<p>I worked extremely hard throughout high school. I pretty much gave up any form of a social life that I could have had, took on the hardest classes, studied for tests hours on end, and competed endlessly in countless extracurriculars. Why? To get into a good college. The results? Mediocre. I have a 4.0 which sounds ridiculous to some application officers when the next kid has a 5.6 gpa. My SAT was a 2080 which is pathetic next to a kid with a 2350. My extracurriculars? Well so what if I was a lawyer in mock trial, made it on quizbowl, or volunteered abroad? I didn't cure cancer did I?</p>
<p>I guess the reason for my grief is that I didn't get into my early decision school. I applied to a relatively easy school so that I could just be in college and stop worrying. I was shocked when I got turned down. I mean I am applying to mostly difficult schools to get into (Brandeis, John Hopkins...) I don't want to end up going to the same college that another kid who smoked his way through high school does.</p>
<p>Do you have a question? I see from another thread you applied to Barnard which has ~25% admission rate, and your scores are below the 50%ile. And your 3.8GPA on your chances thread is about the 50%ile. Why would you think a school with a 25% admission rate is easy to get into??</p>
<p>You need to find one or more affordable schools where your stats are well above average, but where you’d be happy. Find this information on the schools’ admissions sites. Don’t just apply to places like Johns Hopkins and Brandeis, because you might be disappointed come spring.</p>
<p>Also: there is way too much emphasis on cc on getting into a super-elite college, as if that were the end of it. People who are by some chance accepted at a school where everybody is better prepared and quicker on the uptake than they are, are generally going to be miserable. Especially if you have worked hard in high school, so that your performance gives a good picture of your abilities, you are better off aiming at schools where your stats put you in about the 75th-80th percentile of admitted students. That will give you plenty of academic peers, but the pace of the courses will not be overwhelming. You are more likely to get faculty attention, research opportunities, etc. if you are among the better students, not at the middle or bottom of the class wherever you happen to go. And you will have time to have more fun as well.</p>
<p>Instate public schools can be excellent options as safety schools, and are often underrated by applicants because “everybody applies there” or because they do not seem sufficiently exotic. Well, so what. Because many people attend these schools for financial reasons, or because they want to stay close to home, the top kids at such schools are as good as the smart kids anywhere. It doesn’t matter whether a “kid who smoked his way through high school” is also attending–that kid will not be the one you will be forming a study group with, or choosing as your lab partner.</p>
<p>If you mean Barnard, you were mistaken, but I suppose that’s obvious now.</p>
<p>There’s no way to know why you were rejected, though, as ED noted above, your scores are suggestive. As essay phrase can sometimes suggest a poor match for a school. E.g., if “so that I could just be in college and stop worrying” came through in your essay, that could be why. There are so many possible reasons.</p>
<p>For schools of interest, google for their “common data set” and check sections C9 to C12. Because of the way yields work, you need to be at around the 67th %ile of values to have about an average 50% statistical chance of admission, but such numbers are really rough and not valid for all schools.</p>
<p>There are tons of good schools that would be happy to have you. Your stats are similar to my D’s. By national standards they are excellent. Do they mean you can sail into Brandeis, Barnard, Vassar or Hopkins? Absolutely not. Go for them if you want, but don’t count on anything.</p>
<p>There’s lots of room between the super-elite schools and the stoner schools. Places where you’d be a strong candidate and get a fine education. Colby, Dickinson, American, Connecticut College, Clark, Skidmore, Smith, Muhlenberg, Goucher, BU, Fordham… I could go on and on. You still have a little time to get in some good-fit applications.</p>
<p>Have some faith in yourself! You’re a good student. Just be realistic.</p>
<p>researching4emb, youre post just made me feel so much better. It is nice to know that there are people who understand the stressfulness of this process!</p>
<p>how is it possible to have a 5.6 gpa? or was that just an exaggeration. because here at my school 5.0 is the tippy top, and no one ever even gets that. </p>
<p>i think you’re being a little unrealistic. i mean, john hopkins is a pretty good school, same for brandeis. and a 25% acceptance rate is nowhere near high. </p>
<p>i think that you need some safeties. you have a chance i think at john hopkins, but you need something to fall back on.</p>
<p>You’re supposed to have a couple of safeties… schools with around 50% acceptance rate, not 25%. There should be many schools that you can apply to; most of the schools on my list are due on January 15th… so it’s not too late.</p>
<p>There is a differentiation between weighted and unweighted GPA, different school districts work differently. If you’ve gotten straight A’s throughout highschool, colleges will definitely take that into account.</p>
<p>If you focus on schools you like, not on schools with selective admissions rates, then you shouldn’t be worried about not getting accepted anywhere.</p>
<p>I think you should make a list of three or so qualities in a school that are high priority for you, branch out from there, and then search for colleges that fit the traits in that list. Then seperate the colleges into different categories: reaches (anything 25% or lower is, in my opinion), matches, and safeties. In each of those categories figure out which colleges you’d want to go to most-- not considering the schools in other categories.</p>
<p>And then blammo! Those are the colleges you apply to. Then wherever you get in you should still be at least moderately happy and thus able to achieve.</p>