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<p>I looked up the figures from Princeton, Dartmouth and Brown (one didn’t report the GPA figure like they were supposed to- I forget which one). Anyway, the average unweighted GPA last year for the 2 schools combined was just under a 3.9/ So, the OP’s 3.9 is not “kinda low”. It is actually very slightly above average.</p>
<p>Only on CC would a GPA of 3.9 be considered kind of low. But GPAs are pretty meaningless if you don’t have them with in the context of the school. At our high school a 3.9 would put you in the top 1% of the class. At others they give out 4.0s like candy.</p>
<p>A 3.9 GPA and high SATs might merely get you out of the immediate reject pile. </p>
<p>After that, I’m not sure the Chess Club or the $1,500 raised (how much of it came from relatives?) or the “honor societies” that merely recapitulated the GPA/SAT scores helped much.</p>
<p>It’s a just result, and indicates clearly how much this ISN’T a crapshoot or a lottery. Congrats to the adcoms.</p>
<p>alright, first of all I didn’t put down every single activity I listed on my common app in this thread. Second, you didn’t even consider that I did XC and Track, which take up 2+ hours per week. I took the amc and aime, and I participated in the Princeton Math Competition. In addition I did some programs over the summer and other activities as well. I understand that I got rejected, and there’s nothing I can do about it, so I have to move on. However, that doesn’t mean the admissions process is fair. Naviance predicted I would get into JHU and Lehigh, but I got wait listed at those schools as well. And to those people who say I’m arrogant, when have I been arrogant? Yes I am complaining, but I have a reasonable complaint. This kid from my school was rejected by all the ivies as well.
"Hi, I’m a rising senior at a school very near Princeton and am thinking of applying early action to Princeton University. Please tell me what you think my chances are!</p>
<p>SAT I: 740 CR, 800 M, 790 W (2330)
SAT II: 770 chem, 800 Math II
Unweighted GPA: 3.9
Weighted GPA: 4.7</p>
<p>Classes Taken Freshman Year: Bio Honors(A), Geo Honors(A), La I Honors(B), Spanish 3 Acc.(A) , World History(A), Computer Programming(A)</p>
<p>Classes Taken Sophomore Year: AP Chem(A), AP Comp Sci(A), Precalc Honors(A), LA II Honors(A), AS I Honors(A), Spanish 4 Honors(A)</p>
<p>Classes Taken Junior Year: AP Bio(B), AP USH(A), AP Spanish(A), AP Calc AB(A), AP Lang(A), Physics Honors(A)</p>
<p>Classes That Will Be Taken Senior Year: Princeton University Course CHM 201, Princeton University Course COS 126, AT Physics, Monsters Honors (for english)</p>
<p>APs Taken: Chem(5), Bio, CompSci(5), MacroEcon, MicroEcon, Spanish, Lang, USH, Calc AB
Haven’t received the scores for this years aps yet</p>
<p>Extracurricular Activities: President of Model United Nations (ranked 3rd in the Nation this year), President of Student Athletes for Community Services, 4 Years Varsity Tennis (will be Captain senior year) (ranked 2nd in state this year), Secretary of Math Honors Society, Publicist of Leo Club, Internship at Rutgers University with Chemistry Professor for 6 weeks, South Asian Club, A2Z mentoring club</p>
<p>Job / Work Experience: Tennis teacher
Volunteering: Student Athletes for Community Services volunteering, A2Z Mentoring over 100 Hours worth of volunteering</p>
<p>Major Awards: 7 Model United Nations awards at Conferences hosted by Rutgers, uPenn, Princeton, Georgetown, and GWU, 2nd Place (silver medal) at Mercer County Tennis Tournament as 2nd Doubles position on team, Math Honors Society certificate, Accepted to Princeton University High School Program,</p>
<p>Essays: Hopefully Good
Counselor Rec: Very good
Teacher Recs: Very Very good, both Princeton alumni if that helps</p>
<p>State: NJ
School: Very competitive, Ranked 2nd in state for SAT scores
Ethnicity: Indian
Sex: Male
Hook: idk if this is one but…taking actual Princeton University classes in the fall and spring semester including the chem lab, and precepts for both computer science and chemistry"
Do you think he wasn’t qualified for the ivies?
Anyway I’m ok with being rejected, and I’ve gotten over it, but I do have a problem with people saying the college admissions process is fair. It’s not.</p>
<p>Neither is life</p>
<p>Who said it was fair?</p>
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<p>The Lehigh waitlist may be a case of Tufts syndrome (where a school doesn’t accept you because they know you’re so well qualified that you’re going to go somewhere else). </p>
<p>Unless you have a girlfriend at Lehigh or some other personal reason for going there, I can’t see why you would have wanted to go to Lehigh anyway, given that you have three more highly respected schools – UCB, UCLA, and Carnegie Mellon – to choose from.</p>
<p>And no, it isn’t fair. But you came out of this unfair process with some excellent schools to choose from. Many of the parents here have been impressed with your ability to get past your disappointment and start moving forward toward making your decision among the three fine schools that accepted you. </p>
<p>Go buy your tickets and plan your trips. I think you’ll be very pleasantly surprised at how much you like the schools that you have to choose from.</p>
<p>Life isn’t fair, but colleges should be fair in their admissions decisions. When the decisions go against you, it’s natural to want to know why, and to wonder if they were fair.</p>
<p>OP, the fact that you were waitlisted at Lehigh is what makes me wonder if there was something negative in your application package. It might be something you know about (ie., if you had to explain why you were suspended, or why you got a low grade an an academic course). It might be something you don’t know about, like a recommendation that said something negative–or just not positive enough. Personally, I’m skeptical about the impact of essays, unless you said something particularly bad in one of them.</p>
<p>One other point–while you probably did spend a huge amount of time on cross country, if you weren’t good enough to run for the colleges you applied to, this is probably not something that will help you at the most selective colleges. While it’s true that they want you to show passion, what they really want is for you to show passion in something that you’re really, really good at doing.</p>
<p>Lehigh likes applicants to visit and show interest. It’s popular in NJ (where the OP is from) and I’ve heard a couple of stories of high stats kids being denied or waitlisted there. In both cases, the students did not visit, interview, or otherwise “show love.” One of the applicants is now at the USNA (much harder to wangle an admission there). Go figure.</p>
<p>Geography might be a factor in the OP’s results as well. High stats applicants in the Northeast/Midatlantic are a dime a dozen. It’s not fair but that’s how it goes. Kids on the coasts need to look further.</p>
<p>
Not only is this an obnoxious statement, it’s absurd. Unless you’ve seen all the details of all his competition you have no way of knowing whether this is “just” or not - if there is even an objective consensus definition for “just”.</p>
<p>I’m certain the system is not a “lottery” in any literal sense, but the idea that anyone would suggest that a single result with absolutely no context says anything about the system as a whole is even more laughable.</p>
<p>It’s one thing to explain things to a kid, to help them to understand that things don’t always turn out the way we expected them to turn out. To get him/her to start to look at things in a different light.</p>
<p>it is another thing to say nasty, bullying things designed to hurt an already wounded kid. Is rejection not enough? Do we also have to kick sand in his eyes?</p>
<p>I get a little bit tired of this coming from the adults around here. Boy aren’t WE smart and witty? </p>
<p>Honestly, people, grow up.</p>
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<p>Don’t hold your breath. I know I’ve posted some nasty things myself, but I’m certain it wasn’t personal commentary on a kid’s application days after disappointing decisions. Particularly when the kid is obviously high achieving based on the places he was admitted, and hasn’t said or even implied anything particularly inflammatory. </p>
<p>One kid, or group of kids posted something about “racist colleges” last admissions season and I was one of the crowd calling them on the carpet for their use of the term “racist.” But it would never occur to me to malign them personally, or minimize their accomplishments.</p>
<p>Well, all I know is that we all occaisonally say stupid things on here, and we all always also have the opportunity to apologize. I have done so myself.</p>
<p>“I’m certain the system is not a “lottery” in any literal sense, but the idea that anyone would suggest that a single result with absolutely no context says anything about the system as a whole is even more laughable.”</p>
<p>Excuse me, but the OP provided the context. He provided his GPA, his test scores, and what HE thought was most relevant - his clubs, his honors, his ethnicity, his charity, and his speech impediment. You can read it in post number one. </p>
<p>He thinks he got rejected because he’s Indian. “I’m aware of the fact that the college adcoms want to build a diverse class, and the fact that I’m Indian is a problem,…” I have an Indian-born daughter. And I find this insulting to our intelligence, and to Indians generally speaking.</p>
<p>He received two great admissions. There’s no need for a pity party.</p>
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And from one poster’s resume you draw conclusions about the entire applicant pool and that poster’s competitive position in the pool. </p>
<p>He made an offhand remark about his enthnicity and the fact that universities consider that. He did not appear to emphasize or dwell on that. It is a factor many universities consider. I don’t think that’s even debatable. Was that the reason he was rejected? No, and if he thought that was the reason he was rejected he would likely have said so. People aren’t typically shy about that.</p>
<p>Regardless, if he inadvertantly insulted you I don’t see that as a reason to pick apart his application and applaud his rejection.</p>
<p>rd2012 – Sorry there is so little sympathy for your situation. – you worked hard in high school and had hopes for more admits. I completely empathize with why you feel the way you do and assume you likely go to a high school that over emphasizes Ivies and your peers/maybe GC’s suggested you were shoo-in for schools you were not admitted to but you have had a hard lesson in elite College admissions are “not fair”. However time to move on. Some thought so consider: First if you would otherwise have to borrow money, seriously consider Rutgers full ride. You will get an excellent education and will have more money for grad school tuition. Rutgers can be a hassle for bureaucratic reasons but it is an excellent school. Second, if money is no issue, both Rutgers and UC Berkeley are fine schools but both are in states with financial difficulties and the schools have suffered as a result from state cutbacks. And until 2008 I held Berkley as an equal to/or better than those schools you are upset about but cutbacks have hurt it and I do not know how badly. Buyer beware and ask questions before accepting. They need your out of state tuition $$. If you can afford CMU its an excellent school. UNC also very good rep but I personally don’t know as much about it so offer no thoughts. It is also a state school and I know nothing of health of state of NC. Good luck to you and I hope in a year you feel fate actually dealt you a “lucky break”…</p>
<p>I think if the OP was a member of quite a number of groups other than ‘Indian’ his admission results would have been much better.</p>
<p>The exact same kid would have had different results if he lived in Idaho instead of New Jersey (in my opinion). That may be fair, and it may even be just, but it’s sure annoying if you’re the kid from New Jersey.</p>
<p>What I find laughable is not the idea of crap shoots and lotteries, but that every year those parents whose kids got their multiple tickets to the ball of their choice have all the advice in the world thinking they got it exactly right and moreover, there must have been a deficiency in the OP’s application or his person to somehow not have. While I do think if you live in NJ showing some demonstrated interest vs the kid who lives in California ought to be easy, I just don’t think pontificating about the insightfulness of the system now that your kid got in over someone else is really looking at the whole picture, especially over time. I don’t think all schools are a crap shoot but I do think we are getting rather homogenous in how we are encouraging kids to even apply, which surely isn’t helpful to supporting the crap shoot mentality. Great grades, Forensics, athletics, volunteering, cancer cure, blah blah blah. :)</p>
<p>I’ve now been through this three times over the course of 10 years. Each kid was completely different in what they were looking for and where they could fit in terms of their stats, but each year there also seems to be some really wild, kind of surprising rejection OR admission. Fortunately, our goal has always been to land with a choice, and I was actually kind of ticked at younger D when she said AFTER she applied that she didn’t even care about one of them. My point was, what if that’s the ONLY one? Not smart. Her risk though. The point however is that there are too many pieces to the puzzle for anyone to say, “my kid got in everywhere simply because he (I) did everything exactly the right way”, because if that same kid put in those same applications at those same schools next year or last year, the results might have been different. It’s just the nature of the beast. One year, Middlebury accepts 4 students from our HS, the next 0, the next 2…all kids with similar stats at the exact same HS. All I am saying is that you just never know what year it is until it’s over.</p>
<p>OP: There is no way anyone on this site can say why your impressive qualifications didn’t add up to an Ivy admission. I’m sorry for your disappointment. Now, however, you have the opportunity to show what you’re made of. Take a few more days to feel bad if you must. But then pick one of the outstanding schools that has admitted you and make up your mind to excel.</p>
<p>If I can offer one additional bit of wisdom: Comparing yourself to other people is a fool’s game. Commit to being your best self, always, and the rest will sort itself out.</p>