<p>No one ever really wanted to go to U of Wisconsin or Oregon, they just ended up there because they couldn’t get into an Ivy. Those stands full of cheering, happy kids are just faking it, because they’d rather be at the Harvard-Yale game. Thank God they have beer to drowned their sorrows.</p>
<ol>
<li> High school students in New Jersey want to go anywhere but Rutgers for college.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>The stories that some jobs are essentially shut off to those without HYP level prestige (basically, front-office jobs for investment banks) are all lies.</p></li>
<li><p>Where you go for grad or law school matters more than where you get your BA.</p></li>
<li><p>Employers don’t care whether you do two years at a community college and then transfer to Berkeley, or go to Berkeley all the way through.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Even in my old age, where I was accepted at 17 will still be my crowning achievement. People MUST know.</p></li>
<li><p>If I’m not good enough for Perfect U now, I can always go there for grad school.</p></li>
<li><p>Except for Amy Chua and my parents, no parents ever push their kids, not even Senior Members with 20,000+ postings on their highly accomplished offspring. </p></li>
<li><p>The best way to get responses to your pressing questions on CC is to create a thread and stick the word “Ivy” somewhere in the title. Challenging the rankings of HYPSM works equally well too. If you don’t believe me, try “Is Berkeley better than Ivy League?” Such discussion threads usually last for weeks, if not years, and they can only be stopped by Super Moderator on the ground of multiple violations of CC etiquette. </p></li>
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<ol>
<li>Who cares. It’s not like I’m going to make it anyway(ignoring the fact that I actually have a decent shot).</li>
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<p>re #92. but do not include “Ivy” in the Shut Out title. It’s understood that what the title meant, shut out of the Ivies, not all schools</p>
<ol>
<li>I’ll be damned if I ever apply to colleges with different cultures, environments or academic strengths. Doing so would prove that I undoubtedly committed the “applied without doing research” misdemeanor and, even more gravely, would expose me as a prestige chaser/trophy hunter – a felony punishable by death of my screen name and avatar, and I’ll be ostracized without a hearing.</li>
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<p>And while the CC parents tell their high achieving kids to slow down, relax and have some life, the kids insist on their own to to do even more. Parents “worry” a bit about them but the kids are literally un-stoppable and do everything on their own.They are truly <em>that</em> accomplished from within. And of course it is never the parent’s dream school. It is the kid’s.</p>
<ol>
<li> Students routinely apply to schools which have weak or nonexistent programs in any major that they are possibly interested in. Sometimes, such a school becomes a student’s “dream school” for non-academic reasons.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Although we agree that prestige does not matter Harvard and Stanford are by far the BEST schools. Actually, since Stanford “blew Harvard out of the water” (by 0.8%) in acceptance rates this year, it has to be the best school. Look, numbers do not lie. It is very important to know which school is in the top because statistics have to mean something.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>You can’t go to your own state’s flagship if it doesn’t have a major called biomedical engineering or neuroscience.<br></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>If you don’t know what all the acronyms mean, you surely should not be applying and it’s a dead giveaway you’re from the west coast.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Once I get into the perfect U and get the perfect degree, the perfect job with fabulous salary and benefits will fall into my lap. </p></li>
<li><p>I am a very special snowflake and should get full funding to the school of my choice because of how hard I worked in HS. I deserve it. Going to State U would be terrible, even if it means that my parents will take out gnormous loans because the funding actually received wasn’t enough to cover more than the cost of books at Perfect U.</p></li>
<li><p>I can easily repay any loan very quickly with the great salary I will get when I graduate from Perfect U, with highest honors of course. I will be highly sought after by all the recruiters who come to court me at Perfect U and fly me to their HQ to persuade me to accept their generous job offer. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>“Dream school” is not an oxymoron. </p>
<p>1900 is really a below average SAT score.</p>
<p>If you score 2160 you really should retake.</p>
<p>Retaking will help you get into Top 10 universities, even if it’s your 5th time and you started practicing in 8th grade. Which, by the way, is totally normal.</p>
<p>I scored 2340, should I retake the test?</p>
<p>Yes you should. Statistics show that a perfect 2400 ensures something a 2340 totally doesn’t.</p>
<p>Every student needs to dig a well in a third world country if he wants to get in to a good college. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Girls are automatically accepted into top tech schools just by showing up. They don’t even need to complete their apps.</p></li>
<li><p>I can always defend a low college GPA by telling people I’m in ENGINEERING.</p></li>
<li><p>99% of the students have below average SATs and are hopeless in elite college admissions. The top 1% students MUST determine whether they should retake the test by starting their own ask-for-help threads detailing their aspirations and accomplishments to date and – THIS IS CRITICAL – whether their prior tests were taken with prep or no prep.</p></li>
<li><p>An NMSF/NMF has done a heck of a lot more than someone who just has high stats.</p></li>
<li><p>The feeling I have from a campus visit is exactly how I will feel about that school two years later.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Related to 111, how good the school is at recruiting students with nice smiles and strong arms or perky breasts to give tours is a meaningful indicator of its academic status.</p></li>
<li><p>It is standard for parents to complain about rising tuition and the wasting of money on administrators and student facilities, but then to complain that there weren’t enough administrators to suck up to them on a tour ('they left us standing out in the rain!), or that the gym facilities look a bit dated.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li> (relating to 111, 112, 113) “Visits are the most essential part of selecting a college, more so than checking academic offerings, net price calculators, and scholarships.”</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>You must visit every school at least three times: initial visit, accepted students day and for an overnight. If your parents can’t afford to send you to all these visits, you have no business considering these schools. ONLY apply to schools you can visit multiple times.</li>
</ol>