Beef Supreme’s quotes were great, and I really can’t believe how naive the journalist sounded when she though he was being too harsh.
hahaha, where is Beef Supreme on this thread?
Beef Supreme: Speech, speech, speech!
There was another thread on this that Beef was in on.
The cc splash of cold water may make some college admissions offices uneasy. Low selectivity numbers go to universities with high applicant pools and colleges may dislike chances threads that give realistic assessments, since they may discourage many impossible dream applications. I say more power to the cc chancers, then, because the suggestion that the most selective colleges give serious consideration to all those top 30%ers just won’t prove true for most candidates. I wish the reporter checked out the Decisions threads to selective colleges where posters list their stats. I don’t think Beef’s comments would seem so off the mark.
Of course, there are always special tips and hooks and good chancers acknowledge that, too. But I think giving students false hope, while possibly good for college selectivity numbers/business, is unfair, misleading, and cruel. Even with the occasional harsh post here, I suspect the info is more accurate than the stuff put out by college salespeople. Call me skeptical.
The only part of that article that I liked was
Definitely. Obviously college admissions people are going to claim that we underestimate applicants, but it’s their goal to have as many people apply to their university as they can get. Our goal is to provide accurate chances. Not happy chances, not hopeful chances, not even respectful chances a lot of the time.
Take the example in the article: top 20%, 3.8 GPA, six AP’s. Anyone who tells that kid he has a good chance at MIT is either wildly ignorant or just plain lying.
Well, maybe 2100 makes you a God in the LA Times newsroom, but if you’re going after the Ivy League you’ll be lucky if you get into a forth of the schools you apply to. (And you’re probably not going to work in an LA newsroom all your life–ohhhh no he di’n’t! Well, yes. . . Yes he did.)
Really, it’s clear that CC is a community site, and as such, you need to take advice with a grain of salt. Not everyone will know what they are talking about. If you’re taking Chance thread advice from a high school junior, odds are there are going to be a few holes. If you’re talking to a student who attends the college in question, or an accurate counselor, or an experienced adult, the advice may be more sound. You just need to get a feel for who’s giving you advice as well as how closely everyone’s advice matches.
Looking at admission statistics on the college websites is usually a pretty good way to get a feel for where you’d fit in and to help you set some goals.
I know that without CC, I would have not gotten into the schools that I did. I learned so much about the process and how to present my application, and it all worked beautifully. The Chance threads were actually quite useful to me. If anything, they provided reassurance during a time when there was so much doubt. You just need to be able to filter out the advice that is likely incorrect from the advice that probably has some truth to it.
Hey, Jimmy here, I just thought I would chime in. For me the chance thread was really just a fun little thing to do, more of a novelty. The responses I received won’t really stop me from applying to any of the schools I want to, I just wanted to see what some other people thought and if they had any advice. Like I said in the original thread, I think it is worth the application fee to try and apply to them than to not.
A national newspaper reporting?
The LA Times assembler mentions that an Ivy League school admission officer said “like others, college admission is an art”.
So it is not a profession with objectively measurable results but an “art” where the “artist” happens to be also the art critic and the dealer that sells the above mentioned “art”!
Magic art maybe?
Potential ivy league students shouldn’t be listening to the tough to digest tunes of the Beef Supreme but to LAT’s “Santana” and his “Black Magic Woman” type of admission officer.
A.P.
p.s.
Spiderwoman tear apart and rebuild your Ivy Net because this one has choked and suffocated both this country and the rest of the world by producing such a brainless bank trust.
Something is definitely Wrong in this educational “lalaland”.
I find it ironic that a Stanford admissions rep is criticizing anything related to this…
It’s not that I disagree with what he says, but honestly, if you’re working in the admissions office of a university that has made public statements indicating that they have some of the most biased acceptance policies in the country, you have no place commenting on something this trivial
There’s your “objective journalism” from L.A. Times.
Thanks to political correctness, the golden rule for our society is now “be nice to people,” and never offend anyone even if you’re telling the truth (such as affirmative actions in the admission process). Although I strongly object trolling on CC forums, I do not know what is wrong with some harsh but candid criticisms. If the self-dubbed journalists at LA Times believe a mere 3.8 GPA and top 20% class ranking make a competitive Caltech (or any other prestigious schools) applicant, I dare to make a modest suggestion that they should have their children apply to some of those top-tier colleges and see for themselves the plight of brutal competitions facing high school students.
As many veteran LA Times readers, I will not be the only one to tell you that in recent months the newspaper has cut staffs, articles, and advertisement.
I bet admission officers hate the site, partially because of incorrect information, because the question isn’t “Should I apply” the question is “What are my chances”. Should I apply is a neutral question, because it really isn’t saying anything about the exclusive nature of a school. Anyone can apply, but when you get down to getting in the stakes are raised.
The best part about people saying “anonymity” is a “shield” to be mean behind… Is that they assume that people use anonymity to be mean. If I got to write honest comments about my teachers, and then they got to see my name… Would they still like me if I put honest things that I hate about them? The power of anonymity is for everyone that asks for help, because you can be honest without having to face social repercussions.
Beef said it straight, Mr. Michigan’s best hook is probably the fact that he is from Michigan. Judging from his stats… And giving honest feedback is the best anyone can do. Lie to me, because it will make me love you? No thanks. The stakes are too high.
“Most people are going to get their egos bruised if they go on there.”
What’s wrong with a little bruised ego? Better to submit your application and then have everyone tell you that you don’t have a chance, then be pleasantly surprised, than to be cocky and overconfident. CC does a good job of putting it into perspective for you, especially if you know when to take what’s on here with a grain of salt.
By the way, I’d like to thank Beef Supreme for telling it like it is, even if that naive journalist couldn’t realize it. Kudos to you.
Well, one problem w/CC is that you don’t get much of a representative of the applicant pool out there for colleges. You get, to a large extent, a bunch of high-performing folks who with their 4.0 GPAs look down upon anyone who has less-than-perfect stats. You can proclaim to be realistic, and you may well be, but there is so obviously some own-ego-stroking going on there. It feels good to look down upon others, especially when you are in a position to do so.
3.8 is a low GPA? ***, man. In my high school, with a 7-course schedule, that’s a bit more than 1 B per semester. That’s phenomenal. Also, at my high school, the top 20% is pretty much set in stone from the start because we have a magnet program that comprises about 20% of the class. So not being in the top 10% is not something to be ashamed of
Where are the positives?
The one thing that many casual observers (like the author) overlook is the way GPA’s are (self) reported. That 3.80 (or or 3.85 or 4.0 or whatever) - is that weighted or unweighted? Many people aren’t even aware that GPA’s are weighted, yet often offer opinions on what they mean.
My guess is many of these “woe-is-me” stories are reporting “weighted” GPA’s. In our school system, when the high-schools publish their top-10 seniors, the Valedictorian usually has a 4.4-4.5 GPA, with #10 coming in at 4.2-4.30. You can get credit for 5.0 on a 4.0 scale, by taking an AP class (0.7 bonus), and getting an “A+ (0.3 bonus.)” Other school systems have different weighting factors - so, class rank is far more meaningful.
So, when a State Senator uses as a “hard-luck” story the fact that one his constituents had a 4.0 GPA, but was denied admission to UVA, (“oh, the humanity!”) and that inspired said Senator to write legislation to reduce out-of-state admissions, then you can see how a lack of understanding of the system, and what constitutes ‘competitive’ scores and admission criteria can cause real trouble for everyone.
A 4.0 GPA, even unweighted, doesn’t (and shouldn’t) remotely guarantee admission to a top-tier school like UVA, if, for example, all the kid took were soft classes, and got a 1500 SAT (once again, I’ll bet many people think that’s a <em>great</em> score, because they think the SAT is still a 1600 scale.)
And if that kid’s 4.0 is weighted, well, again, without context, it’s meaningless. There are so many ways these stats can be completely misused – but none so much as GPA.
I think for the criticisms leveled in the article, most of the people who offer advice here understand the subtleties involved in admission <em>far</em> better than the author, (and when someone is way out of line, someone else will usually offer a counter.)
The author tries to imply that a 3.80 GPA (possibly weighted) and 6 AP’s will get you into MIT. That’s laughable – in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if “3.80 (w)” is the <em>lowest</em> GPA of any applicant to have even <em>applied</em> to MIT. (Admittedly, the ‘16-year-old’ part of that story is an unexpected twist - a 16-year-old graduate with those stats? It doesn’t really add up.)
Heck, I’ve seen Intel STS runners-up get rejected from MIT …
And Beef Supreme’s comments, while one of the quotes was a bit harsh, was nonetheless spot-on accurate to me.
That 3.8 is unweighted because my school doesn’t offer weighted GPA’s. And I am 16, and those 6 AP classes, I have only taken two so far, and the rest are on my schedule for next year.
EDIT: Here is the thread the article is about, for reference. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/650238-chances-mit-berkeley-caltech-stanford-did-i-do-enough.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/650238-chances-mit-berkeley-caltech-stanford-did-i-do-enough.html</a>
Ah, ok, that makes sense then (that you’re a junior, not a senior.)
As a junior, you still have some opportunities to make a difference in your resume; winning science fair for, say, proving Cold Fusion works might get you over the top … 
Seriously, though, these are incredibly tough schools to get into - many find their resume with 4.0+, valedictorian, 2200+ SAT’s, and 10 AP courses still don’t guarantee a thing when it comes to a place like Caltech or MIT. These are never better than “high reach” schools for almost any “normal” human being - as tough as the admission stats appear, it’s probably actually worse, due to self-selection.
Anyway, good luck. And for the record, I’m personally not smart enough to cut the grass at MIT …
“proving Cold Fusion” Lol, I’ll get right on that.
I know it will be tough, but I figure it is worth a shot anyway. Who knows, maybe I will get into one of the schools.