<p>Thanks for your complement. For clarification, I was using Freud's term "narcissism of small differences" metaphorically, not literally. </p>
<p>It was a term, I believe, that appeared in Civilization and Its Discontent in which Freud described the way in which our negative feelings are sometimes directed at people who resemble us, while we take pride from the "small differences" that distinguish us from them. In fact, in our everday lives we routinely exaggerate differences in order to preserve a feeling of separateness and superiority. Think about how we'll think about the next town's football team in the upcoming games that will be played across the country on Thanksgiving day. </p>
<p>It has also been interpreted, more to your point, as a framework within which to understand that in a loving relationship there can be a need to find, and even exaggerate, differences in order to preserve as feeling of separateness and self. Cathechsis (sp?), I do not know. Big word for connection, isn't it??</p>
<p>I think I understand the concept and I think it has remarkable applicablility in the context of discussion of top colleges on CC.</p>
<p>"Everyone is fascinated with Feynmann because physics is sexier than the chemical bond but the one scientist of the 20th century who will rank with Newton is Pauling and he went to Oregon Agricult College I believe. So secure in himself that he went against the grain all his life. I am wandering of the thread, sorry."</p>
<p>Well, I am not trying to make a point that Feynman is successful because he went to MIT. I was saying that he was successful because he was outstanding academically. He was a "test and homework junkee" to use Balletgirl's term. This doesn't mean he was less creative or less likely to revolutionize science. I think Einstein's story almost convinces people that outstanding and consistent performance in school signifies a lack of creativity, and I feel this is misleading.</p>
<p>I understand your point about being secure about going to a state school. However, Linus Pauling went to what was later called University of Oregon. Going to the state school is not exactly going against the grain. Especially in the 20's, going to a prestigious school was more about "good breeding" than smarts. Going back to the Feynman example, did you know that he was rejected from Columbia? I find this outrageous. According to the logic on this thread, it shouldn't matter because he was successful anyway. I personally find it offensive because it reveals a value system which is at odds with what I think a university should have. </p>
<p>I don't think going to a prestigious undergrad school makes much of a difference for the top students especially if they choose a technical or scientific career. Prestigious undergrad degrees do open a lot of doors in other fields, however. It definitely gives you an advantage in some fields, although it's true that you can still reach the top of any field without this advantage. Any individual can overcome obstacles, but a population will most likely be adversely affected by it. Sometimes I wonder if academic achievement was made a higher priority in admissions at HYP, then would our senators and presidents would be a little smarter? Maybe not. Maybe the more academic people would not choose the life of a politician.</p>
<p>Anyway, I don't know what this discussion has to do with narcissism or separating oneself from others.</p>
<p>"...the aggregate admission results of the GROUP of students who score at the 2300+ level and have good grades doesn't tell the whole story about the INDIVIDUAL chances of any one student with those credentials, because an admission committee at any highly selective college will consider other factors too. And to reemphasize this point, even if the admission committees act without communicating with one another beforehand, they don't act "independently" in the statistical sense ... because they may all be alike in considering some disqualifying factor in the same student, whose admission result may end up being alike at all the colleges. The multiplicative rule applies to tosses of a fair coin, but it doesn't apply to the actions of college admission committees if one is only grouping students by test scores and grades and not by other characteristics of interest to those committees."</p>
<p>I think this is right, but there are some assumptions here too that could be tested. The assumption is that the other "characteristics of interest" will be largely the same from school to school. I think this is true, but only up to a point. There may be some significant differences, and some of them may be characteristics that are not obvious to us. Any such differences--especially if they are not spelled out by the school--will make the process appear more "random." (I'll give a silly example: imagine that one of the schools has an adcom who believes that people with green eyes are the Devil's spawn, and rejects all of them. That would not be random, but it would appear to be random to us.) You could test this by having a large group of people apply to all of the schools, and then study the pattern of acceptances.</p>
<p>I think people take this OP too seriously. The take home lesson of this post is that you can get into very selective colleges including Ivy League by having very great test scores and great gpa (without great EC). At least you can get into the little ivies.
Getting into Ivy League is not as hard as everyone wants you to believe, and is not as easy as your parents think.</p>
<p>you do not have it quite right about National Merit Scholar vs. Finalist</p>
<p>Every Finalist who gets a scholarship is a National Merit Scholar. This was true in 1977, when I got a Watson Scholarship from IBM and it was true last year when my son got one of the $2500 awards directly from NMS. Students receiving any of the automatic awards aren't eligible for the $2500 NMS awards.</p>
<p>Well, I got one about 10 years ago and at that time you were only considered a National Merit Scholar if you were one of the 2000 chosen by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. </p>
<p>They changed it last year apparently to mean anyone who got money. There was a thread about it. Maybe they changed the definition sometime after 1977 and then changed it back last year.</p>
<p>balletgirl, I am a clinical psychologist hence the recondite erudition about narcissism. I fully understood your metaphorical use.</p>
<p>collegealum, you are correct, for lab sciences, your lab and your peer reviewed papers carry more weight but I suspect even here grants, faculty positions, funding etc would go with prestige. For many other subjects school prestige does have an effect.</p>
<p>I didn't know Feynmann was rejected by Columbia and accepted at MIT. I will tell my S, he got accepted at C but rejected at MIT, he will get a kick out of the arcana.</p>
<p>Haha Feynman was rejected by Columbia... but mostly because he was Jewish. It was back during the days when the Ivies (columbia was better about it) placed quotas on Jews.</p>
<p>One of the reasons why Columbia has SO MANY Nobel Laureates is because it was lax on the quotas and took a lot of the very intelligent jewish students that were banned from Harvard and Yale.</p>
<p>^ Very true
Though Columbia is a second tier ivy (I mean, just right below the big 3) they have more laurates than Princeton or Yale. In fact, not a single university has more laurates than Columbia (columbia = oxford = harvard)</p>
<p>Columbia has about the same sized student body (and perhaps faculty) as Harvard. Yale is a little over half the size, and Princeton a little over one-third.</p>
<p>This is a good thread worthy of continuing. </p>
<p>Truazn's point is well-taken and I am sure he provides requisite succor to the many "homework and SAT jockeys" on CC regarding the likelihood of acceptance at an Ivy League school. He states that if you present the following profile than your chance of acceptance at a least one of Ivies is nearly certain (assuming you apply to all of them). </p>
<ol>
<li>You scored over 2300 on the SAT</li>
<li>You have a 3.9+ GPA with a challenging courseload</li>
<li>Have 700+ (or 750 for you asian-gunners) on SAT II's.</li>
<li>Your teachers don't hate you with a passion and you can write english in a grammatically correct fashion.</li>
</ol>
<p>A different, but related point, is this:</p>
<ol>
<li>You scored above 2100+ on the SATs</li>
<li>You have a 3.75+ GPA in rigorous courses</li>
<li>Have 700+ on SAT II's </li>
<li>You have a true talent in the arts, athletics, etc, and have demonstrated this through a consistent and sustained record of accomplishment in your ECs </li>
<li>You can express yourself well with authenticity and passion in your essays</li>
</ol>
<p>... than your chances of getting into one of the top 15 universities or one of the top 10 LACs (as per rankings like US News & World report) is also very, very high. This also assumes a requiste number of apps submitted.</p>
<p>The question is who would you rather be and whom do you think adcoms prefer?</p>
<p>BalletGirl, the problem with your criteria is that though you say, with those stats, one will get into "one of the top 15 universities", many people don't necessarily want to go to just any of those top 15 schools, but actually a specific one. Also, "true talent" is subjective, as are essays. So, it's not as reassuring to shoot for your method. What truazn was trying to say in the first place was that many people should calm down if they have these stats because they will like get into one of the "prestige" schools they so wish to attend.</p>
<p>Of course one will always wants to go to a particular school, but, as truazn and others have clearly pointed out in this thread, the chance at any one particular school will always be random. The point is don't get fixated on any one, apply to a portfolio of like schools instead. </p>
<p>I am also simply expanding the list of the eight Ivy League schools to include another 17 or so, where the quality of the education, the undergraduate experience and the tangible outcomes are nearly identical. We are too hung up on extremely narrow notions of what constututes "prestige" and, too often, substitute "prestige" for the real attributes of a quality education. Much of this is borne of ignorance and culturally-biased prejudices. </p>
<p>As to your point that talent is subjective. I think largely not. You are either the 1st chair violinist or you are not; you can either run the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds or you can't; you can either dance the black swan in Swan Lake to an encore or you can't. I could go on. There are myriad ways in which talent is objectively assessed in the arts and in athletics. I also don't think that the ability to recognize and assess good writing is subjective either. </p>
<p>My point, and I am apologize if I didn't make it clear enough, is like Truazn's, DON'T WORRY. If you've got the goods, you'll get in to a top school.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
The chance of being rejected from EVERY SINGLE IVY with those stats are, mathematically, 0.7^8 = 5.76%
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>I don't know if this was already mentioned before, but...</p>
<p>The events are most likely not independent, and P(A and B)=P(A)P(B) if they are, so it is probably higher than 5.76%. Statistically PWNED. (No, I'm not psychotic.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
I don't know if this was already mentioned before, but...</p>
<p>The events are most likely not independent,
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That was mentioned abundantly, upthread. The statistical point is correct: admission decisions of one college, as compared to admissions decisions at another college, are NOT independent (uncorrelated) in the sense in which that term is used by statisticians.</p>