<p>This really has nothing to do with race. Yes the colleges want diversity, but they just won’t accept ANY African-American. They look at their ECs, test scores, stats and everything else like all other races. Everyone deserves an equal opprtunity to education, and of course schools can’t discriminate.</p>
<p>When you’re scoring 2200+ on your SAT, a 100 or even 200 point advantage from anyone else will probably not make much of a difference.</p>
<p>Your activities/leadership roles show no connection to your area of academic interest (Government). </p>
<p>You got into amazing schools anyway. This is the kind of thread that just ****es people off.</p>
<p>@MarinebioSax I agree, they do not see the big picture, they just see a rejection letter, so they have to vent.</p>
<p>@princessla92, You said it, they will not just accept any black student, but a qualified black student :)</p>
<p>This is sad. I can only imagine that every African American you’ll meet at college or the workplace will be presumed by you that they’re only there because they’re black. Will you automatically think the same of the hockey player or woman’s track star?</p>
<p>You can’t accept that Harvard or Yale or whatever – they are what they are because they are an excellent collection of diverse and high performing kids. Your def’n of “qualified” doesn’t mean you automatically get a spot. You might be the one of fifteen kids with the exact same profile. And that’s why you don’t get a spot. Live with it.</p>
<p>Frankly, my alma mater accepted you and I regret it.</p>
<p>@T26E4 , This shows us how close-minded some people are. In addition to, the majority of people they interact with, looks like them. If they have a life and experience more than what they see other than their own homes, neighborhoods, and schools, they will notice that their thinking is poisoned and viewpoint of others is a disgrace.</p>
<p>College acceptance is not a reward for past achievement but a guess aabout future achievement. It is an art not a science and quantitative data is merely a part of the process. I am not going to smack you around for what you wrote–although it is whine–but rather I am going to upbraid you for not getting over the rejection. jeesh. let it go…you have got great choices ahead of you…stop complaining about the one that got away-- are you just collecting “skins for the trophy wall”? I had friends at Yale who never got over being rejected about the “thin letter” from Harvard. They never had the great time at Yale as they could because they had a chip on their shoulder. How sad.</p>
<p>So knock it off. Stop posting in the Harvrd forum and start reading/posting at the Yale or other colleges’ fora where you were accepted.</p>
<p>Don’t you love it when people cry about one rejection, while having been accepted to schools that are equally as good (some may argue, even better)?
Unbelievable. Some people got rejected from all their dream schools and you have the audacity to complain about being rejected from one school? If that wasn’t enough, let’s start a affirmative action debate and blame the minorities for your rejection! Just be glad your other schools didn’t pick up on your sense of entitlement.</p>
<p>@etondad, Amen</p>
<p>Are you seriously whining with those other schools having accepted you? Go back home…</p>
<p>I got WLed at 4 Ivies (including Harvard), and I’ll be attending WUSTL if nothing changes.</p>
<p>While I love WUSTL, I would do anything in the world to have a Yale acceptance. I’m over it now, but please be happy with what you got. I’ve been told by many that I “did everything I could have” (was involved 4.0/2340, good recs, etc.), and I don’t mean to sound preachy, but I’ve accepted it as fate or bad luck or maybe my “normal-ness” that I didn’t get into any Ivies. (I’m after the experience, not the name, though, so I’ll be more than okay at WUSTL.)</p>
<p>What I can’t figure out is why is it ALWAYS an African American taking someones spot? !!!What about the white males, white females, etc taking a spot. If you look at Harvard’s acceptance thread, there are WHITE males, females, Asians etc with ‘less’ qualifications than OP getting into Ivies as well!!! But they always point to the few 100 or so spots that an ‘undeserving’ African American gets! I never realized that the most underrepresented group can take the thousands of spots from all these students. You would think they make up 70% of the student body based on these posts. </p>
<p>Every rejection thread I have read, turns into a URM bash. Its ridiculous.</p>
<p>I got rejected by 5 Ivies and will be attending WUSTL as well. Some kids with the same “economic background” as me with “worse” qualifications, but who are URMs and legacies got in while I didn’t. Too bad, that’s how the system works. I know that I will have an amazing time and WashU and will take advantage of all the opportunities that I have access to and will probably be just as successful as if I had decided to do the EXACT SAME thing at Harvard. Everything is what you make of it. Kids from XY state school get into Harvard Med while I’m sure at least a few kids from Harvard undergrad get rejected from every med school they apply to. There’s no point in being hung up on the past because there’s so much in store for you in you future, clearly @allcapella, if you had the stuff to get into schools of that caliber.</p>
<p>Smitty - good post. People dont seem to realize there is an artificial cap to get closer to a diverse student body at each of the top schools and if you need to blame somebody, it should be someone in your own race, state, school, that has taken precedence over you. If URMs get a set 20% of the seats, they are displacing other URMs to get that seat and not someone who feels entitled to it because of some perfect score.</p>
<p>I understand it is to create a more diverse school. I just think race should play no factor in the decision. It shouldn’t matter if you are black, white, asian, or indian. It should instead be based strictly on the talent, character and caliber of the applicant. This isn’t unique to Harvard though. I know proposing this would change college admissions all together.</p>
<p>I know I should be happy that I got in where I did, and I certainly am. I’m probably going to go to Yale or MIT.</p>
<p>You shouldn’t complain. With the way affirmative action works, the only group that “loses” spots in any significant way is asians. Affirmative action does not affect whites negatively or positively, so you can’t really complain about that. I’ve seen the link for this study, but I forgot where it was.</p>
<p>Being an African American qualified to attend and do well at an HYPS caliber school does not translate into automatic admission to all of the above. One of my good friends here, who is a genius and a wonderful person from a Great Plains state (relevant because geographical diversity), is an African American girl who was a deferred-reject from Yale. “Would I have gotten into Harvard and Princeton, in addition to Yale and MIT, if I was African American? Clearly, yes!” is just not true.</p>
<p>nvm, this is like beating a dead horse anyway.</p>
<p>'From OP-‘I just think race should play no factor in the decision. It shouldn’t matter if you are black, white, asian, or indian. It should instead be based strictly on the talent, character and caliber of the applicant’</p>
<p>Talent, character, and caliber are also subjective. Who decides that? There will still be thousands complaining or trying to shape admissions to improve their chances of being accepted. Someone will always make an argument as to ‘why’ they should be accepted, and another student with ‘less talent, character, and caliber’ shouldn’t be.</p>
<p>Once again I’m impressed with Harvard. It looks like they made the right call while some of their peer schools were fooled. Nobody likes a sore loser. And a sore winner, like the OP, is even harder to stomach.</p>
<p>This thread quickly became merely another tiresome Affirmative Action rant. CC already has a thousand of them. (yawn). Wake me when it’s over.</p>
<p>Stats were fantastic but EC’s weren’t great… gotta agree that they did not show passion toward intended major. But congrats on the colleges you did get accepted to. They are excellent schools and I’m sure you’ll do great. Just let it go and enjoy your time there.</p>