<p>BTW: rather than skewer the messenger – is there anything un-orthodox or outright wrong in the info/advice I’m giving? If so, help a brutha out and give me corrected info</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter to me if I’m blacklisted as long as I know the truth, which honestly, I probably won’t on a forum like this.”</p>
<p>This still does give you the right to say @#$%^ everyone here. You can be unsure about the motives but not necessarily the views since you can see people contradicting each other. Btw, if OP had perfect GPA, and perfect scores, I would say these schools are still a reach because the admit rate is 7% or lower. </p>
<p>There is no single truth that is universally valid. There are always exceptions to the rules/truths as you can see people state (one knows a kid admitted to Duke and another to Cornell but we don’t know their complete stories although elite boarding schools have always had a pipeline to Ivies and know how to package the resumes in Cornell kid’s case). So individual truths are based on their own realities and what they have seen along the way. I have seen a lot of alums from Ivies express the same - they see too many exceptional people being turned down at their own schools, people they have interviewed personally and provided a recommendation for them. When the applicant pool gets so large, this is inevitable.</p>
<p>I personally have n’t done any interviewing like the other two who give advice based on actual people they have interviewed for their schools. I have read past posts and as a parent with a kid in the same position as OP (college applicant next year) I value their opinion and have asked them questions about the process at their alma maters. If T26 says there is probably no chance, I would keep that in mind and assume that if I do apply it may not bear fruit but I would still like to try. The expectation is that OP has some safety schools to fall back on in case the dream becomes a nightmare because she was misled based on anecdotal information on CC about some exceptions to the norm and applied to only reaches.</p>