<p>As I have been saying in the past, What are my chances? is completely useless. if adcoms only cared about sat and gpa, it would be quite simple. you look at a chart, and find out what school is the best you can get into. it's obviously not that why. A 2300 legacy URM who cures cancer can get rejected while a verage student can get into any one of these elite schools. if you can't stop the urge to continue this discussion board (as i am guilty of sometimes), it would be best if you told people of their chances based on percent</p>
<p>they say...percent at cornell</p>
<p>you say... 30%- 60%</p>
<p>and then at the bottom of each post...make sure you include:</p>
<p>"i have just as little knowledge of how it works as you do. You are probably more qualified than me, but I'll pass judgment on you anyways"</p>
<p>2300 Legacy URM probably won't get rejected anywhere... Just because he or she CAN get rejected doesn't mean that it's not highly, highly unlikely.</p>
<p>We can estimate chances, but no one will know if the estimations are accurate. All a person can ask for is the forum's opinions. Whether or not you want our opinions is up the the poster.</p>
<p>The request is somewhat strange. Generally, people here respond with "super reach, reach, slight reach, slight reach/match, match, safety". These are broad, sometimes overlapping terms. None of them imply that you <em>will</em> get in anywhere, and none of them pretend to be statistically meaningful. They're just words that represent the 'sense' that we get from looking at someone's profile (and comparing numbers, ECs, etc).</p>
<p>If we were to start putting percent chances, that would be claiming more, not less, accuracy - which would be an even bigger farce than it perhaps already is.</p>
<p>Give it up Oracle...people have a right to ask what their chances are. They should know that many people here don't know what they're talking about, but if they don't, that's their problem...</p>
<p>i agree oracle, but like MrMatt says this is a "What Are My Chances" forum. Also, what would be the point of of this website and where would the fun be if people didn't ask about their chances. If you have already graduated form high school you know how the college process is sooo nerve-wrecking and wanting to know if you have a chance anywhere. Plus some people give good advice...Some people, in fact very little but there are people nonetheless who do</p>
<p>nash "The request is somewhat strange. Generally, people here respond with "super reach, reach, slight reach, slight reach/match, match, safety". </p>
<p>no Nash, that is very rarely the case. i'm not sure about some of the LAC's or other schools, but as for Ivy's, people on this forum are just spiteful. the nicest people say is "that school is a reach for everybody", but they usually just say "realistically no chance". that happened to me when i first used this forum to ask what are my chances? If you didn't see my stats and only went from the responses, you would think I had a 1% chance to get in. When I met with my college counselor, who really knows everything about me, he said that I have as good a chance to get in to this particular school as anyone who has gotten in before. The only time I feel discouraged about my college admissions is when I visit this forum. (Yes, i know, then just don't visit this forum). Yet, I'm addicted to this forum as much as all of you. I think it is very entertaining/ possibly informative. Although the only thing I've learned is that people think elite schools are impossible to get in. </p>
<p>then nash, you said that percentages "would be an even bigger farce than it perhaps already is." </p>
<p>I don't think so. as long as the percentage is spread out 10-30%, it allows posters to give a ball-park figure without making a big mistake. Instead of saying "hell will freeze over before you get in", saying a 5-15% chance of being accepted</p>
<p>1) doesn't discourage the poster
2) provides a better estiamte about what you really think.</p>
<p>maybe we should get rid of the cafes first. they are not very useful. <em>sarcasm</em></p>
<p>oracle, what you seem to have neglected are:
1. the chances forum is one of the major elements that draw new members.
2. people ask for chances. no one forces them to do so. they want to know their chances, sometimes at the Ivies. if they want to ask for chances, you either help them and evaluate them objectively (meaning, saying "no chance" when there is literally no chance), or you can leave and go to another forum.
3. the chances threads help students realize that college admission nowadays is difficult. many who thought they were a shoe-in are disillusioned after receiving their chances. that does not mean they became depressed, but only more realistic. i, for one, will certainly apply to matches and safeties in addition to reaches. i also have learned what people thought my chances were at certain colleges. this helps me to form a solid and safe list of schools.</p>
<p>There's no way people are going to stop asking.</p>
<p>But I believe that probably 80% of the people that respond to chances threads, myself included, have no idea what they're talking about (50% of which probably think they do).</p>
<ol>
<li>drawing new members doesn't make it right</li>
<li>you are correct, nobody forces them to do it. but although the What are my chances? seems to be an innocent idea, it has turned into nothing more than a thread to a) lie..and increase self-esteem b) have your self esteem crushed </li>
</ol>
<p>it's not as if this forum makes people suddenly realize that "oh, maybe I should apply to more than one school now that you mention it"</p>
<h2>the nicest people say is "that school is a reach for everybody", but they usually just say "realistically no chance". that happened to me when i first used this forum to ask what are my chances? If you didn't see my stats and only went from the responses, you would think I had a 1% chance to get in. When I met with my college counselor, who really knows everything about me, he said that I have as good a chance to get in to this particular school as anyone who has gotten in before.*</h2>
<p>Did you end up getting in at that school? And at any rate, wouldn't you rather think "I'm not going to get in" and then get in, rather than think "I'm a solid match" and then get rejected?</p>
<hr>
<p>*oracle1: then nash, you said that percentages "would be an even bigger farce than it perhaps already is."</p>
<p>I don't think so. as long as the percentage is spread out 10-30%, it allows posters to give a ball-park figure without making a big mistake. Instead of saying "hell will freeze over before you get in", saying a 5-15% chance of being accepted</p>
<p>1) doesn't discourage the poster</p>
<h2>2) provides a better estiamte about what you really think.*</h2>
<p>I'm not saying it wouldn't sound nice to be able to give someone percentage odds. I'm just saying that in general, I have a much smaller chance of correctly guessing someone's **actual odds* of admission* than I do of guessing whether or not they'll get in. So if I say "I think school X is a reach for you" it means I probably don't think you'll get in. At least that can be proven right or wrong. If I say "you have a 5% chance of getting in at school Y," then I have no way of proving that my 5% guess was correct. If you get rejected, maybe you had a 0% chance of getting in. Maybe you had a 95% chance of getting in and just got unbelievably unlucky. </p>
<p>But at any rate, putting percentages to your estimate is just adding in extra digits past your last significant figure unless you're using some objective means to evaluate the stats.</p>
<p>oracle1,
Your request demonstrates to me that there are two obvious things that you fail to appreciate--</p>
<p>(1) your computer has a URL line--where you can choose from among the six million+ pages the internet offers--you have a choice to go to any of them -meaning you don't have to stay linked in to anything that offends you, and therefore you don't have to go to this website/forum; and</p>
<p>(2) your computer has an on/off switch--so if you don't like it here, turn off your computer and go to another place to exchange information (your school, a coffee shop, a public meeting, use a telephone, go on TV or radio, talk to people on the street, etc.)</p>
<p>You seem to think (like many people do) that you should have the right to control other people's speech and communications, and that doing so is somehow more acceptable to everybody else than you using your URL line or your computer's on/off switch. </p>
<p>you seem to have a good intention, oracle. but it is the wrong effort. go fight for pro-choice, or anti-AA, or whatever you believe in. do not fight for how people use the chances forum which 1) does not concern you, and 2) is solely the responsibilities of the individual posters</p>
<p>Oracle you do have a good point with the % suggestion...but... does it really matter... people are always going to look for some sort of satisfaction/ attention in such a difficult process... let them.. its there time to unwind... we've all went thru/ or are in the process of going thru a very intense time in our lives... theres nothing wrong with ppl seeking affirmation from the other CC'ers who went thru the same thing... even tho realilistically most of the people giving the advice are rising seniors themselves..lol oh well ...</p>