<p>i guess the way i see it (and i was very sad about my princeton rejection for about 48 hours, but haven’t really thought about it since) is that though those students may very well have been more accomplished and impressive at age 16 or 17 or 18 than we were, but that’s hardly a guarantee that they still are today, or that they’ll always be. i think that’s too deterministic. </p>
<p>in my particular case, it seems obvious looking back that i was a late bloomer; i dabbled in art, writing, chemistry, and a number of other things, but i never had that one defining “passion” that successful hypsm applicants are said to. in college, i’ve discovered that i love american politics and public policy – not a self-evident obsession for someone born in europe!</p>
<p>so i spent my freshman summer at a d.c. nonprofit with housing and expenses fully funded by dartmouth, and my sophomore fall campaigning for obama with the college democrats; i’m set to declare a double major in government and geography with a minor in public policy; i’m right now writing budgets and proposals for a new policy initiative that i’m starting up on campus, and it’s looking like it’ll get funded. i’m really excited! even though i still love art and wish i could do more of it, i’m more focused and motivated than i ever was in high school (and after a rough start due to illness freshman year, i get better grades, too).</p>
<p>it’s true that the cachet of having harvard, yale, or princeton on your resume is second to none; it’s also true that their alumni network is unparalleled. but i guess i still don’t fully believe that the college you attend is the determining factor in whether you’ll have your dream job ten years from now, especially not at such high levels (hypsm versus “lower ivies”). </p>
<p>and of course this is all anecdotal, but if i’ve changed from an admittedly intelligent, but also (it must be said) aimless and self-centered little kid into someone who’s passionate and focused and actually doing something with herself… then who am i to presume that everyone else at all these schools will stay at exactly the same level as they were in high school? just as there are kids at lower-ranked schools who needed a few more years to realize their full potential, i’m sure there are kids at hypsm who won’t live up to theirs.</p>
<p>i mean, i’m sure if you did a pure statistical analysis of the quality of the student bodies of all these schools, the hypsm kids would have a higher mean and perhaps (?) a smaller standard deviation… but i bet they’d still be normal distributions, and i think the curves would overlap to a great extent. i’m just not convinced that the hypsm kids will categorically be more accomplished and impressive for the rest of their lives; the probability is likely somewhat higher, but i doubt the difference is that great.</p>
<p>this may all have been complete nonsense; i’m no good at statistics… the original point was something about determinism. sorry about the ramble. :o</p>
<p>edit: uh, this sounds really conceited. all i meant is that looking at my college application, you would never have predicted this is where i’d end up (academically, extracurricularly, and otherwise). i certainly would never have guessed. so based on my admittedly subjective experience, i don’t really believe that where i got into college almost two years ago is that much of a litmus test of character and potential.</p>