<p>Except in unusually difficult circumstances, the kind of people who belong at top schools will usually be able to find productive things to do even if they’re hard to find.</p>
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<p>Often in obsessive ways. Often by compromising their own beliefs. Often not to even get in in the end. Talk about belonging.</p>
<p>Sorry. I don’t subscribe to the “Ivies are god” thing. Nor the concept of “top” schools. Are schools better than others? Sometimes. But more often, schools are just good at different things. And somehow selectiveness is translated into quality. Then because people subscribe to the hype, society subscribes to the hype and people already destined to succeed through their own intellect or through Daddy’s money go to these selective schools then people say it’s related to the school even though that’s not really true and we start back with the cycle.</p>
<p>All right, then…the quality of people who are frequently told, perhaps by misguided or uneducated adults, that they should apply to colleges ranked highly by U.S. News or whatever. Whether or not they actually do so.
These people are typically very intelligent and self-motivated. This potential may well be misdirected (into standardized tests, maybe), but they’ve accomplished many things and they’re clearly capable of accomplishing more.
These people create opportunities for themselves instead of whining about how their school didn’t have clubs that interested them. People have achieved greatness starting from environments far harsher than 21st-century first world countries. I don’t see how this has to involve obsessing or compromising one’s beliefs. You certainly don’t have to be involved in religious organizations. From what I’ve read pretty much everywhere, the best EC’s are the ones that show genuine passion in one specific area. They aren’t supposed to be about being a dilettante in everything just to impress colleges. Even if you don’t end up getting into the college, you’ve developed/explored a talent or interest in something you actually enjoy. If nothing else, it should have been fun.
(This is assuming you’re privileged enough to not have to work/babysit/do chores to support your family - that you have free time and that some of your income from your job would be disposable. That stuff still shows character, and colleges would recognize that.)</p>
<p>Ok. I kinda got confused in Halcyon post but I’ll just post what I think.</p>
<p>ECs had long been sought out as a mean to “increase college chances”. Not just for those ivies or top schools folks but any college. I have a friend who admitted that she was only in a bunch of clubs because she felt forced to join an EC so she’ll have a better chance of getting in wherever it is that she is going to. She had two jobs and often don’t come to school on some week. She doesn’t knwo better. I, on the otherhand, also felt this way but I realize that I have a choice. I didn’t have to spend all my free time joining a club that I have little interest in. I did do one sport back in 9th grade but I didn’t like the fact that it take times off. I do understand that practice make better performance but that’s not me. Also my interest in Track and Field was only mild, I enjoyed the time but when I went home after they told me that practice for non-Varsity was over… I just gave a nice long sign of relief and felt like I didn’t wanted to do this again. But other people have this will to do more. I know that for me, “more” does not involved whatever my school offered. I have the will to watch my sister. The will to do extra chores without anyone asking me to. The will to shovel the snow, put up the tree, rake the leaves, cut the grass, find a part time job, look for scholarship and finish homework. So when someone approaches me and say “Hi I’m the student body president”, I would say “So you have good grades, great boyfriend, social life, but you are only doing this to make yourself look good. You are lying to colleges. And while you can handle everything, you much not get much sleep.”</p>
<p>It is for these reasons that I think college should wiegth EC less. Don’t believed me just look at CC. Numerous EC posts, chance me topics with numerous ECs, “what will college think of me if I only have 2 EC…?”, shall I go on?</p>
<p>Back to SAT/ACT- which is the topic: I agree that they are the best, current college readiness exam but still you’re studying to make yourself look better to college (and you ARE). I don’t blame you for studying but when you consider all the test prep material prices and the extra time that is needed to put into studying then you’ll start to see this gap.</p>
<p>Off-topic rant about extracurriculars:
Apparently colleges aren’t actually impressed by people who join a million clubs just to impress them. This seems logical to me.
But every year, the school tells us colleges like people who join many clubs and are well-rounded. Which makes no sense to me, because no one ever gets anywhere in life being mildly okay at a lot of different things. You have to specialize.
My GC thinks I’ll get into top colleges just because my ACT score is high(ish), but I said I probably wouldn’t because I don’t have any decent EC’s. (The problem isn’t that they’re few in number - it’s that they all suck.) And he basically acted like EC’s are insignificant and colleges don’t care at all, but they do, and I think in rural Ohio people tremendously underestimate the amazingness of applicants to selective colleges. Internships and international competitions and founding companies and stuff. It seems like you can’t get in anywhere good unless you do these things. </p>
<p>Other question:
What’s the point of the SAT anyway? How can anything with an average score as low as it is really measure college readiness? I thought it was more to provide a way to compare people from different schools. Getting a high score is meaningful because it’s rare.</p>
<p>I spent all summer studying hard for sat/sat iis, did perfectly/near perfect, and got rejected everywhere. :-(</p>
<p>Schools are, indeed, better than others. Stanford is a better institution than the University of Alabama. Harvard is better than Oregon. CalTech is better than West Virginia. Yale is better than Gonzaga. I don’t even think those are opinionated statements; those schools, the “top schools” and the ivies, are objectively better than the other schools. SerenityJade, your argument for their prestige not truly being prestige because it is based completely on the “hype” these schools generate collapses upon itself. That IS prestige. The schools are selective because they are the best. I don’t think you can make the arguement Penn State is better than Princeton, even if Penn State is cheaper. Quality is quality, and a school’s selectiveness almost always reflects a school’s quality. </p>
<p>I’m not saying this is fair; it’s the way things are. I’d rather go to MIT for computer science than any public university. </p>
<p>For example: you probably already know this, but breaking into investment banking is incredibly difficult coming out of a non-“top” school. Breaking into the field is, although somehwat unfair, almost entirely based on WHERE you went to school, but who can blame the system? If I was hiring for a position, and I had the guy from Harvard with a 3.8 vying against the guy from Maryland with a 4.0, and all other factors were relatively equal between the two, I think that choice would be incredibly easy</p>
<p>^
I agree with you in general, but it’s not like most people want to go into investment banking. Or if they do it’s mostly a pipe dream.
I mean, if you have a good GPA in a non-useless major from your state flagship, you’ll probably get a decent job. And that’s all some people want.</p>
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<p>Hon, quit twisting my words and quit getting angry over them. You’re wasting your time trying to show how much of an idiot I am because all it does is make you look a fool.</p>
<p>Schools are not better than others. Schools are more selective because of the way the system works to allow them to be so. You think that without Harvard’s name it would get the number of applications it gets? A schools selectivity is not based on quality. It’s based on the hype surrounding it. Because selectivity is based on how many applications it has to reject.</p>
<p>My SAT score was 2050…but that is besides the point.
The point is… that there is no way we can say for sure…if we’ll get into an MIT/CalTech.
SAT’s are imp. but don’t count much!!</p>
<p>There’s pretty much no factor that will guarantee your admission to MIT or Caltech (except maybe winning certain competitions).
For people at less selective schools, higher test scores can result in more scholarship money.</p>
<p>“A schools selectivity is not based on quality. It’s based on the hype surrounding it. Because selectivity is based on how many applications it has to reject.”</p>
<p>If nothing else, they’re better because the quality of their student body is higher.</p>
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<p>Quality is not quantity. “Better” is an opinion until you can quantify it.</p>
<p>I gotta be honest I agree with quantity. Especially since without the students you would have nothing. The large quantity of the “best and brightest” is what make these school so “prestigious”. What if more lesser intelligent students attend? Then they’ll probably began to lose their prestige status. Yet at the same time you would educate more people better. I know a person who didn’t do so well in school nor was he the “smart guy”. His GPA was 2.8. He study his… Off for the ACT and got like 34. I mean he studied for weeks. He got into a real good school and now as a freshman there hold a 3.9 GPA.
Ivies league schools prevent people like him to enter their campus.</p>
<p>Sent from my LG-VM696 using CC</p>
<p>Actually, efeens I think Alabama outranks Stanford in some majors.</p>
<p>“Quality is not quantity. ‘Better’ is an opinion until you can quantify it.”</p>
<p>So is “schools are not better than others.”</p>
<p>People attending Ivy League schools have higher average test scores and GPAs. I believe this correlates to some extent with intelligence, or at least with <em>caring</em> enough about your education to work hard and do well.
People accepted at prestigious colleges are generally involved in extracurricular activities requiring significant commitment - just look at the stuff people write in chances threads.
And of course it’s not only Ivy League schools that have these kinds of student, but a no-name school with an average ACT score of 19 probably isn’t going to be the most intellectual environment, if that’s what you’re looking for. If you filled Harvard with a bunch of D students who didn’t care about their education at all, you’d end up with a bad school.</p>
<p>Actually, “schools are not better than others” is a way of saying that there is no objective way of comparing school quality. Therefore, a school cannot objectively be better than another</p>
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<p>Wow I just laugh at this statement. First of all, chances are D students would not be the ones going to colleges, let alone higher ranked college. Second, what if you put a bunch of D students who strongly care about their college education in Harvard? How can that be possible you ask? There are grade inflation these days. Third, you can’t assume that a school would be bad just because a portion of it student population made D’s in High School. Maybe they had bad teachers, took all hard classes, have a crap-ish grading system. </p>
<p>Also when you said:
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First of all, those people in the chance me thread are not necessary college students so your fact is invalid. Also they tend to be unaware meaning they think that they should take like 3 more AP to their 7 already taken. And worry that their SAT scores are too low and that they don’t have enouhg EC’s.</p>
<p>HATE IT. Completely unnecessary stress.</p>
<p>College prestige is a hilarious catch-22. In order to be prestigious, they must admit lots of high-performing students, but in order to receive applications from high-performing students, the institute must be prestigious.</p>
<p>^
Just like you need experience to get a job but you can’t get experience without a job. </p>
<p>"Wow I just laugh at this statement. First of all, chances are D students would not be the ones going to colleges, let alone higher ranked college. Second, what if you put a bunch of D students who strongly care about their college education in Harvard? How can that be possible you ask? There are grade inflation these days. Third, you can’t assume that a school would be bad just because a portion of it student population made D’s in High School. Maybe they had bad teachers, took all hard classes, have a crap-ish grading system. "</p>
<p>All I’m saying is that students who don’t try or care will bring down a school, and high-performing students will improve it. This seemed like common sense to me.</p>