportunities into consideration. xD I just believe that it is impossible to fully account for different students’ different opportunities. It’s hard for me to even imagine a school that offers 20 AP classes haha (mine offers about 7 or 8).</p>
<p>In the realm of competitive college admissions, nothing is impressive.
CC people, even the less accomplished among us (read: me), are still typically exceptional and above average.</p>
<p>Well we have a grant from the national math and science initiative, which helped train a lot more teachers for ap classes (plus we get half price tests and $100 for every 3+ on math,science, and english exams)</p>
<p>I definitely know A LOT of CCers at my high school. But they all seem pretty laid back to me. No one’s overly competitive. This year we’ve had people get into MIT, Columbia, Tufts, Princeton and Yale early decision/action, and tons deferred from all of those schools. No one has been rejected from any HYPSM or elite liberal arts school. We’re also a public school, so no one is really coddeled by the admin or counselors.
Just to address the “no life” idea, I am extremely competitive among these kids and I go to parties on weekends (yes, actual parties with alcohol) and spend time with my friends (NOT doing homework and projects) and I spend 15-30 hours in classes/rehearsals for my dance company. Of course, not all the perfect SAT/GPA kids are like this. But the remarkable “how do they do it all??” students definitely exist. Just be prepared :)</p>
<p>I actually know the weirdest CC person ever because she has 1800 on SAT, 3.9 GPA, 7 AP and she worries. What I don’t get, however, is that she’s worried when she already has two research papers under her name! Two!! And both at a Harvard Lab. I tell her many times that those two papers, where her name is clearly visible, are going to help you tremendously when colleges are deciding</p>