<p>Okay, this may seem like an unnecessary rant, but I would really like to see if anyone agrees with me...</p>
<p>I decided to take a look at this website for the first time in ages. After a few minutes browsing the Yale forum I felt over-whelmed with that familiar soul-destroying crash of confidence as I read yet another "Chance a nervous 2400 SAT Valedictorian!"-esq post. </p>
<p>Then I realized that some of the other people who were applying, and lots of them with similarly impressive stats, had posted over 500+ times on this website. </p>
<p>What bugs me is that most of these people (with the 500+ plus posts) will probably get into Yale/MIT/Williams etc. But why should they?? those places are all about fostering INTELLECTUAL CURIOUSITY and finding people with genuine passions in the sciences or arts; equally, I would imagine that they are after kids who will bring life and charisma to the college. NOT people who spend all day long posting on a website!!!!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>Spending all day on a website is not inherently inferior to spending all day doing something else, though our society does attach a stigma to it. And it certainly doesn’t preclude someone from having intellectual curiosity and genuine passion.</p>
<p>500+ posts doesn’t mean they spend all day on the site. Those posts could have been accumulated over a couple of years.</p>
<p>How about you post what you do with your free time so we can all talk about how useless whatever it is that you do is?</p>
<p>First off, sorry if I’ve offended you, or anyone else - I realize that my post was a little harsh!</p>
<p>But I’m not going to pretend that I think spending all day long on a website is the type of thing that 17 year old’s aiming for the best colleges should be doing. If that’s what they’re going to be doing when they get to university, then they’re not going to add much to the campus community.</p>
<p>You took the time to type out your post. Even worse, you responded to other people’s responses to your post within minutes. Therefore, by your logic, you are not adding anything to whatever community it is you are a part of.</p>
<p>These valedictorians with perfect SATs work VERY hard to get where they are. If anything, their post count shows their dedication towards college-related matters, not a waste of time.</p>
<p>It’s possibly the other things on the chance thread, the stuff that freaked you out, that got them in. Maybe the 15 5s on AP… maybe the 2400, which they certainly didn’t get from a thriving lack of curiosity.</p>
I think you’ll find that most people who have accumulated 500+ posts spend their time frequently posting on discussion threads that might not even do with college admissions or aren’t directly related to their personal college admissions chances. It is this sort of posting, or debating, that does indeed raise intellectual curiosity, even if colleges don’t witness it firsthand; people who exhibit a genuine intellectual manner are more likely to reflect those traits in the real world anyways and hence they tend to get into top schools.</p>
<p>Are they really interested in getting people that are intellectually curious? Seems to me top colleges put a lot of weight on things like EC’s and essays over genuine academic qualifications.</p>
<p>And also, I frequent many forums thank you very much. This is what I do when I’m on the computer. That doesn’t mean I’m online 24/7. It’s not like I can continue building my particle accelerator on a Thursday afternoon.</p>
<p>Hmm, I have been on here for a few years and yes, I do have an obnoxious number of posts. And yes, I do have a deep and intense passion in the Arts & Humanities. But thank you for judging me without knowing me.</p>
<p>I can’t stand when somebody says somebody else doesn’t “deserve” x-college. No matter what excuse you have, even if said somebody handed out sexual favors to adcoms like they were candy. If x-college accepted x-student (I like writing x-dash), then maybe that college’s standards aren’t as high as you’re attempting to hold them to, or maybe they did deserve it. </p>
<p>There are a lot of what-if scenarios, and information you’re not necessarily privy to, which make judging the student’s “worth” and what they are or not deserving of based on what you think you know…difficult.</p>
<p>What you see of a person, whether on CC, or in school or whatever, is a pretty small glimpse of their lives. For all you know, the dumbass cheerleader who ends every sentence with a question mark could have just discovered the cure to AIDS.
Unlikely, yes. The point is, you don’t know everything about somebody, what their entire application may look like, what weird little hook hobbies they have in their free time, how the adcoms receive it, etc.</p>
<p>Hence, I disagree.</p>
<p>Although this mini-rant was more in general and aimed at the large number of “x-group/person/spider monkey doesn’t deserve to attend Hahvuhd.” threads.</p>
<p>who the hell are you? you don’t decide who deserves to go to any college. how is time spent on CC any different from time spent on facebook or myspace? there are kids who spend two hours a day on social networking sites. there are kids who spend 30 minutes a day jerking off. once again, what the hell is your point?</p>
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<p>Don’t apologize. Take responsibility for what you wrote. Grow a spine.</p>
<p>Sometimes, when looking at another CCer’s very high number of posts, one should pull out a calculator and do a little math before making assumptions about how that CCer spends his or her day. Oftentimes, it comes out to so small a number of posts that it’s likely the CCer spends less than an hour on CC per day.</p>
<p>Perhaps they are people who spend too much time worrying over worthless things when they should be out enjoying life. Yes in a way worrying about college is worthless because you can only control your fate so much. The rest is up to destiny. Go out and have fun.</p>