<p>I don't mean to be offensive and I understand everyone here is nervous about the round of ED/EA decisions that are about to come roughly this coming week (including me), but some of these chances threads have got to stop. I look these threads and all I see are posts of people with ACT scores in the 30's with a GPA and EC's to die for and are not sure if they will get into college. If your test scores and rankings are in the top 5% you obviously have a good shot at getting into your dream school. The problem with the threads though are that they can create a false positive for people. I hate to say this, but all of the opinions of the people on this site about your chances do not count nor matter. The only opinions that count are of the 5-10 admissions board members behind closed doors in the admissions office at the university you're applying to. None of us do not know what is going through their mind when they read your application. For all you know, they could be in a great mood and decide to accept you immediately or could be in a bad mood with a vendetta against the world that day and decide to reject you. You may be the 1st applicant they read that is a violinist or whatever the talent and decide that they will take you, or you could be the 500th and they will reject you since they already have enough. You might not be as strong of a candidate as some on this board, but because your application was one of the first to be considered and they have yet to fill spots, they'll accept you being that the class is relatively empty. You could be a very strong candidate, but you are one of the last applicants to be considered and they reject you because they don't have anymore spots available. Sometimes, the board members vote with their heart or gut to admit people that you wouldn't expect to be admitted.
For lack of a better analogy, the admissions process (I'm talking about the really competative schools) is almost like the lottery. You pick out your numbers and stats (GPA, EC's and test scores) depending on your performance in school and you hope that the admissions people pick out those numbers and stats that you have with the prize being an admissions letter. Our play slip is the application and the money gambled is our application fee (although if we do win this lottery, instead of getting money, we end up paying a lot more money than our original risk in tuition, go figure :D). The results are different every time just like the lottery. Earlier they might have admitted a person with an ACT score of 30, but not the next applicant with the same score because they didn't have the other numbers that admissions was seeking.
Sorry if it sounds like I'm ranting, but for most of you, your odds are very good with the high scores you present, but you have to take every opinion here with a grain of salt because the votes and opinions here are not what get you admitted. Best of luck to everyone.</p>
<p>true that.</p>
<p>Oh, we all know that you are more than correct. It's just nice to have encouragement in a time of great anxiety.</p>
<p>Choco,
I understand that, but like I said they can create a false positive. The person might be a valedictorian, but there is the chance they can still get rejected to Harvard or Princeton. It's kind of like when I took the AP US History test. The MC portion was read by a computer so it was just a numbers game there, but the 3 essays I wrote were read by a person. It's a luck of the draw who you get there and its the same luck regarding his mood. He might be in a great mood and think your paper is great and give you a higher score, or he could be in a bad mood think every paper he read so far was garbage.</p>
<p>Um, isn't the point of chances to see how well you stack up against schools? There is still a lot of applying left to be done and it is nice to try to figure which schools you are compatible with.</p>
<p>is this one paragraph?
ridiculous...</p>
<p>No it isn't one paragraph, the computer wouldn't let me indent.</p>
<p>I understand there are people on here that are not sure what would be a good fit with their stats if their numbers are less than perfect. I'm only directing my frustration to the people that say, do you think I'll get accepted to Harvard or Princeton with a 5.0 GPA and a 35 on the ACT's. Well you fall into the top 1% on the ACT's, it's obvious that's a good score, but honestly, nobody knows if you'll get in or not except the admissions board. If you fall into the range on what the college says is the range of the admitted pool, you have a good shot. I just don't see the point of people asking if they have a chance when they know being valedictorian is a good thing to put down.</p>
<p>My point......I don't think it's good to get people's hopes up even if someone has good scores. There's always the chance they'll get rejected even with perfect grades. If they get rejected, it's just going to make them more heartbroken because everyone here said that they had a good chance. Half the fun of waiting is the unknown.</p>
<p>Hahaha HALF THE FUN IS WAITING !? Omg... right after I submitted my application i was getting ulcers and freaking out . >0< But there's nothing I can do about it...wish I had more fun with the essays though...but good luck everyone !</p>
<p>waiting -----> fun.. yeah right.. lol..</p>
<p>ps: even I don't like 'chances' thread.. But who knows when I am about to die waiting.. I'll post one too!!!!!!l</p>