^ this is true. I think that students in the program tend to over reach, which is fine. I fully expect to be rejected by my top choice but I think the problem is that they get so tied up in these top schools and are fully expecting not just to be admitted RD but to match.
Three of the kids I was talking to are now so upset they are considering not even applying anywhere and just going to community college and many of them feel they have been discriminated against for various reasons.
For the record, I’m not saying these kids shouldn’t even apply but even with the efforts QB makes to educate it seems so many of us are still woefully unaware of the competitiveness of colleges. Let it also be said that I only took the ACT once and that was a financial struggle for my family but I did take the Practice ACT which is encouraged at my school. On this test I got the equivalent of a 27. I would have still applied to my top choice schools with that score but I knew also that a score like that would be very difficult to make up for. I got a 34 on the actual exam and studied immensely for it but even now I realize it’s always a longshot.
It makes me sad to see some of my friends so hurt by this. I cannot feel right telling them that their grades and test scores are simply not competitive and choose instead to tell them that the Match is incredibly competitive especially considering the fact that almost all of them marked exclusively the non-binding schools, which are also the most competitive.
Then I get wind that not all the applications are really read. The quote from the Bowdoin girl said that sometimes it’s a simple matter of location. They read apps from this location and not that or “other various factors”. Knowing that one of my friends lives in a shelter and saved up for weeks from asking on the street to send their ACT scores to this school really irks me …