<p>Admission officers can perceive the personality of the applicant through the essay. A nice and well-rounded student that contributes in class in a decent manner is better than a pompous arrogant bas**** with at almost, if not, perfect academic record.</p>
<p>Re post #13: what difference does it make "how much you want it"? I'd say that you think it made a difference because you got in. Others who want it just as much don't, you know.</p>
<p>My hookless, white, Jewish brother got into Stanford and wasn't top 5% of his class. He's a math genius, though.</p>
<p>Hope is the quickest way to depression.</p>
<p>i read a non-fiction short story about this once, it was from the perspective of a duke admissions officer and it was relatively interesting. </p>
<p>this girl applied to duke with a 3.5/2100. in junior year, she ate a pot-brownie on a physics field trip and got high for the first time with some girl-friends. Her physics teacher noticed that the girls were acting strangely, had a hunch about those brownies, and when they got back, she and the rest of the girls were sent to the Assistant Principal. Immediately, the AP asked them if they ate the pot brownies. All the girls said no, except for the duke girl: she was suspended. after coming back, she was very ashamed of her poor judgment, and she couldn't look at her physics teacher straight in the face for two months. she applied to duke, and when they asked "have you ever been suspended from school/faced disciplinary action?" she had to answer yes. </p>
<p>she wrote an essay about this incident, and how it was a very shameful experience, how that one day ruined the great relationship that she had with her physics teacher, and the how it was biggest mistake in her life. however, if she had the chance, she wouldn't go back and change it, because it really taught her about the value of taking responsibility for her actions and being an adult. for this maturity, the admissions officer fell in love with her, and she was accepted.</p>
<p>I'd wanted to go to MIT since 7th grade. I'm a white, upper-middle class kid from the Midwest, no major "hooks" besides just a strong student and a real live human being. Got in early via an admissions officer actually calling me at work when online decisions came out and it was probably the happiest day of my life.</p>
<p>Dreams really do happen. Know your goals, but don't obsess over them. Like I told my mom a few years ago: "If a college doesn't want to accept me for who I am, why would I want to go there?" Valuable advice for all of you who try to make your entire application read like X college's ideal applicant- give that a bit of thought.</p>
<p>Hope is not a method, as my favorite freshman English teacher told me.</p>
<p>Like ducktape, I had no hooks. Asian-American female in the heart of the south, some research, some community service, boring dime-a-dozen extracurriculars (math team, beta club, nhs, etc.). Got into both Caltech and MIT early.</p>
<p>Almost by definition "reach" schools are becoming unreachable; the competition is simply fierce. Last year Harvard rejected 18,000 applicants who QUALIFIED to get in. </p>
<p>In other words, the top schools are offering you this reality before you even apply: there's an 85-90% chance you're going to be REJECTED by the school. Question: If you were purchasing your first USED car for $1,000 and the salesman was honest enough to tell you that putting another 500 miles on the car would cause it to explode, would you buy the car? C'mon! Answer the question.</p>
<p>These schools are no longer a "ticket" to a better future - never has been, but the perception (read: misperception) has been out there for a long time. Ninety percent of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies never went to an Ivy League school. If you ask these same execs if they have any regrets about NOT having attended an Ivy, they would probably laugh at the question.</p>
<p>Your solution: Never lower your standards but be practical. Concentrate on applying to your match schools where your GPA and test scores match the schools middle-range; to better your chances, make sure your scores are at least slightly better than the middle for 2 reasons: (1) increase your chances of getting in, and (2) increase your chances of getting some merit aid you didn't expect. Safety schools really increase your chances.</p>
<p>Some of the postings here seem to imply Asian Americans as URM, at least when it comes to Ivy. That doesn't make sense. They number around 17% of student population at HYP. How could that be underepresented, given that they make up about 4.5% of the total U.S. population? In fact, at least one Harvard trustee charged that Harvard limits the number of admitting qualified Asian American students.</p>
<p>Re post #25: that sounds like an incident in <em>The Gatekeepers</em>, a book about college admissions in which the author shadowed a Wesleyan admissions officer for a year. IIRC, the girl in question was a student at Harvard-Westlake. I don't remember it having anything to do with Duke. I also seem to recall that it had a negative effect on the girl's acceptances.</p>
<p>Maybe there's more than one pot brownie confession story out there.</p>
<p>this is actually a pretty depressing thread...they all start with hookless ____ gets into HYPS, but he was a genius @ _____.
id rather be hopeless and be surprised than hopeful and crushed.</p>
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<blockquote> <blockquote> <p>Your solution: Never lower your standards but be practical. Concentrate on applying to your match schools where your GPA and test scores match the schools middle-range; to better your chances, make sure your scores are at least slightly better than the middle for 2 reasons: (1) increase your chances of getting in, and (2) increase your chances of getting some merit aid you didn't expect. Safety schools really increase your chances.<<<<</p> </blockquote> </blockquote>
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<p>Gosh, I've been posting for like 3 months and I still don't know how to get the the little quote box - if anyone here knows, please share!</p>
<p>Anyway, this idea doesn't hold true for the reach schools unfortunately. You can have SATs in the top 25%, and still be rejected :(</p>
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Gosh, I've been posting for like 3 months and I still don't know how to get the the little quote box - if anyone here knows, please share!
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</p>
<p>You can quote by bracketing around the word quote, then /quote.</p>
<p>It would look like [ quote] text here [ /quote], except you would remove the spaces. Same can be done for bold with B instead of quote, or italic with an I, and so on.</p>
<p>lol. these stories never apply to like 99999999999999999999/(99999999999999999999+1) of the people anyways</p>
<p>oh yeah and don't have hope it never works</p>
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Re post #25: that sounds like an incident in <em>The Gatekeepers</em>, a book about college admissions in which the author shadowed a Wesleyan admissions officer for a year. IIRC, the girl in question was a student at Harvard-Westlake. I don't remember it having anything to do with Duke. I also seem to recall that it had a negative effect on the girl's acceptances.
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<p>Nope, not the same story! (The circumstances around the one from The Gatekeepers were different).</p>
<p>Anyway, more on topic, I know a kid here at Wesleyan who got in depite having never gotten an A in his life, and not at a particuarly hard highschool (some A-'s yes, but no As, which is not standard fare for Wes). He had a 2200 SAT which is good for Wes, but doesn't really explain how he got in. His ECs weren't mindblowing, but they were quirky, which probably helped. Anyway, he's here, doing well, and is a great fit for the school, so clearly the adcoms were able to pick up something about him that made them realize Wes is the place for him! (He's one of my best friends, so I'm happy about it :D )</p>
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[quote]
You can quote by bracketing around the word quote, then /quote.</p>
<p>It would look like [ quote] text here [ /quote], except you would remove the spaces. Same can be done for bold with B instead of quote, or italic with an I, and so on.
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<p>Thanks DSC, let's see if this works. I just realized I didn't check "quote message in reply" and it wont let me now, so I'm not very hopeful :)</p>
<p>Yea, it worked!</p>
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oh, lol, i didn't know how to do a quote box either.
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<p>But, now I know. :)</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I haven't heard of any amazing stories and my chances of getting into Stanford and Cornell are not so good. But, never give up hope high schoolers!!!!! Universities can almost always be swayed by the person can comes throught the application. Thanks everyone.</p>