<p>
</p>
<p>You forgot investment banker at an “elite” Wall Street firm, and upper level or executive management of some company or organization.</p>
<p>Based on turnout, it seems parents are still pretty tense. Come on, let’s lighten up. I’ll add a few more.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I’m doomed unless I apply ED followed by ED2. Can I apply ED2 to the same ED1 school to double my chances?</p></li>
<li><p>I’m doomed because my transcript doesn’t have an upward trend. How do other 4.0 students show upward trend? Please help!</p></li>
<li><p>It’s futile because I’m Asian. Not answering the ethnicity box still does me no good.</p></li>
<li><p>I’ve got to apply Perfect U ED, apply to all its scholarships, visit Perfect U at least four times to cover all seasons, and log on to its portal daily to demonstrate my interest. There must be something else I need to do to show more interest or else I’m doomed.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s not fair that I have to compete against him and BOTH of his parents!</p></li>
<li><p>Am I the only one whose extracurriculars don’t add up to more than 24 hours a day?</p></li>
<li><p>I’m doomed because my parents weren’t smart enough to move to North Dakota and make enough money to make me a full-pay.</p></li>
<li><p>Scrolling down Perfect U’s result thread, I spotted an acceptance with 3.5 GPA and only 2180 SAT. This is a lot worse than mine! Sure enough, the person didn’t even bother to put down his/her ethnicity. Ugh!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>God I’m so dumb. I only have a 2300 on the SAT and my weighted GPA is only a 4.2. I am so inadequate.</p>
<ol>
<li>I need to have a hook or else I’m doomed. Where can I buy one on the cheap?</li>
</ol>
<p>“I’m glad my mom’s the one who spends hours a day on CC. Otherwise I’d feel like a total failure, since I really am an average student (not CC average) with a GPA of ~3.3 and PSAT of 161 (and little to no interest in prepping for the SAT I’m scheduled to take in May).”</p>
<ol>
<li><p>No wonder everyone knows what I do…Mom, stop talking about me on CC!</p></li>
<li><p>It is critical to parenthesize my SAT scores with “single sitting, no prep”. Wish I had known it before I bought the blue book.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Any college worth attending is “highly ranked” or “well-regarded”. The other 3,800 or so aren’t worth mentioning.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Wow, there are so many “couldn’t be happier” kids! What does that even feel like? Does that mean things can only get worse for them?</p></li>
<li><p>Anonymity exposes the Pharisees. An innocuous call for help can elicit the nastiest comments from total strangers.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>At least “highly ranked” is easier to define than “tippy top” . . . that was sooooo 2012. I could never decide which schools on my freshman college list were really tippy top and which ones were just the next best thing to Podunk U.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>There are only two kinds of companies in America, despite the enormous size and vigor of the US economy. Companies which ask my SAT scores and companies which don’t. If I scored over 700 I only want to work for the ones that ask. If I scored below 650 I only want to work for the ones that don’t. regardless of the industry.</p></li>
<li><p>Life is one giant “sorting stick”. I need to go to Stanford so I don’t get sorted into the sucker’s pile of people who work for insurance companies or consumer products companies or state and local government. If I don’t go to Stanford I will never work for a company creating cool social media services which people over the age of 30 think are stupid and a waste of time.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Common misconceptions one may get from reading posts here:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>“GAFAM are the only employers that a computer science major will target working at after graduation.”</p></li>
<li><p>“Weighted high school GPA is meaningful outside of one’s high school.”</p></li>
<li><p>“Admission rate is an accurate way of assessing how difficult a college is to get admitted to.”</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>The best way to decide what college I should pick is by asking the sages of CC, especially the opinions of Senior Members.</p></li>
<li><p>Except for HYPSMC and the rest of the Ivys, which practice crapshoot admissions, all top colleges reject over-qualified applicants like myself. </p></li>
<li><p>Since half of all college students are full-pay and colleges are need-blind, we must be a country full of cheating taxpayers.</p></li>
<li><p>I’ll never get in if I don’t make up stuff on my resume; anyway, they must be lying too.</p></li>
<li><p>I must parenthesize “self-study” after my AP score; otherwise, my score is discounted.</p></li>
<li><p>I already used the word “passion” and its variants bazillion times in my essays, resume and interviews. How else can I show more passion. Btw, what is it anyway?</p></li>
<li><p>There are two great tech schools in SoCal: Caltech and Cal Tech. Why are they so similarly named is beyond me, but which one is easier to get in? Better make a chance thread.</p></li>
<li><p>There are two great unis in the Midwest: WashU and WUSTL. One of my friends got into WashU and another one was waitlisted at WUSTL. I’ll apply to both next year.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>This site is only for the top students. There must be a different site for the other 98%.</p>
<p>Massmom-that would be the “mediocrity” vs. the “meritocracy”.</p>
<p>^There is a CC forum for the other 98%. It is call the “Alphabetic List of Colleges” forum.</p>
<p>LOL on “self-study”</p>
<p>That white guys are blind to the fact that they benefit from diversity preferences.</p>
<p>That you can tell when someone thinks their scholarship or honors college makes them better than other members of their university: they always attach the name of that scholarship to their college name. They didn’t go to UNC Chapel Hill, they were a Morehead Scholar at UNC Chapel Hill.</p>
<p>That “it is what you make it” is a code for “it sucks but I don’t want to admit that.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That does not seem to be as common as referring to “Barrett” without mentioning “Arizona State”.</p>
<p>Assuming that the above are 27 through 29… more misguided assumptions that seem to be common:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>That all state universities in the New England states, New York, or New Jersey are unworthy for any decent student.</p></li>
<li><p>That some category of school (LAC, research university, etc.) is always better or worse than the other categories.</p></li>
<li><p>That only private LACs exist.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>That study abroad is always an incredibly transformative, educational experience. There are no downsides.</li>
</ol>
<p>Okay, I’ll add one more…</p>
<p>That every college worth attending has an option to create your own major and that you have the wisdom at 18 years old to do so.</p>