<p>i share your misery.</p>
<p>FlaviusAetius, i share your misery.</p>
<p>Yeah, I realize all the good things about BC and BU and I'm trying to get some perspective on the situation, but it's only been two days, cut me some slack ;-).</p>
<p>For me really it comes down to something that's more about... I guess personal pride. There's no way for me to say this without sounding arrogant, but hopefully my recognition of my personal failures will make my statements of my strengths more legitimately received. I am extremely gifted. In terms of pure intelligence, just based on capability and ability, I am probably in the range of 99.9th percentile. I have never found myself in an academic situation where there was anyone who could learn faster than I could or retain things like I could. One of my reccomendations even came out and said it, the first sentence he wrote was "this kid is brilliant". He went on to say that I was "far and away the smartest kid in a very remarkable group. He is among the two of three brightest studnets I have encountered in a career of more than twenty years."That being said, I have nearly completely wasted that gift through high school. I didn't put the work in that I should have, and although I took a very hard courseload, and earned As and Bs (with a cumulative 3.83 GPA), I could have (and should have) earned straight As the whole way through. For teachers that demanded it of me, I did the work, but for teachers that were more lax I would often find myself skimming readings, not studying and generally spending my time elsewhere. This was completely my fault, and I didn't motivate myself enough to spend twice the effort for a 5% increase in the grade. I'd accept an A- in an easy course I should've worked for an A+ in, I'd take the B or B+ in a class I could've earned an A in with a little more effort. This was driven home in a rather ironic incident where I was assigned "Brave New World" earlier this year for the second time in two years. I read it for the first time this year, and realized that I could have read it the first time and earned As in both classes instead of BSing my way through it the first time to get a B, and then having to read it anyway the next year. It's that personal failure of mine being reflected back at me through these admissions decisions that is really what hurts the most. While I realize that there are people out there who would kill to get into BC or BU, there are also people who would kill me for wasting what I've got and compromising myself to the point where I couldn't attend a school above BC or BU if I'd wanted to. There's a lot to be said about the money and all that, but it's really the issue of me not earning an acceptance to any of the elite schools when I know I could have that is at the root of my frustration. I'd be much happier if I'd gotten into say a Dartmouth or Harvard, and chosen to go to BC or BU than where I am right now. I hope I've expressed myself properly in relating my experience and my thoughts on where I'm at right now.</p>
<p>Flavius - the Unibomber attended MIT. Andrew Fastow skimmed through Tufts on his way to Enron. One guy couldn't attend his Harvard reunion because he was in jail. Lots of people have brains - some of them get into the top schools, and some don't. You have all the brains you need, but now you have started to learn a little wisdom - that's what you've been short of. You are obviously disappointed in your school selection; but if you are truly smart, you will learn something from this. You won't believe this now, but I think that you have the opportunity from this to grow a lot more than if you'd skipped blythly into UPenn or Princeton. I'll bet you are up to the challenge, and having this experience will teach you a truly important lesson.</p>
<p>As far as the schools go, remember that you can encounter Plato at any school in the country. Go the school you feel most comfortable with, transfer if you want to after a year or so; but carry the lesson about yourself from now on.</p>
<p>tell you something that my dad tole me, kid. if you didn't get in, just admit that you are just not in the top thin percentile that those elite colleges would take. there is nothing you can do about it. by the way, i know a lot of not so bright students who got in elite colleges just through hardworking, such as Yanbo, who is accepted into Harvard, Brown, and Columbia. Having high IQ but not working hard means nothing! By the way, if you really think yourself so smart, read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and be able to know more math than any high school teacher does!</p>
<p>Give me my spot in JHU BME also guys!</p>
<p>texas tech is also accepting applications until june 1</p>
<p>thanks for the information.</p>
<p>University of Texas at Dallas is also accepting applications until june</p>
<p>I always had this suspicion but I am afraid I wouldn't have enough evidence to say it: that I am ridiculously rejected by all those colleges, even by the nowhere NYU and SUNY, is because I'm also Chinese. This year at my school almost all the top graduating students are Chinese, and none of them is born here. As I have mentioned, Yanbo got into Harvard; Rong is waitlisted at Harvard. Quan got into MIT. A bunch of others got into Cornell, and Columbia; and dozens got into NYU. The funny thing is that, even though it is not a Chinese owned school, almost all of them are Chinese, except DAvid who is Jewish, and several Russians. I applied to practically all the same colleges that they did. I don't know about other schools in NYC, but in my school the Chinese dominated the school academia. Wouldn't those colleges be tired of accepting too many Chinese or in general Asians? Then I became the Asian college bound scapegoat? Even though on the application ethnicity is not required but it's very easy to know who is Asian by simply looking at the names!<br>
Or maybe it's just the location; too many from NYC. or maybe both. anyway i am perhaps one of the most luckless person now.</p>
<p>P.S> it's merely a guess, probably out of frustrastion</p>
<p>thehammerspake: :( <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=629846%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=629846</a></p>
<p>Flavius, I completely understand what you are going through, with respect to feeling you didn't achieve your potential. I was going through exactly the same feelings after blowing what could have been a perfect GPA and getting deferred by Harvard. Things worked out pretty well for me in the end (was accepted by Princeton) but they can still work out well for you. Boston College is plenty good enough to get into an elite grad school. Good luck in the future, and use your underachievements as motivation to achieve success. (I was already thinking of backup plans, as what I would do with a gap year, I was so ****ed off.)</p>
<p>And hammerspake: yes it's most likely because you're asian. its a documented fact that asians are severely overrepresented in the upper brackets of SAT scores, GPAs, and whatnot. also I'm not sure if this is true, but I was speaking with one of those private admissions counselors (what a con, it wasn't my idea to contact them) and they were saying that elite adcoms view asians generally as bookworms who participate little and don't give generous endowments. Yes I suppose you could say adcoms are racist, or that what that dude said is bogus. (no i didnt pay the guy. if i needed one of those con artists to get myself into an elite institution, i dont deserve to be there.)</p>
<p>damn....i woulda imagined NYU as at least a good match. what do they know.</p>
<p>anonymous, private counselors aren't con artists. there are some students who have no clue how to best present themselves to an admission committee. One of the biggest factors in my acceptance to Rice, MIT, and Harvard was that I diligently studied for several months before making my application just how to present myself in a way that best represents my strengths and makes my accomplishments appealing to these universities. Some kids just can't do it and despite their excellent records are unable to present themselves well. For example, a kid in my school is a way better student than I am but was rejected by his top two colleges: Duke and UVA. I read his stuff and immediately I could sense the problem with his application. He knew he was a good student and thought that would get him in. He wrote excellent answers and essays, grammatically, structurally, etc. But they were BORING and he came across as egotistical. Sometimes private admissions counselors are necessary for kids like this. Some kids that deserve to be in elite schools don't get there because their apps don't impress the adcoms.</p>
<p>I would assume that kids smart enough to get into elite schools should be smart enough to present themselves well. Because while they may get their hand held for college applications, who will be there for the job applications?</p>
<p>You can't assume that. People are different. I know some smart people who are really shy and can't present themselves in person or on paper. When asked questions by grown-ups, they just smile wanly and avert their eyes. These are juniors and seniors in high school! Lol, before I realized I had a responsibility to be an engaging and gregarious member of society, I rarely spoke to people. One time someone asked my mom solemnly, "Is your son retarded?" I laughed about it after my mom told me, but truly it's hard to be good at that type of thing. Hopefully by the time people experience college, they will be ready to enter the job. I do agree with you that people need to be taught these skills way before college so they aren't gently led to college. Maybe they should make speech not such a blow-off class.</p>
<p>you haven't heard of headhunters or employment agencies?
The best jobs are not listed in classified ads- some you must go through a employement agency if you don't have the networking knowledge to know when job openings are coming up.
An employment counselor helps you package yourself and often sells you to the employer so that they are pumped to meet you before you even sit down for the interview</p>
<p>"before I realized I had a responsibility to be an engaging and gregarious member of society, I rarely spoke to people."</p>
<p>I feel the same way
1530 SAT
3.8 uw GPA</p>
<p>Rejected: Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Caltech, MIT</p>