Personal Reflection: It’s All Rigged

Hate to be the one to do this:

The college admissions process is blatantly rigged against high achieving, yet not Grammy Award winning, white upper middle class boys who aspire to attend an elite college for Humanities & don’t have any family legacy or athletic ability.

Yep that’s me. Your wannabe future Beto O’rourke or Bill Clinton. Except people like that don’t get into Columbia or Georgetown anymore.

And they don’t even get a single dime from the 1-2 middle ranged schools they got into.

Nope, because of finances and rejections (gotta fill that Affirmative Action and International student quota!), we go to our cheap safety schools and are bullied by the richer kids & legacies at school that maybe we “just weren’t good enough”.

I’m defeated. I’m tired. I feel like I wasted 2 whole years of my life just to get what I could’ve had if I took zero AP classes & never took the SAT. I’m going to be committed to my safety school. I’m going to take classes with a bunch of idiots. I’ll never become Beto or Clinton. If I’m lucky, post recession, maybe I’ll get a job in the government.

Thanks system. You’ve made me give up.

Yours truly,
A defeated Jersey Boy

In reviewing your prior threads, it appears that your class rank (top 31%), modest SAT II scores of 680 & 680, in addition to no athletics or hooks affected your application results to your reach schools.

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You and the other 94 plus percent of applicants for denied to some of the top schools. Allow yourself to grieve a bit of your dream. It may have helped to have some more genuine safety schools you could have been excited about.

If this makes you change your whole view on life, perhaps government or politics isn’t the right major for you as there’s often tons of work without any fanfare and tons of rejection.

Hopefully in time you can spin this into a positive for you!

Post your stats

@Publisher My school rank was unreported, and multiple of my schools said SATII would not harm me, especially considering my 1500, 98 GPA, countless leadership position, personal essays, and strong recommendations

@2plustrio I actually did apply to a handful of schools I was -statistically- supposed to get into (GW for example) and got stuck on WAITLISTS! Also, their is no such thing as a Northeast US Safety School that is also considered reputable and elite. Apparently only minorities get those

The only thing holding you back at this point is you.

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I’m sorry you are disappointed in your results but disparaging others is not a good look.

There are smart, dedicated students at most colleges in the US. Your hard work in HS will serve you well in college. You will be better prepared for the rigor that awaits, and there will be rigor.

Change your mindset that you will rock your college. Be the superstar. The name on your diploma will not hold you back. Go after internships, research, leadership positions, study abroad. Work hard, do well. You will be just fine!

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Don’t blame minorities. It’s competitive and everyone has great stats and accomplishments. You just didn’t catch admission’s eye. Maybe the subjective parts of your application weren’t as good as you think. It’s hard, but you’re not alone. Many kids/parents prepare for years and bank on elite school admission. It’s just tough to break though the math on acceptance rates.

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Ummmm. No , not all rigged. Some of it is, depending upon your definition of rigged. Because schools want a diverse community of students, if your profile is over represented among applicants, the percent accepted from such groupings are far lower than the already abysmal accept rate which is so low because of the huge number of applicants for such few spots.

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^ And regarding your “profile,” I would think that white men who want to study the humanities at a LAC might have a small extra benefit given the female to male ratio issue. Maybe your letters of rec had a whiff of something unpleasant (like your belief that you will be bullied by rich kids and that kids at the schools that accepted you are idiots. Not a good look.)

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Uh…did you not get into Tulane that had an acceptance rate near 13% this year?

The sense of entitlement from your post is a real drawback. It would be helpful to develop a sense of perspective. So now you know that every part of your application is considered, including SAT2, and many students with perfect scores and grades were rejected from their top choices too. If you have an affordable option, take it and soar to the top of the class, and you will have many options open to you.

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No, not only minorities get into those schools. Not only liberals get into those schools.

I’m sorry you had disappointing results, but re-read your post in a few days. You don’t sound dissimilar to many other disappointed students, but I’m sorry to say, you do sound a bit arrogant.

Many people who don’t get in think the system is rigged against them. Be glad you aren’t female. The system is rigged against them. Be glad you don’t live in Watts. The system is rigged against them. Be glad you aren’t living off food stamps. The system is rigged against them.

Your chances at these schools were very low and all were high reaches:
Georgetown, Columbia, UPenn, Carnegie Mellon, UVA, BC, Tufts, Brown, Princeton and Yale.

Your stats are very good, but not exceptional. You are going to do well at whatever college you attend, but most people on this thread are not surprised you didn’t get into those schools.

Your hard work in high school wasn’t wasted. It will serve you well in life. Good luck to you.

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I once saw, on an Indian reservation, a good lecture by a tribal elder entitled “Live not by situation but by design.” The speaker was encouraging us to take the reigns of our lives no matter what challenge is presented. I think that would be good advice for you just about now. I am not sure what your “safety” is, but it is probably somewhere that has graduated legions of lawyers, CEOs, artists, poets, doctors, diplomats, architects, actors and a bevy of other uber-successful people. Will you join them in taking advantage of all the university has to offer and launch your life and career success, or will you get stuck in your 12th grade mindset, stewing over the undergraduate admissions process.? Will you pass through your college as a positive force, making people feel better about their school, their environment and in many cases themselves, or will you be “that guy” trashing his school and spewing negativity all around. You will need to make that decision and move on to the rest of your life. [And congratulations on that Tulane acceptance. You are among the 12% or so to make the cut. You should not go there, though and put a dent in the sky high “happiness rankings that Tulane enjoys if you really don’t want to be there.]. Best of luck to you!

Which are your safety schools?
CNA your parents afford to send you there?

BTW, being a boy who wants to study humanities at a LAC is a hook. Did you apply to any of those?
{Sorry you were given bad advice - But for colleges with a sub-25% acceptance rate, anything below 700 on subject tests is a red flag}

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I think males have a bit of an advantage right now actually, except maybe in engineering. Many many schools have a ratio of more women than men and they are looking to add qualified male students. White or Asian women have it the worst at lots of schools, if you want to parse admissions/applicant pool by these standards. Full pay, of course, helps more than we would like, unfortunately.

Wow!

You give up quickly, kid, welcome to the real world. You had NO chance at all your reach schools, but they took your application $$ because you thought you were special. Your GC and parents said, " Let’s apply and see what happens–why NOT you?" The piles of college brochures in your mailbox suggested you were a player. But all they wanted was your money and the chance to turn you down to reduce their acceptance rates.

You don’t have tippy-top SATS and class rank rules. All schools rank-you just don’t understand - every school sends a bar chart with GPA and # of students…it is usually a bell curve except in GPA inflated schools. Your GC COULD have written
“He/She is one of the hardest working leaders in our school” but she didn’t. You are not full pay? Blame your parents for their professional but not ultra-wealthy paying jobs if you must, but plenty of white kids get great merit scholarships. My guess is that you didn’t apply to those schools because of your ego.

Taking a few AP courses (not 8 or more with 4/5 scores) summer college courses, and competing at MUN or Science competitions, not holding leadership roles, or excelling athletically is THE path to tippy top colleges…so what exactly is your excuse? It’s not like you didn’t have access to the recipe.

Entitlement is ugly–grow up quick or you will be shell-shocked in college or in the job market. Mediocrity sinks to the bottom and ends up living in their parents’ basement begging for MORE money to go to grad school because “they didn’t know.” No one will tell you to go to class, study hard, or get in line for office hours. There is no extra credit. Learn to become a leader, otherwise, you are just a follower. Good news is that the world needs plenty of them.

So what to do? Prove us all wrong - game on. You have every advantage if you can put your ego aside, work hard, and realize nothing is coming to you without hard work.

P.S. Harsh, yes…but if you got the stuff, you can get to wherever you want to go–but the world is very different than your parents’ generation, so get a new playbook and learn to be a starter…not a bench warmer. I bet you can do it!

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You know life is kinda of rigged for upper middle class white kids as your self, about 95% of the world would swap places with you tomorrow, when was the last time you wonder if you had running water? You applied to the same 15 schools every other smart rich kid did, the system counts on that. I am sorry your top choice did not realize you are special, but 90% of the kids who applied had stats l like your or better, maybe this schools wanted a upper class kid form the south or the midwest. You got into Tulane where as 88% of the other applicants did not and your complaint life is unfair. Hopefully college will help you grow up and realize how lucky you are. You have every right to be disappointed your reach schools did not take you, you have no right as a rich white kid to complain about the “system” being against you.

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People are blasting you but I get it…you are tired, you’re discouraged, and probably a little burned out. You’ve also lost the fun part of your senior year and after all your hard work it’s insult to injury.

Here’s the thing…you aren’t going to take classes with a bunch of idiots. Keep an open mind there so yo don’t screw up your experience when you do get to college. The other thing is successful people come from all type of colleges. There is a myth that getting into the top tier schools is the only path to success. That just isn’t true. I’ve shared here before how early in my career at a very demanding, high paying job with a demanding boss ,the only person in my group not to have their contract renewed was the Harvard grad.

Regroup before you start college in the fall. Refresh as best you can. Go in with a great attitude and you will have a great experience. Keep working hard and above all hone your people skills (not saying you don’t have them but they are very important for the next phase of your life) and you will be successful. You’re going to look back at this phase in your life one day and realize things worked out the way they were meant to.

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