<p>I respectfully disagree with the “give any kid an instrument and lessons and practice and they can do well” argument. I know a really dedicated kid who tried out for All-State for four years. He practices just as hard as or harder than myself and several other kids I know who have made All-State each time they’ve tried out. He has never even made the first cutoff and he’s been playing the same number of years as most of us and probably practiced harder for most of them than I have, at the very least. There is an element of natural talent in music, just as there is in athletics-you can’t start from absolutely nothing and expect something.</p>
<p>Also I’m not sure what grades my counselor sent since my school has 3 grading periods per semester, but I haven’t heard of any problems so I’m assuming whatever she sent was fine. I have the feeling she only sent 9-11 since that’s what is on our official transcripts and that’s what’s used to calculate rank.</p>
<p>We have a semester system and my counselor said he will send the first quarter grades only if they ask for it. I have all As till junior yr and I have As for the first quarter as well. Should I send my first quarter grades or is it too late?</p>
<p>@Cantiger: I am not sure what your argument is. If you are saying that there is a correlation between academic kids and music, that is something I have been saying all along. As far as playing for the pure joy of it, should be true for sports as well. Then it is all the more important that athletic recruiting should be abolished and such students should directly become professional athletes. If fact, I would even argue that college football/basketball should be abolished and they should be paid as professionals. You don’t need to be recruited by a college to participate in the Olympics. Most students end up with no real degree and neither do they get recruited by professional teams and have a very bad start at life.</p>
<p>Recently it was revealed that UNC athletes have the reading level of a fourth grader. UNC chapel hill is ranked No 5 among public universities.</p>
<p>@Cotwoag1: A few sports might not require money but from what I have seen most sports are very expensive to learn and play. You do need money for a private coach and buy the best quality equipment for sports like, tennis, swimming, soccer, hockey, to name a few. I am a varsity golfer and play All state violin. My parents spent the same or if not more money for my golf lessons. And before anyone goes on this rant that golf is a preppy sport, this is true for many many other sports as well, such as teh ones I had listed above.</p>
<p>Money does play a huge role in college admissions both directly and indirectly and that is why they also have the questbridge program.</p>
<p>@otter101: If @alfawarlord is leveraging his/her music to get into Pton then how is it different from athletes leveraging their talent to get into Pton? </p>
<p>Can we all agree that the musician v. athlete argument has nothing to do with the Princeton SCEA thread? Please start another thread to continue this feud.</p>
<p>@ruar12 I didn’t mean to be rude or disparaging of any particular person or group. That test taking drone that I referred to is brilliant. Lord knows we need all the brilliant people we can muster these days. But we need those brilliant people exposed to and required to work with, some not-as-brilliant people. My comments were in response to kids complaining that athletic-but-lesser-qualified-academically kids would get their spot instead of them. (If I had known my son would do as well academically as he has done, I would have placed more emphasis on him being a “test-taking drone”).</p>
<p>@hopefulperson You are someone who has an abundance of talent and skill. You are not in the same company as most applicants with musical backgrounds. Sure, there is an element of natural talent to playing an instrument. But to make the comparison to athletics is not an appropriate comparison. For most kids, with a good private lesson teacher, years of one hour a day, high quality practice, years of performances and tryouts and they will develop sufficiently to be recognized as very skilled musicians–not elite, but very good. Maybe they go on to college and play in the orchestra. Maybe they play in the marching band. Maybe a jazz band. Or maybe they just continue private lessons. Contrast that with the athlete. You can be an All-State LB who hits like thunder, but if you are 5’4’’, you are not going to get many offers to play college ball.</p>
<p>BTW, I sure do hope my son gets in and gets to be friends with all of you on this board. You all are an amazing group–very mature, talented and intelligent. I am going to be blown away if we go to parents day and he is introducing us to one or several of you. What great company he will be in. </p>
<p>I will bow out now and just lurk. I feel like the creepy old guy hanging out with teenagers. </p>
<p>On the Harvard thread people mentioned that if you receive your decision notification later in the day, your chances of being admitted increases. Does this apply to Princeton? All these rumors are starting to get to me </p>
<p>Yes, we all find out at the same time. Geez so many people on here take every little detail so seriously. No matter what you have no idea until the 15th</p>
<p>@opinion559 How unfortunate that you read my comments to you as making an “argument”. I was simply pointing out an aspect of Princeton I thought you might enjoy hearing about! The point of this thread was for “Princeton 2019 SCEA Hopefuls”…not exclusively to argue points, so since the comments were becoming circular I was attempting to steer back to points of interest for applicants. </p>
<p>I know readers can’t always hear the tone the writer intends but if I could create a font that would say “kind/helpful” it would be wonderful. </p>
<p>@Opinion559 Point taken. But I meant it in a different way–specifically addressing alfawarlord because I felt he wasn’t being fair to athletic recruits, stereotyping in a certain way that doesn’t apply to all individuals: </p>
<p>“tbh, people who get into ivies as recruited athletes bug me a little bit, since there’s like five people with subnormal intelligence and activities at my school recruited for harvard because they’re among the best in the sport statewide, not even nationally. there’s not really such thing as a “recruited musician” or a “recruited artist” anywhere, which is kinda irksome because that’s what I am and it’s not granting me any benefits. just my 2 cents.” </p>
<p>This is just how the system works, and yeah this isn’t the place to be lamenting over athletes v. musicians. That’s all I have to say! </p>
<p>@Ambitious19: I am going to go ahead and ask my counselor to email my grades on Monday. You should do the same. Who knows maybe our applications will be read this week </p>
<p>@jacknophat I’ve seen plenty of dedicated but un-accomplished student musicians who disprove your point, but let’s agree to disagree.</p>
<p>My final point is that I wish every national/international-level extracurricular would be treated the same way because of the immense amount of work it takes to reach that level for any activity, but I’ve learned that’s not going to happen for a variety of reasons. Yay, moving on.</p>
<p>I’ll ask my counselor if she emailed my first-grading-cycle grades (if she even remembers, lol…I don’t really think they’d do much for or against my app, they’re about the same as my other grades have been)</p>
<p>I have the feeling they still haven’t finalized decisions as of today and that the final chopping down to ~700 will occur this coming week (Dec. 8th-12th). :((</p>
<p>Well alfawarlord said it’s a dual process of choosing the lucky 700 and eliminating others, so I’m pretty sure that they’ve finalized decisions for at least half of us! I mean committee sessions have been going on all of last week, so they must have finished about half of the chopping and accepting, right?</p>
<p>But @alfawarlord please correct me if I misinterpreted what you were saying!</p>
<p>Oh and @Opinion559 great idea! I’ll probably go to my guidance counselor on Monday.</p>
<p>@hopefulperson in my experiences, there is a LARGE difference in how much effort it takes to get nation recognition for events (ex: in my region I can qualify for DECA nationals much more easily than debate) but like you said, agree to disagree.
As for quarter grades, I would only bother if they show a massive improvement over your junior year</p>
<p>@nolasaxman Princeton asking for your grades is a bit strange (since you’ve already demonstrated high achievement in school academics), but at least it means that you aren’t deferred yet! They’re still interested in you, so hooray! By the way, what region are you from? </p>
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