Just to clarify, I am completely against new age feel goodery, but I do think that sometimes discussion here becomes overly contentious or makes people feel like complete crap. Before I ever even made a chances thread I was already completely demoralized. I almost didn’t apply early to my top school because seeing everyone here saying “I only have 23 AP classes” can be a tad intimidating. Also, many of my friends have told me they have gone on this site, become depressed and then never returned. I just think there is an atmosphere that devalues anyone who doesn’t have certain “stats”.
i never even use the chance threads
mostly im on here to share some thoughts and ask questions about the application process, because where else can you find so many ppl who are applying to the same school
The numbers are all we have. I suppose we could copy/paste “If your essay was well-written and showed passion and character that appeals to the adcom and is consistent with the rest of your application you have a good chance!” into every thread, but that would be useless.
A note on the thing about scoring above the median. The average SAT at a school may be 2200, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Some hypothetical numbers:
Students with below 2200: 20,000 applied - 1,000 accepted
Students with above 2300: 5,000 applied - 1,000 accepted
Sure, you can get in below the median, and half of the class did. But working from only that bit of information, these people just won the lottery.
These journalists are completely clueless. They’ve done a better job at exposing their own ignorance than at exposing Beef Supreme’s supposed “cruelty”. College admissions is natural selection - only the best survive and get in, period. Better get the cruel hard facts early than to have high-flying expectations that don’t come to fruition.
I sent in an email about a week ago, they ignored me.
Oh, I wouldn’t say that, wxmann. They’re no more clueless about admissions than the WAMC posters, most of whom have very little idea of what actually goes down in admissions offices.
I liked these quotes very much:
If college admissions is an art, one way to learn about how it is practiced is to see the results of specific students–and you can do that by looking at results threads here on CC. That, plus statistics, makes it possible for a person to make reasonable statements on “chance me” threads. I like the threads–they provide an opportunity to remind students to have reach, match and safety schools, to apply to enough schools, not to have a single super-reach dream school, to do a reality check, and to avoid selling themselves short. I’ve seen quite a few in which a misconception was corrected (i.e., whether the student is a URM or not), and in which additional schools to consider were suggested.
A tad late, but this just needs to be posted:
“Whoa, whoa,” a person using the screen name “Beef Supreme” said last week. “The two above posters think this guy has a chance? He’s top 30% of his class, that won’t cut it for Stanford. You have a better chance of being struck by a meteorite than getting in, unless you have some ridiculous hook.”
He also dismissed 16-year-old Jimmy Blanchard’s chances at MIT, Berkeley and Caltech, despite the Michigan student’s six Advanced Placement courses, 3.8 grade-point average and top 20% class ranking.
“Your GPA is way too low, especially considering your class rank, your scores aren’t there, I see nothing in your ECs,” he said. (Beef Supreme, in an e-mail, declined to give his real name but said he was being realistic rather than overly harsh.)
[Anxious</a> college hopefuls look for reassurance online - Los Angeles Times](<a href=“Anxious college hopefuls look for reassurance online”>Anxious college hopefuls look for reassurance online)
This is a really good article. I admittedly put a lot of emphasis on my numbers and always wondered why I was rejected from other schools while other acceptees had lower scores.
Well, I personally like pessimism. It drives me to work harder 
We’ve known about this for ages. It’s been featured on the main page. I’ve read this on the internet, and on the LA Times paper version.
Sure, we’re pessimistic, but wouldn’t you rather hear the critical worst case scenario for self improvement than some optimism BS that really does no good? Maybe overbearing CC standards are why we have a much higher than average acceptance rates to selective colleges. (Other factors definitely included)
While a lot of the chancing can be way off (and no one really takes it seriously, I think), and there’s a lot of questionable info/judgement going around here, I have to point out that CC is immensely useful for people who don’t have a sense of what the vast majority of the applicant pool at a school/as a whole is like - internationals, students from schools that don’t have a track record, or who’re applying to schools in a different geographic area. Of course it gets people nervous and worked up - but most people get nervous and worked up about applications anyway, and it often helps to be able to see the student profiles of those who apply and get in, even if the feedback from most chance threads is negative.
complacency kills.
CC didn’t get owned. The people who got owned by CC just got owned again in this article.