<p>I know how you feel Celebrian... my school's pretty ghetto as well. The ivies are more concerned with how well you utilize your resources though... the whole "holistic evaluation" thing is the new way adcoms look at applicants. Do your best and hope Princeton sees the extent of your ambition</p>
<p>it sucks becuase my school is in the suburbs, not inner city at all, 25yrs. ago it was a farming community, but we only had 3 semi-finalists for this year, and the other high school in our district only had 1. Now the private catholic school with less students had 11. I just feel like I could never compare with some of these people.</p>
<p>well there are things that make everyone different- just because some has higher stats doesn't necessarily mean that they are brilliant essay writer or aren't snotty to their teachers and counselors or don't spend all the time they have on academics only.</p>
<p>i mean, sure it seems like a lot of people who post their stats have everything going for them but no one should feel worse about themselves because of these people because it does take all types... if schools only took one type of person, there would be 0 diversity (well... no diversity in the fact that everyone has everything)... </p>
<p>i might be rambling. but anyway, i doubt that everyone is "supersmart" even if they're hyping themselves up to be. And even if they are, then they are the lucky ones who recognize it- there are a lot of people who discount themselves. (People have told me I supposedly have a "complex" where [deep down inside somewhere] I don't think i'm as smart as people think i am... that I'm just a really really <em>lucky</em> stupid person inside and I'm scared one day she's going to come out... i made it sound a lot more exaggerated that it is...)</p>
<p>yeah, i'm officially rambling and will stop now.</p>
<p>It will help you to go to <a href="http://www.prstats.com%5B/url%5D">www.prstats.com</a> and, under where it says "View data for:", click "2008". Then click "Search by school" under Princeton (you can check "ED" if you want to) and you can see the stats of people who were accepted, rejected, deferred, waitlisted, etc. last year. Some of those people with so called less-than-par stats got in, and people with 1600 SAT's didn't. The essay and recommendations can make or break you.</p>
<p>Someone who posted an 1170 SAT got in last year, so don't give up hope.</p>
<p>I just hope colleges understand why I haven't been in any kind of research or have stellar EC's.</p>
<p>Celebrian25, don't worry, the whole point that some college apps are like 30 pages is so that they can get to know you as well as possible, hopefully from an impartial point of view. Intelligence, accomplishments, and grades are relative to your environment, the resource you are given (both academically and EC wise), the ppl you are around, and such... so don't worry at all if you have done your best from what is given to you... they will totally understand...... good luck!</p>