And I have to say… this board propagates far too often the “cut throat” image of college selection. Maybe it is just because my school is pretty competetive and assumingly highly regarded, but we have crazy acceptance rates.
The average test scores for top ivies and other schools were much lower than I’d say 75% of the people that applied on this board. For example, over half the students in the last 10 years that applied from my school have gotten into princeton, with an average SAT score for the acceptees of about 1390. (slim to none of the applicants had any extroardinary “hook”)
All in all, I would just like to say that I am relieved and have gained much more confidence.
<p>I think there are two things going on (1) the CC population generally seems to have much higher stats (particularly SAT's) than the norm and (2) there isn't any meaningful way to compare GPA's from school to school and as a result everyone focusses on the SAT instead. But grades are so much more important than SAT's at all these schools. Kids coming from rigorous high schools (schools with track records with the competitive colleges) who have great grades and in-the-range SAT's are going to do just fine in college admissions.</p>
<p>Does your school produce a lot of athletes or have a lot of legacies? A lower than average GPA could make sense at a very comprtitive school, but a SAT scores about 100 points below Princeton's average don't.</p>