Why do some people make it sound like its impossible to get into a good school

Applying to College
1

<p>Again I'm not talking about being a student who can get into EVERY school he applies to</p>

<p>I was a good high school student, by no means was it amazing</p>

<p>I'm an ORM
My gpa was like a 3.1, but it was at a private school where 7-8% of students go to good schools. And i was in the top 13% or so
I'm a resident from an overrepresented state
My ACT was really good a 33, but it was by no means perfect actually it was a 32.5</p>

<p>I didn't play sports
I was involved in a handful of activities, wasn't president of anything</p>

<p>I did do stuff related to helping special needs children, research, and math which I felt were special for me, plus all of the stuff kind of intertwined and I was able to create a pretty solid application</p>

<p>I admit my essay was very good, but I'm a very good writer
I also admit my test scores kind of contradicted with my transcript: ie low chemistry grade, very high chemistry subject test score and stuff like that, low bio grade, high bio sat score. Low english grades, Perfect sat English score, high reading score, high essay score, high sat lit score, etc</p>

<p>My rec letters were idk i doubt they could've been that bad</p>

<p>I'm weird, err i guess i have a lot of quirks which I'm open about, I am also rather creative. I was a professional graphics artist/website designer through 10th grade before i stopped.</p>

<p>I applied to:
Penn: rejected
Northwestern - Accepted
Cornell - Accepted
Georgetown - Rejected
Stanford - Rejected
UCB - accepted
Vanderbilt - Accepted
Hopkins - Rejected
Emory - Accepted
NYU - Rejected [but i forgot to send them my rec letters]
UCLA - accept
Duke-ED: Rejected
Chicago-EA- Accepted</p>

<p>The thing is its not impossible to get into a good school
Again it's all because I wasn't planning on getting into every single school, i had no expectations</p>

<p>My friends got rejections too
My friends some of whom were at the top of the class
applied to all of the top schools, and got into like 1 or 2, but who cares they still got into that school or two so what does it matter?</p>

<p>That's the key point, Just because i dont get into "harvard, duke, yale, carnegie mellon" doesn't matter so long as you've gotten into Wash U</p>

<p>This website intially made me feel like I just slipped through the cracks for these acceptances
but I'm doing well at college after an initial slow start 1st semester, deans list the next 2</p>

2

<p>Because people on this website tend to have a HYPSM or fail mindset.</p>

3

<p>I had a higher GPA than you did. My SAT scores translate to a 33 on the ACT. I ranked in the top 3% of my class. My ECs are kind of the same, although I did not do any research.</p>

<p>However, I was rejected or wait listed from all of my reaches and matches. I even come from an under-represented state. I was waitlisted from schools where even my counselor told me that I had a 99% chance of getting accepted.</p>

4

<p>But you said yourself that you went to a “ghetto” high school</p>

<p>that might have done you in</p>

<p>as much as people dont’ watn to admit it</p>

<p>The high school you go to does matter to get into college, the college you go to DOES matter to get a job or to get into grad/med/law school</p>

<p>There’s a reason that my university is saturated with boarding school/prep school kids</p>

5

<p>You are probably right. I guess admission officers expected me to be Val. since my school was academically deficient. I always thought it would have helped me.</p>

6

<p>The fact of the matter is like 30-40% of my school’s student body comes from the same handful of schools</p>

<p>New Trier
Highland Park
Deerfield
Choate Rosemary Hall
St. Mary’s Hall
St. Mark’s
St. Andrews
Harvard-Westlake
Brentwood academy
Lawrenceville
Kent
Andover
Exeter
St Pauls
St George
Taft</p>

<p>etc</p>

<p>Those schools basically fill up like I said maybe 35-40% of the entire student body or more</p>

<p>the fact that the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of other schools only fill up the rest of the student body is kind of important</p>

7

<p>What deontology said.</p>

8

<p>We all can’t just get accepted into Exeter Academy then Go to Harvard, Become a Rhodes Scholar, Work for Goldman Sachs, Enter Wharton for your MBA, become a CEO of a fortune 500 company, Run for governor, become governor, run for president, become president</p>

<p>i guess romney came close? but he’s failed along the way</p>