<p>Well when people complain about having a 3.98 uw gpa, I have to wonder. I hate the what are my chances posts becuase when someone is telling you you're getting into stanford, take that with a grain of salt. I'm the one who is telling you you're good, but good enough, no one but the adcoms know that.</p>
<p>Maybe the reports of how many "perfect" students HYPS has rejected makes everyone paranoid that his or her grades aren't good enough. </p>
<p>Up to a certain point, it's a healthy paranoia, because it keeps us working as hard as we can despite being in the top 5 percentile or whatever.</p>
<p>It's a fact:</p>
<p>"Of the 1.4 million high school seniors who took the Scholastic Assessment Test in 2004, only 939 scored a 1600, according to the College Board, which administers the test."</p>
<p>So how can anyone "complain" about their - 1500 scores???</p>
<p>"It's all relative...no need to get offended that people have different standards and abilities"</p>
<p>Bingo. Imagine how lower class people would react if President Bush told them to stop complaining about earning 20,000 dollars a year because that's pretty good in comparison to the rest of the world. I doubt they would be very happy.</p>
<p>I think a lot of the kids who posts under What are my chances are looking for confirmation instead of critque. You see it every other post...the poster gets all touchy because other posters tell he/she that he/she has a mediocre-slim chance of acceptance, many posters, I find, are just looking for an ego-boost. Of course, there are always those few who are truly worried about their chances, however, those are the few. A majority of the kids who post under WAMC are seriously just looking for a pat on the back. </p>
<p>I find it awfully amusing that many ppl will tell a kid "you're in" based on the numbers/stats and a very very abbreviated list of ECs...I think that is why many of the CC'ers who get rejected/deferred/waitlisted will seem so deserving on paper, but many of them, in reality, are just that...there're no depth in their character. I've read plenty of CC'ers' essays and stuff, and quite a few are just "mediocre", but the kids themselves are bragging on this board about how great their essays are...</p>
<p>My conclusion: some of the paranoia is justified, but I think ppl are just nuts when they complain about a 1500...get a life. A lot of the kids tend to forget that in the end, colleges admit students, not numbers.</p>
<p>I've found 9/10 of the essays I read are average and nothing more. I read one good one every once and a while. And great essays rarely come along. So when someone says, "good to great essays" I'm skeptical. I've read over a 100 essays, and only 3 stick out as great. 97% have average-good, but not great essays. Good is awfully hard to achieve. What you think of your essay is nice, but not what matters. People on WAMC don't seem to realize that.</p>
<p>Let's be honest though, if you have a 1550 SAT ( like most of the posters on WAMC seem tp have) and a 4.12567/ 4.0 ( like most of the posters on WAMC seem to have) you have nothing to fret about. You may not get into Harvard, but NYU will probably accept you and vice versa. I think the complaining is more of a form of bragging than having high standards.</p>
<p>yes, but that person probably doesn't want to go to NYU</p>
<p>I just cited NYU as an example to show that even though a person with the aforementioned stats doesn't get into their first choice of schooling they will probably attend an equally reputable school and still be better off than most college students in tems of quality of education.</p>
<p>i hate it went people sh1t over getting a C, or a B- for that matter. they just want attention...</p>
<p>Hey, I "sh1t" over a B-. It's not that we want attention. It's just that we know we can do better. We always strive for the best. Sure, a B is good, but an A is better. Personally for me, I've failed myself when I get a B because I know that if only I had tried harder I could have attained that A. But then again, these are just grades. The same goes life for me. If I know I can do better and I don't, I still strive for the best.</p>
<p>"Our vanity is hardest to wound when our pride has just been wounded."</p>
<p>the high achievers who post stats here are obviously extremely smart, motivated people and I think they realize that. "elite" college admissions is an intrinsically brutal, self-esteem-damaging process because no matter how great everyone is there is no escaping the fact that 90% of harvard applicants, for example, have comparatively inadequate transcripts, ECs, etc. if you are rejected, so do you.
if you let that get to you, you begin to seriously doubt yourself. But the voice of reason speaks out from your heart: "Hey, I'm not stupid! Really! I am excellent really!" but sadly it tends to manifest itself as "...I might be inadequate, but that guy's inadequater than I am, nyah nyah" :rolleyes: I mean haven't we all been there?</p>
<p>"i hate it went people sh1t over getting a C, or a B- for that matter. they just want attention..."</p>
<p>With the new inflated grading, a C or B- is below average...</p>
<p>I hate WAMC. I never go there anymore. It's full of people who are full of themselves.</p>
<p>Celebrian raises a good point: I've read dozens of college application essays over the past three years. Of those, three were outstanding and I can still remember the content and remember who wrote them (in one case I'm blanking on the name but I remember the person). A <em>lot</em> of essays were adequate--they don't hurt the applicant but they don't help it, either...and most of the writers thought they had good/great essays. On either side of "adequate" were the good and the bad.</p>
<p>Just a few comments to add:
Many posters with less then 1400 SAT scores prpbably don't post their scores out of intimidation. Once more people do others will follow.
With essays, first drafts which we see here are often just average. Most people rewrite these things 4 or more times with editing, re-editing and sometimes(not always) an average first draft can become a good essay.</p>