<p>So this girl in my school gets admitted to Columbia. She's not especially intelligent--I've heard her read aloud and can't help laughing--she takes honors and AP classes but doesn't do particularly well--many of her grades are higher than they should be because the teachers apparently bump them up--I doubt her SATs are even close to decent, she does no extracurricular activities except Track & Field (in which she's not especially good... not bad, but not amazing) and student government--she once played a minor role in organizing a relief effort for Hurricane Katrina--she's also been an extra in a few plays, and I can attest firsthand as someone once forced to do a project with her that she's just really, really lazy. But she's the daughter of state senator, and she's black. Bingo.</p>
<p>I've pushed my jealousy and rage aside, and long since buried my sympathy for a 2200 something SAT/#2 ranked shmuck who got rejected by Columbia. I'm not venting, however; just setting the scene for my question: What, if anything, do these people do at these Ivy League Schools?? Do they flunk out or do their professors just give them good grades or what??</p>
<p>(By the way... if you're from my school and reading this: Oops! You can probably figure out who I am from my other posts. Can't say I'm sorry.)</p>
<p>well... if ur good, ur good, going to a lesser known school won't negate your chances for success in any way - she might've just gotten the lucky break she deserves; and i think that someone lazy like you described will not receive stellar grades nor do well in the workplace</p>
<p>Why would Columbia accept her then? Why do the Ivies accept all these mediocre students who have celebrity? What do they do when they get there??</p>
<p>Maybe she didn't need financial aid. Or maybe her father donated to the school. I wonder sometimes how need-blind these schools really are sometimes.</p>
<p>Edit: I also think it's tactless to mention the state where her father works. You might as well just post her name up, since you're not making it too hard to find out who she is.</p>
<p>Well, apparently someone at Columbia thought she was worth it. She might have something about her that you just don't know about. Sure, it could be anything from the unresistable hook to bribing the adcom, but nevertheless, she got in. If she is as incompetant as you described, she will fail later. Don't worry about it. Just consider that she might have had enough to qualify her as worthy. It doesn't really matter now because she is in-nothing we complain about will stop that.</p>
<p>Oh crap, I just spent a paragraph trying to gently explain to you how this girl is worthy of Columbia and that you're just a jealous jerk. Of course now that I read the entire thing I see what you mean. So nevermind. </p>
<p>And yeah, they will fail in life unless their parents can bail them out. Its not the rich connected kids I mind, its the non-deserving kids that bother me. Plenty of rich kids deserve to be at a Ivy league school because they actually work hard, but this is unfair. I suppose if I was a rich lazy admit I would be marching to a different tune though.</p>
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[quote]
Edit: I also think it's tactless to mention the state where her father works. You might as well just post her name up, since you're not making it too hard to find out who she is.
<p>Yeah, I did clarify my jealousy. I more or less understand why she was admitted. I don't truly dislike her... even though, truth be told, she's not the nicest person. I <em>do</em> feel bad for the much more capable student who got rejected; I can hardly imagine how this person feels. I don't necessarily want her to fail... I just can't understand what she's gonna do there...</p>
<p>Well there are a few more than 30 state senators from that particular state, which is much more than the 2 national senators. It is harder to find out than you would imagine but still doable. Still its a good idea to take it down just in case.</p>
<p>A college is a business, those who have money get accepted. These ivy league colleges have such a good reputation that every rich family in america is sending their kids, and really you can get a comparable education just about anywhere. So, in the end it doesn't really matter.</p>
<p>I think for anonymity's sake we should stop alluding to the state.</p>
<p>We're still only skirting my main question, though I guess it's okay since many people might not know the answer: what do these kinds of admits do there?</p>
<p>I can only imagine that these people would uh, eventually drop out? or get poor GPA.</p>
<p>Or perhaps her father's reputation/money will give her the grades as well.</p>
<p>Either way, you can only go so far riding on other people. Keep that in mind. There are bigger fish to catch than simply what undergraduate you went to.</p>
<p>Granfallooner, I completely understand what you're saying.
I'm the valedictorian of my school and I got a fairly good SAT score (not the best for Ivys but it was still good nevertheless). When I applied to Cornell (the only Ivy League I applied to), I was sure I would get rejected. I just wanted to try however. I got my rejection on my birthday but I didn't mind since I had already gotten into NYU and I always loved NYU.
However, two days later I found out that the salutatorian got accepted at Cornell with an SAT grade some 300 points below me. Now this got me extremely upset! I had better ECs, better essay and I have worked my butt out to take the most AP classes I can handle while he only took 1 AP class in high school. True, he does have a pretty good GPA but his classes were easier. And our SAT grades obviously don't even compare since mine are way better.
When I told my guidance counselor that I didn't get in Cornell, she could not believe it. I could. I'm not an URM and I'm white. Even though I have experienced so much chaos and pain growing up in my country, I am still white and that does not seem to matter since obviously just by looking at my skin color Adcoms can naturally assume that I've had it easy.
That's particularly why I'm so against AA. Because it doesn't serve anything. If anything, it stirrs up even more animosity. Nothing is worse than the feeling of working so hard and knowing that you have a way lesser chance than another person just because they were born into that race when in fact the brain has no color.
Just because I'm against AA people feel that I'm a racist while in theory, AA is a racist theory. Performance should not correlate with race. That's why evaluation should not be based on color, but rather on income.</p>
<p>george bush went to yale, ted kennedy went to harvard. they didn't even need college degrees but went i guess for the connections and prestige or w/e</p>
<p>To me, the need blind thing is pure BS. Ive known so many poor kids at my school who have done exceptional things who didn't get accepted, and then similar kids with high incomes get in. Its not surprising that many of the top private universities, which are supposedly "need-blind", have mostly students who come from rich families ie Stanford.</p>
<p>Unless you are a minority, I guess sometimes the Adcom just don't show sympathy for kids that come from humble backgrounds.</p>