<p>After spending months on this website, my ego just dropped. After going through countless chance threads and accepted/rejected threads I feel that getting accepted to prestigious schools is just to dam competitive now. I mean, look at the UC system, UC Irvine is actually hard to get in now, you can have a 3.8GPA and 1900SAT and still get rejected. Seriously, why can't it be the other way around? I myself have a 4.12GPA but because I've only taken 2 AP's by the end of Junior year feel extremely disadvantaged, my EC's are pretty bad and my SAT is below average for the schools I want to go to, for example: cal poly slo, ucla, uc davis. I bet back then, having a 4.0 meant you can go to any university you wanted to, but now its 4.0 plus most rigorous courseload, plus 10 awards, plus 3 varsity sports, plus officer of 10 clubs and countless hours of volunteering. I look at the people on tv or newspaper ad's who say they went to UCLA or stanford and then I realize they were probably not that smart because they got in when it was easier back then. So let me ask you guys, where does a person with a 4.0 GPA, little EC's and average SAT get into today? </p>
<p>Anyways, my chemistry teacher got into UC Berkely with a 3.2GPA and 1350 out of 1600SAT, end of story.</p>
<p>Here is an anecdote from MIT that might ease your spirits:</p>
<p>MIT once rejected a 2400, ISEF winner, who even built a real nuclear reactor in his garage. Everyone on CC seemed so disconsolate, until MIT reminded everyone that ** by rejecting such a “super-qualified” [statswise] applicant, other, normal people still had hope **.</p>
<p>And if it makes you feel better, no one at my engineering magnet has ever gotten a 4.0, but we have kids at MIT, Yale and Stanford!</p>
<p>Also, if you look at all of the applicants who are rejected on the Harvard or Stanford or whatever RD Thread, you’ll see that the applicants get into a lot of their other colleges. Also, you’ll see that many of them are actually relieved and happy where they end up.</p>
<p>My chemistry teacher remembers the cold war era, so yes…he is in his late 50’s or so. I’m just saying the adults who say they went to this school and such aren’t as hardworking or smart as the kids today. Getting into Harvard 20 years ago is probably like getting into UCLA today. What I’m trying to say is it just isn’t fair that people before us had a much easier time getting into college than we did.</p>
<p>That student gets into Berkeley–including the fact that there is an Asian with no extracurriculars and about as average with a SAT score. (And it can be a little lower than 4.0 in the UW GPA) While the student with maximum APs, is a winner of statewide academic competitions, and has underrated officer positions that behind the scenes is doing the most/hardest work doesn’t get in. Hack, people that are not even in the top 100, nor that smart, and also not a minority (even more less qualified people that get in) boosted by affirmative action get into Berkeley.</p>
<p>Edit add: It is true that it was easier back then… I’ll accept my lesser selective college however, lest people don’t get at me for choosing it.</p>
<p>What does that mean?
IMO, a 4.0 only means anything if it’s on an unweighted 4.0 scale. If you’re going to change the scale, there’s nothing special or perfect about 4.0.</p>
<p>I was saying that the GPA used to be more important, like you would be judge solely by your GPA, like admissions would be 90% on it. And boom! AP classes and honors came in and the other EC’s and SAT’s and stuff.</p>
<p>I know people who have almost straight A’s but because they weren’t aware that not taking AP’s or doing EC’s makes them look bad pretty much destroyed their chances of getting into a good school.</p>
<p>There’s this kid named Ervin who has straight A’s. He took zero AP classes and had no EC’s at all, he basically thought that having an A in a class was good enough to get into a good UC. Guess he’ll find out when his admissions comes in.</p>
<p>Grades are very important but not nearly the only thing. Think of it like a hurdle contest. You are well over the GPA hurdle but now you still have many hurdles to get over without being tripped up. (SAT, EC’s, etc).</p>
<p>Up until I joined this website 6 months ago, I didn’t know squat about college admissions, I just thought joining a sport and doing some community service and getting straight A’s was all I needed to get into prestigious schools and stuff, the chance and the admissions decisions thread gave me an insight, but it was already too late. I’m a senior next year.</p>
<p>I am a freshman, so by knowing everything now, I have run into no problems and am not going to kid myself. However, CC is not all of the applicants in a world and you shouldn’t be discouraged.</p>
<p>MIT likes hard work and then they like dreamers. Creative thinkers. Visionaries. Fun people. So clearly MIT is going to reject all of you stressed out kids!</p>
<p>JK, but seriously, sunk costs! You have already done what has been done, there is only one way forward! [I’ve been doing way to much economics HW]</p>
<p>These people are smart. They should have educated themselves. (My ECs are pretty awful, so I’m also guilty of not educating myself.)</p>
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<p>Which I think is kinda stupid. Some people are good at making it look like they have it when they don’t, and some people just don’t have a passion-conveying kind of personality.</p>
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<p>I consider myself a dreamer and I try to have fun with stuff. (I’m not fun for other people unless I have money.) I think I use this site primarily because I’m interested in education and the college admissions process. I’ll probably continue using sites like this even when I’m no longer involved in formal education, because I like the discussions about admissions and classes and standardized testing and stuff.</p>
<p>I don’t have leadership, I’ve never been in a club for more than a year, I’ve never had an internship, I don’t have any developed talents because I procrastinate too much, I have a job but they only give me five hours a week, I tried to do a math contest once but completely failed even though I want to major in math…
I guess what I have isn’t really awful, because I like all of it and everything, but from a college admissions perspective everyone on here is kicking my ass.</p>