<p>My brother got into Harvard last year, care to know his stats...660 M, 620 CR, 620, W....stop hunching over grades and be unique, colleges dont want to look at 2,000 kids with 780's across the board, try to be unique! my brother wrote a humorous but true story about how he started a unicycle club, every saturday went to the school's parking lot and taught kids for fun....so drop your SAT book and apply to your HYSPM or w/e....just dont be like everyone else, be funny and be different, you may be surprised</p>
<p>post scriptum- his GPA...3.4 (GASP) ...i know</p>
<p>had no legacy, my dad and mom went to state schools, was not a president of anything, did participate in investment club, and mock trial, and played varsity tennis for 5 years, and hes white upper middle class....no national merit semifinalists, oh and a guest writer for Buffalo News</p>
<p>not saying give up, im saying theres a chance, so stop freaking out, yes varsity tennis for 5 years, he was called up in 8th grade...and not some rando, hes one of smartest kids i know, he just expresses it differently, app. a school like harvard sees that</p>
<p>the general mindset of this site is grades grades grades, scores scores scores. go look at the chance me section of the site, it's pretty obvious every top school is going to get plenty of 2200+ scores with 4.0s. It makes perfect sense that schools are looking for different and more important things. Grades are important, scores are important, but no matter how good your grades are it is all but IMPOSSIBLE to stand out because of them. There's plenty of people at that near perfect range.</p>
<p>The community is great, yet I completely agree with Student92. Grades and test scores are the sole focus of this forum. For the people who just completely missed the point afitscher was trying to present,proves this community isolates itselfs to grades and some more grades. The thread was intended to show students who aspire to go to Harvard, or anyother prestige university that pefect grades and ACT/SAT scores are amazing, but individuality can go a long way, and for people who are not perfect students can find different outlets to express themselves and reveal their potential in a different light.</p>
<p>Being from Upstate NY was a plus as was starting the unicycle club, which seems like something he genuinely enjoyed -- not something he did to impress colleges. The fact that he taught kids to ride also was a plus as it indicated he cares about others, wasn't just piling on service hours to try to get into Harvard.</p>
<p>His essay also sounds like it was his own work and reflected his creativity and unusual interests.</p>
<p>It's very difficult to fake these kind of traits -- particularly when being interviewed by an alum, who tend to be the type of people who have passions and follow them, and also help others and do service (or else why would they be spending their free time inteviewing students?).</p>
<p>i personally had an interview at University of Rochester, and the whole point of the interview is for them to see there is more to someone than numbers. They want kids with personality, yes every college needs its nerds to cure cancer etc., but you need leaders who do good things because they enjoy it, my brother is very personable and everyone likes him which is hard to be, specially when your the more academic type rather than the jock. Basically, colleges want kids that they can walk into randomly and talk about a wide range of things: sports, politics, energy crisis, economics, or what have you.</p>