<p>Everyone please remember that all the chancing done on College Confidential is nothing more than wildly speculative BS from people with no more information than you have, based on a tiny slice of specific info. Universities look at many factors, especially essays and letters of recommendation. Grades and test scores are one small factor.</p>
<p>Nobody here knows how the admissions committees will decide. Please don't make any serious decisions based on the idle speculation of uninformed people on the internet.</p>
<p>Here's a post from an MIT admissions officer that applies to any school: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/939227-reminder-no-one-not-even-me-can-give-you-accurate-chance-mit.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/939227-reminder-no-one-not-even-me-can-give-you-accurate-chance-mit.html</a></p>
<p>I so agree.
By my “chances” I never would have gotten in ED to the school of my dreams–which by the way is not Columbia, but I am more than my SAT scores and GPA. I pushed myself hard in high school and pursued my passions wholeheartedly. I accomplished great things and was able to show them off. I displayed all my strengths while still writing my personal statement about being a loser. I got great recommendations from teachers who are closer than family. The notion that you can show who you truly are on a chance thread is a little farfetched. Without the big picture of who you are, no one can judge you. Without the perspective of a college admissions rep, there’s no way to judge other people.
That being said, I don’t think chance threads are entirely useless. They’re a great place to get advice on showing off your strengths and improving upon your weaknesses. As long as you take what is said with a grain of salt, these threads can be helpful. Just understand that anyone can review the blurb you write about yourself, and even if they are extremely experienced, no one is qualified to judge you with certainly except the college or university itself.</p>
<p>lol figureskater, your soon-to-be college president just joined the Goldman Sachs board of directors. Big pimpin’. Also, agreed that chancing is, in part, a crapshoot.</p>
<p>campaigner, you seem to have a personal hatred of chance threads. While I agree that the 2 arguably most important factors of applications - essays and recommendatinos - can’t be gleaned from what people write on chance threads, the objective data (SAT, ACT, rank, AP scores, ec’s, etc.) do give a foundation for people to be “chanced,” and there are studies that show what percentage of ppl with certain rank/GPA get accepted to top colleges, and these percentages stay roughly the same every year.</p>
<p>Calling chance threads “BS” is a little too rough, and grades/test scores are not just one “small factor,” they’re reasonably important in admission decisions. You also forget that a lot of ppl who “chance” were people who went through the admission process themselves (such as myself), and you can’t deny the fact that experience do help/contribute.</p>
<p>Only thing I would agree with you on is for people to not make any majorly serious decisions based on chance comments, and to take everythign with a grain of salt and still apply your own reasoning. Otherwise, I think the chance threads are venues where upcoming senior can in fact gain a bit more insight into admissino process, and possibly take some stress off. </p>
<p>In the end, believe what you what, if you still think chance threads are some kind of enemy that you have a personal grudge on, then simply ■■■■. Thanks.</p>
<p>Haha, sorry; I didn’t mean to come off so cocky. I’m not trying to impress anyone. What I’m trying to say is that by the numbers, I never should have gotten in. Perhaps I explained this ineffectively, but my point is that while objective data is important, the admissions process is subjective. Working the system to show off how great you are–not just being great–is the way to go in my opinion, and chancing threads offer limited help in that department.</p>
<p>^ my apologies too, I sounded a little too harsh. But then again, keep in mind that in these chancing forums, people often list their “hooks” (socioeconomic underprivileged, URM, recruited athlete, etc.) and in a lot of scenarios these hooks are the very things that override mediocre or unimpressive objective data. Other times, superb essays and recs also get students with slightly average or subpar test scores get in, and I completely agree that the admissions process is very much subjective at times, since there are so many factors. Even those private college counselors (who charge like over 20k haha) can’t predict results 100% of the time though haha, but yeah, I personally think that it doesn’t hurt for upcoming seniors to list their accomplishments/conditions and get sometimes helpful feedback from the CC community.</p>