<p>hey pFMNCp, stop being such a jerk
she can say that it’s not fair if she feels likes it - I mean really, this is her place to vent, so let her vent all she wants</p>
<p>My friend is a varsity tennis player, got a 2100 SAT, 790 Math II, good amount of AP classes, a solid transcript of A’s and B’s, great violinist for 8 years, he’s kinda poor</p>
<p>He only applied to the UC’s. He got rejected from every single one he applied to (davis, SB, I, B, LA).</p>
<p>He’s very sad, & I feel unbelievably terrible for him. He wants to write an appeal to UCI, but is planning for community college. </p>
<p>Feel better?</p>
<p>My ex was accepted into Northwestern with way less qualifying stats than you have. What I’ve heard about that school is that their admissions are not as cut throat as far as grades, AP’s, and test scores go. A lot of it has to do with essays and the way you interview.</p>
<p>Wisconsin (UW?) in a good school. I went there my freshmen year and thoroughly enjoyed it.</p>
<p>Coming from Canada,
i’m also very disappointed with my rejection from NW, and a day ago, from UChicago.
I really thought i had a chance…I thought i was the perfect student for these two schools, i guess not.
Now that i’ve been rejected by these schools, i don’t think i can bare to look at the ivy admissions on march 31st.</p>
<p>w0oj0o, wow that’s terrible. If he goes to a CC for 2 years though and gets a high gpa, he could probably easily transfer into Cal/UCLA right?</p>
<p>I agree that the admissions process is unfair. I have highly motivated, high achieving kids who don’t slack and do everything that is expected of them and more. But the admissions process is the first of many hurdles that has to be passed in life. The rejections do hurt because you feel that what else could you have done??? It does seem that at the smaller schools (<5000 or so students) excellent grades/extracurriculars/recomendations isn’t enough. You need some hook like sports, geographic diversity, legacy, etc. Doesn’t seem right when the athlete is taken to an ivy to play lacrosse, etc but is ranked not even in the top 20% but the same ivy rejects the valedictorian at the sam high school. I am so sorry this is happening to you but when you go to college in the fall, keep doing great things and embrace everything that school has to offer. Keep playing in the band, I know GW has a great band and the kids are fun and nice. You will do great wherever you are. If you still are not happy, try to transfer. But don’t start off at college with “one foot out the door”. The advice to re-read your own bio is a good one. You sound like a great kid!!</p>
<p>With your stellar stats, just look ahead of this situation. There is a place that is meant for a wonderful person like you - a place that NEEDS you. Believe in what is meant to be. You have done all you can, and now there is an experience, outside of those schools, that is carved out just for you. It may not be clear at this moment, but know there is something greater lying ahead for you. Go find it. Life is all about readjusting, redefinining and forging ahead with what is in our control. Go for it. You are an outstanding person!</p>
<p>saxaphone girl, your stats were great. You didn’t do anything wrong.</p>
<p>I know this process sucks. I’m depressed too. All I can do is wish you, and myself, all the best. Let’s hope we both get into somewhere nice.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this well help but here’s what I’ve learned from going to college info sessions with my two kids.</p>
<p>The quote that stuck with me more than any others was from an admissions officer at a small liberal arts college. He said “We’re not trying to create a population of well rounded students. We’re trying to create a well rounded population of students.”</p>
<p>To me what that means is that any student’s grades, SAT scores, and even extracurricular information is a starting point that creates a generalized ranking from which the admissions committee makes eclectic selections. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that admissions committees have quotas of any sort, but I do think they try to get a wide variety of students.</p>
<p>The closest analogy I can think of, though it’s not perfect, is that of trying out for a play. No matter how magnificent an actor you are, if you’re a 6 foot 2, 200 pound middle aged guy you’re never going to play the part of a jockey in the Kentucky Derby.</p>
<p>The point of that is to say that it’s nothing personal. It’s not about you as an individual. It is not a reflection of the type of person you are. It has nothing to do with any of that. It just boils down to, for lack of a better phrase, “what they’re looking for.”</p>
<p>So, though it is not a perfect analogy, I think at some level something similar happens among admissions committees. They get such an incredibly high numbers of applicants with stellar grades, scores, and extracurriculars that it becomes truly impossible to make decisions based purely on objective measures. So they go by “feel,” or “gut,” or some other sense they get about each student and how they see that student as helping to shape their “well rounded population” of students.</p>
<p>I know it hurts right now, and you’re at a loss in trying to figure out why this happened. I’ve seen my own kids go through it; My son in particular. Now, a year later, as he’s approaching the end of his freshman year at a university that was originally a safety, he feels like he’s in the absolute best school in the nation <em>for him.</em> I mean, he’s even said that he feels lucky that he <em>didn’t</em> get in to his first choice school.</p>
<p>So, you know, maybe sometimes things do happen for a reason. And maybe that’s the case for you. You have gotten in to some great schools. I’m sure you’ll excel wherever you go, and there’ll be aspects of your life over the next four years that you wouldn’t trade for anything, and that never would have happened if you hadn’t gone to whichever school you end up going to.</p>
<p>Chin up. Best of luck. Life will be good.</p>
<p>Oh, and to answer your original question. You did absolutely nothing wrong. Nothing at all.</p>
<p>Don’t take it personally, admissions committees often rely on sporadic, nonsensical whims.</p>
<p>saxaphonegirl –</p>
<p>YOu have really great stats. It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? Your stats are probably at about the 40th % of NU applicants. Your ECs show commitment, persistence, drive. Really well rounded, which means you will have lots of options in life in which you will excel.</p>
<p>Here’s the bottom line… The Top 20 or so schools in the country are not about top 10%, or top 5% from your school. They are usually about top 0.5% - 1%.</p>
<p>If I were advising really, really smart and driven kids on collega admissions, I’d advise they do exactly what you have done… some real reaches, some mild reaches, some matches, and some safeties.</p>
<p>I think a “match” means you’re at the 75% of scoring for admitted students from the prior year. </p>
<p>I know you’re already coming to grips with this… I write this more for those who read it that have excellent stats as you have, so that they realize that mid-point stats is not a “match”, but a slight reach… and to make sure you have truly excellent colleges wherein your stats are in the middle of the upper half… such as you have with George Washington and Wisconsin.</p>
<p>Good luck with your Yale wait listing, and remember that both college and life are what you make of your opportunities. In ten years time, nobody will care where you went to school undergrad or grad… just what your track record is on delivering results in whatever you do – from teaching school, to trading on Wall St, to starting your own business, to pursuing a Ph.D., to raising healthy children.</p>
<p>Oh, and I agree with others – you did nothing wrong, and so many things right… continue on that path and you will have a very rewarding and successful life.</p>
<p>Be upset and then move on. You can only go to one school anyway. So accept what has happened, it’s not personal, and make your choice based on your acceptances. There is nothing fair or unfair. Just the way it is.</p>
<p>I know Wisconsin is not probably your first choice, but it is still a good option to fall back in case your other options don’t go as expected. Trust me, there is little difference between the undergraduate education at Wisconsin and NW. Classes might be bigger on average, but that does not mean they are inferior.</p>
<p>i just look at it as “if they don’t want me, i don’t want them” i got rejected from northeastern and didnt even want to go there but it was still upsetting. you’ll be okay</p>
<p>Will you marry me, saxophonegirl?</p>
<p>you probably went wrong when you filled out “Asian” on the application(just a guess)</p>
<p>^What a funny thing to say! If she wasn’t Asian, your statement is irrelevant. If she was, it’s extremely likely they would’ve been able to deduce that from her name anyway, regardless of what she said on the Common App. This is part of the reason why I dislike race-based admissions and quotas and so forth.</p>
<p>And if you were just making a joke - no offence, dude, but would you like that if someone did that to you after you’d been rejected? Please be considerate.</p>
<p>Life is unfair. Move on. Seriously…there’s something you may be overlooking or that you’re not telling us that constitutes the real reason you were rejected. What school at NU did you apply for? Are you Asian? Was your friend a URM? There are so many variables in this game, any one of which can make you or break you. The first step to depression is thinking that the odds are somehow unreasonably aligned against you.</p>