<p>When I said "she appears so strong that she could definitely get into Harvard", I meant that she had very strong chances. If I said something like "well, if she applied to Harvard, she definitely would get in", that would be presumptuous. So I want to clarify that I did NOT say that she would definitely get in. I merely said that she could definitely get in, at least in my opinion. And I feel that could leaves a pretty significant element of doubt.</p>
<p>Joey</p>
<p>My point was that nobody should tell someone that they could/would definitely (that's the wording that bothers me here) into Harvard, Rice, or any other wonderful school. Besides grammatical differences, I don't see the big fuss about which word you exactly used (would or could). That's just getting ridiculous.</p>
<p>Sorry ... there's no fuss. I'm just trying to clarify that that particular line did include an element of doubt ... and that I would never give completely concrete assurances, since anything can happen in the application process.</p>
<p>However, what I intended to do is give her an idea of how her achievements fit in with what I believe to be the achievements of the general pool for highly selective colleges. I've garnered such information via books such as Chuck Hugh's What it Really Takes to Get into the Ivy League, and of course the ubiquitous A is for Admissions, so I'd like to think my evaluation of the more objective things that mea has presented here is somewhat informed.</p>
<p>Joey</p>
<p>I understand you were trying to give her a well-informed idea of about where she stood in the applicant pool, which is great. My issue was that I thought it would be cruel to give anyone false hope of saying that they would definitely get in or were a shoo-in. Since you clarified that you never intended to give anyone guarantee assurances of acceptance disregarding what you may have said earlier, I don't see any problem with that.</p>
<p>mini-edit: happy 300th post to me! :D</p>
<p>Yes, no intentions of giving anyone false hope. After all, I'm no admissions officer, and I couldn't guarantee admission to anyone for anything!</p>
<p>:). Happy 300th post to you as well.</p>
<p>Joey</p>