r/ApplyingToCollege • u/BellMundane6735 • 9d ago
Rant Boiling take - not everyone can go to a t20.
I see so many posts of people asking "can i get into x school with bad xyz" or "is this xyz good enough to get into xyz school" or on other subs like SAT "can i go from 13xx or 14xx to 1550+ in x timeframe" and the answer is always, if you have to ask then the answer is no. People who attend t20s are 1% to 1.5% of the american college population, and not everyone can be a part of that. Some people just aren't good enough to get the grades or test scores necessary and it's not about just "working harder". And if it is about working harder then you should have been working harder than everyone else since 9th grade like everyone else who gets into a t20, not waking up at the end of junior year and realizing it aint gonna happen.
Sorry brotha, there are students without bad xyz who already have a 1550 and they're gonna get the spot, not you. And if you want it so bad, each ivy gives you a couple essays to sell yourself - instead of writing on reddit, USE THEM!!! actually convince the admissions officers that your bad xyz shouldnt matter and you will still be a successful student and good fit at their school. And if you would rather post on reddit than do that, then you don't deserve to go. Sorry not sorry
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u/Difficult-Valuable55 9d ago
the piece a lot seem to miss is there are a lot of kids with 1550 and perfect GPA who will not get in to a T20
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u/BellMundane6735 9d ago
Sure but bad xyz applies to honors awards activies etc, I see plenty of those posts too
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u/InterestProof1526 9d ago edited 9d ago
"people who attend t20s are 1% to 1.5% of the American population"
Importantly, they're not the "top 1%." At my institution (UC Berkeley), I notice a mix of people who are perhaps top 20% (i.e. they would've failed at any remotely rigorous high school) and people who easily make the top 0.5% or top 0.1%. I primarily interact with and am friends with the latter but the former isn't rare. Berkeley definitely has more variance than most T20s but appropriate strategy, grade inflation, and a lot of luck can get even mediocre students into any T20 (yes, this includes HYPSM). My friends have noticed similar things at top private schools.
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u/Jacob723723 9d ago
I go to Yale and I think the variance at all T20s is higher than most people realize. The ceiling is of course incredibly impressive but the floor is lower than people think.
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u/Interesting_Post1330 College Sophomore 8d ago
idk, I go to mit and I would say the floor is quite high lol. Maybe I'm just that dumb.
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u/Jacob723723 8d ago
I still think it’s fairly high!! It’s just lower than some people make it out to be. I think the perception also depends on your circle and who you interact with lol
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u/STEMAlexander 8d ago
Obviously there is variance, but the floor is still higher. I am doing graduate work at a T10, a T20, and a T50. There isn't a noticeable difference in student caliber between the T10 and T20 - but there is enough difference between them and the T50 to be frustrating. The T10/T20 have students who are intellecutally curious and do their work. Even if they struggle they legitimately want to learn. The T50 discussion boards are so much copy/paste AI I wonder if some of the students are even real people and the testing measures seem built to allow anyone to pass with bare minimum effort.
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u/Murky_Insurance_4394 8d ago
that's what legacy and athletics does. not to mention cal removed test scores so the spread has gotten even wider.
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u/No-Swordfish8992 9d ago
not unique to Berk, but i've known a few ppl from my school that are completely mediocre and no where near taking max rigor (like barely passing Calc AB senior year and no other AP sciences) that get in and some that are very smart, typical ECs who also get in. When I talk to my parents, they say that this is different from when they applied, like only the super top ppl went to Berk back then. What changed? Was it just the SAT?
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u/Any-Peak-2805 8d ago
grade inflation. Back in the day getting an A was very hard and not the norm. MOST people got c's, some b's and very very few got all As. If you got all As and good SATS that was enough to get into a top school. Now school is easier than ever with AI and the internet, and teachers give As away like candy.
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u/InterestProof1526 9d ago
Berkeley has substantially different standards by high school in the modern era. It's very holistic and equity-minded.
At mine, there are some mediocre students who get in but it's often because they sandbag all their difficult classes to senior year so they get rigor points while not having to reveal their grades (they don't consider senior year grades) + they have some significant holistic element Berkeley finds compelling for some reason (like being poor or a quirky essay topic). Very few mediocre students get in overall though. Most people have a 1500+ SAT and great stats/ECs.
At other high schools, you can be struggling to get a 1000 SAT and get into Berkeley. I do not think test-blind is the primary reason for this (although it's a very close second). It's mostly because of how they admit and favor/disfavor high schools. Like, my high school is favored over Lynbrook, Monta Vista, Harker and Harvard-Westlake even though the kids at those high schools are smarter on average. On the other hand, Mission HS in SF (the terrible one; the good one is Mission San Jose) gets way more admits and much easier admits compared to us despite being academically mediocre at best.
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u/No_Mirror_8524 8d ago
you people are genuinely fucking delusional we are all human beings. numbers are just numbers it DOES NOT MATTER. everyone gets a brief precious life and then they die, grades and stats nonwithstanding. colleges don't just want machines. they want kind, intelligent, curious people who don't reduce themselves to what you guys are reducing yourselves to. and you genuinely should be ashamed of how you are talking about people from underprivileged communities. i don't care how well you are doing on your aps, it clearly hasn't stuck if you're not capable of understanding the differences in opportunity that make colleges choose to vary acceptance rates. it's nasty that you feel comfortable talking about people like that.
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u/teathree_ 8d ago
this guy unironically says he only interacts with the top 0.1-0.5% of people and that the top 20% are failures because they would allegedly fail at a "rigorous high school". actually hilarious
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u/InterestProof1526 6d ago edited 6d ago
Of course I'm friends with and talk to students of all academic backgrounds, I just find it difficult to be friends with people whose academic background is not strong because we rarely have much in common in terms of background, values, and interests.
This doesn't seem super rare? In high school, everything was completely self-segregated around academics. And in college, it seems about the same where most people have friends of varying academic levels but I very rarely see someone being close friends with people of dramatically different academics / background.
Academics don't matter that much in and of itself but so much is correlated to academics and intelligence that it ends up mattering significantly indirectly (even things as simple as communication style, neurodivergence/autism—which I generally view as ideal in friends—or general interests can be heavily correlated).
I thought this was the main reason to attend Berkeley or another top college anyways. The "resume" advantage is limited at best, the professors are worse than community college, the food sucks, the dorms suck, and students aren't super social (compared to a school like UCSB). So I feel like the reason Berkeley is so selective / desirable to have over 100k students interested every year is primarily because of the people (so I don't think this take is particularly niche?)
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u/No_Mirror_8524 8d ago
sorry idk how to use reddit that wasn't just directed at the poster of this comment, but all the replies under it as well
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u/Square-Effect8043 6d ago
Harker kids will find their ways, dw. In no universe are they disadvantaged
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u/Plastic_Chest7674 9d ago
The UCLA student agrees… because the UCs prioritize in-state geographical equity over performance. Of course you see it. Those students can’t do math as well all know.
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u/WaterIll4397 9d ago
Berkeley also has the bad state equity policy of allowing top 10% of any high school to get in regardless of how rigorous the high school is.... Texas has something similar.
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u/Hejdbejbw 9d ago
No? Top 9% only promise UC Merced. All the people that other UCs reject get send to Merced.
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u/WaterIll4397 9d ago
I don't know the exact numbers and policy they use but it's insane you end up with numbers like this. Where mission, a school where virtually no students passed the very low ceiling state math exam, has a significantly higher admit rate than Lowell a magnet school that routinely churns out perfect test score students. https://sfstandard.com/2026/07/30/mission-high-uc-berkeley-admissions-dropout/
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u/Opening_Discipline57 9d ago
Yes that's if you're in the top 1-2% of your really bad shitty hoodass highschool. Point is it's stil top 1-2% but they look per highschool rather than per their whole applicant pool. All colleges do something similar but not close to this extent
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u/InterestProof1526 9d ago edited 9d ago
Mission HS, one of the worst high schools in California, has a 45% acceptance rate (the highest of any school by far) with 34 admitted students out of 76 applicants with a 12th grade enrollment of 262 students.
Many of the students getting accepted do not even have ELC (top 9%) and the average admitted GPA (despite the severe grade inflation) is a 4.08. The typical average admitted for most good high schools is a 4.2-4.3. Mission has a 6% math proficiency rate among 11th graders which measures very basic skills, subjectively equivalent to a 500 on the SAT math section. Top public schools in California are above 95% and almost everyone seriously aiming for T20s like UC Berkeley have a 1500-1600 (sometimes slightly below).
The Harker School and Harvard-Westlake, the two best high schools academically in California (arguably) have an acceptance rate of 15% (26/169) and 16% (29/180) to UC Berkeley. Lowell and Lynbrook, two of the best public high schools in California, have a 12% (42/363) and 11% (34/314) acceptance rate respectively. The two private schools have about 200-300 students in their 12th grade class, similarly to Mission. The two publics have about 2.5x the number of students as Mission High and 4x the number of applicants but receive about the same number of admitted students.
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u/slytherin_swift13 9d ago
like i get the point but i don't think it's as black and white. plenty of students without the "bad xyz" who already have the 1550 get rejected from t20s every year. meanwhile, students with the bad xyz and imperfect stats do get in sometimes. and then of course the reverse also happens.
again, do i agree with your general premise? yes. not everyone gets into a t20, and some people will simply not be qualified to, and schools are looking for specific things that not everyone will be able to embody. but is it as black and white as - only the MOST perfect kids get into t20s? no, not really.
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u/JasonMckin 9d ago
At absolutely no point did the OP suggest that only the most perfect kids get into t20s.
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u/slytherin_swift13 9d ago
"there are students without bad xyz who already have a 1550 and they're gonna get the spot, not you"
sounds like they're saying that the kids with the least amount of hiccups (?) in their academic journey are going to get the spots, specifically beating out those who might have dealt with one bad test score or one bad "xyz" as OP puts it.
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u/MeasurementTop2885 9d ago
More often than not, yes. That is how it works.
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u/slytherin_swift13 9d ago
well, yes, of course, the good student gets in over the bad student. but OP's post reads more like: the naturally gifted get in over those who work harder for the same results; those whose records are perfect get in over those who have faced a few struggles, etc. more importantly the assertion that T20 students are the top 1% of the american college population is strange. that disregards, most importantly, economic factors entirely.
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u/justapersonn111 8d ago
I just made a lengthy and badly articulated comment lol but you said it perfectly!
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u/MeasurementTop2885 9d ago
That’s not how I understand OP’s post and frankly the entire thesis is kind of ugly… on both sides. If I saw a candidate who was overtly qualified for HYPSM, OP’s overall attitude would be exactly the reason they should be rejected.
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u/slytherin_swift13 9d ago
yeah i agree 😭 my only point is that it's not that black and white in terms of what gets you in and what keeps you out. and quite frankly, it is IMPOSSIBLE to make a sweeping generalization on the college admissions process with no space for exceptions.
but what really bothered me was the lack of regard for everyone's exceptional circumstances, tbh.
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u/BellMundane6735 9d ago
And at the end I specifically asked you to use the essays to sell yourself. You think the kids with hiccups just got in just cause? No, they convinced the AOs using their essays
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u/slytherin_swift13 9d ago
again, i get it but it's not quite as black and white as that. you can't make up for one part of your application with another part. like i really do relate with what you're saying but i feel like it's lacking just one or two degrees of nuance. the kid with hiccups isn't "convincing" the AO through a good essay - a good essay is adding another layer of dimension to their entire application that may help it shape up to be something that that particular school might want. and even then, it's really variable.
on the other hand, the perfect 1550 kid with no hiccups can also sink themselves with mediocre essays. the essays aren't an additional or independent part of the application that only work one way - they add to the complete application just the way grades and test scores and ECs do, and their quality can neither be played off, nor can it play off something else. it just helps create the final picture that will either be an admit or a reject.
the only thing i don't agree with in your post point blank is
I see so many posts of people asking "can i get into x school with bad xyz" or "is this xyz good enough to get into xyz school" or on other subs like SAT "can i go from 13xx or 14xx to 1550+ in x timeframe" and the answer is always, if you have to ask then the answer is no.
cuz like... kids are nervous yo. even the best of the best will be posting and asking for assurance from internet strangers if that's something they're inclined towards and there really is no correlation between wanting reassurance and being good enough. especially the thing about the SAT score - like of course you can ask that, and get the score? i don't really see the connection here lol
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u/justapersonn111 8d ago
I think I agree with what you're trying get at, which is the fact that not everyone should go to a t20. If you really don't have the the drive and determination to go through the intensity of a t20, then you're not a good fit for them. The majority of applicants, I think, probably are like this. And it's true that you can't really get an answer to whether you'll be competitive for a college on reddit, or maybe even everywhere.
however, many of your assumptions are somewhat privileged. People of all types ask for advice and that's not an indicator of how competitive they are. there could be a student with a bad GPA but an extremely advanced research project. There could be a student who wasn't able to do many extracurriculars but has top test scores.
Your "work harder" argument assumes that everyone has the same access to resources and guidance as everyone else, which is completely false. It's easy to think everyone has what you have when it's your default. these are reasons people with "bad xyz" are considered at all. Also , 9th graders are 14. they're still figuring it all out, I wouldn't expect every 9th grader to know the exact hypsm pipeline and be able to fully lock into that instantly, lol
also, not everyone gets everything instantly right or knows how to do everything instantly, unfortunately. Most average people score very low on the SAT before retaking enough times to get a 1500+. asking for guidance on how to get a higher score isn't an indication of failure. Besides, t20s have HOLISTIC review. this is the reason why so many high scores are still rejected. Not everyone knows HOW to tell admissions that their "bad xyz" doesn't matter without sounding cliche, egotistical, meek, whatever. And that's not because these people automatically do those traits, but because it's difficult to convey the correct voice in writing. this is why people ask for essay advice and feedback.
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u/Haunting_Software_55 9d ago
I attend a t20 and I’m not even close to the top 1-1.5%. Mostly cause I write good essays. I won’t lie and say it’s been easy for me after I started attending tho
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u/No-Swordfish8992 9d ago
What ur major
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9d ago
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u/Haunting_Software_55 9d ago
No clue why you’re telling me this. I can assure you that compared to the average applicant to these universities, both my stats and ECs were mediocre
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u/BellMundane6735 9d ago
It's not about weighting bro, a human reads your application at t20s at least and I can safely tell you that persuasion matters and getting someone to like you through writing can be extremely effective
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u/Reasonable_Map_6622 9d ago
this is js not true for some t20s like the ucs u can get in from personality and selling a good story and ur grades dont need to be top of the line i seen this many times
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u/Last-Emu-1449 9d ago
While I was at Columbia, someone in one of my classes asked for an extension on a brutal problem set because it was taking everyone longer than usual, and it happened to coincide with some core class midterms. The academic pressure that month was insane. My young professor simply responded: "Everyone wants to attend a top-tier, rigorous academic institution, until it’s actually time to experience a top-tier, rigorous academic institution."
Some of these schools and programs are absolute intellectual pressure cookers. You have to juggle studying, assignments, lectures with everything else that happens to be going on in your young adult life. Like you said, it is vastly underestimated on this sub that not everyone is actually built for a T20 environment—and that's totally okay.
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u/Ceorl_Lounge Parent 9d ago
Part of me thought I understood that at 18 when Dad was helping me haul my stuff into the dorm. I did not.
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u/WaterIll4397 9d ago
That's why the smart kids don't take hard classes whey recruit for jobs junior year
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u/BellMundane6735 9d ago
Exactly what im trying to say. if you got a 1200 after studying really hard its time to come to the realization that you are not built for t20s. Does that mean you cant be successful? Absolutely not. Does that mean you won't have a good college experience? Absolutely not. Does that means that you will never be better than someone who goes to a t20? Absolutely not. It just means that you shouldn't be trying to go to a t20 because you'll either be disappointed or fail when you get there.
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u/Spiky-Penguin2023 9d ago
What if you got 1550+ (but still below 1600) after studying really hard?
Is that a sign that one is still not built for t20s?
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u/BellMundane6735 9d ago
Is this a serious question
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u/Spiky-Penguin2023 9d ago
Yes, I'm being serious.
I heard (on more than on occasion) that the vast majority of t20 admits (who were not hooked) could easily score 1550+ with minimal studying or preparation, and that having to study diligently for it for months is lowkey a red flag in terms of t20 readiness.
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u/enxivi-8927 8d ago
No, it’s not sign; the sat tests for a type of thinking and pattern recognition; I know absolute stem geniuses who score 1400s on the sat because the reading and writing trips them up
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u/Spiky-Penguin2023 8d ago
Among those "absolute stem geniuses" you know, are IMO medalists included?
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u/enxivi-8927 8d ago
No, but what I am saying is that you can be smart enough to clear the bar for an ivy and not get a 1600 on the sat first try
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u/InterestProof1526 7d ago
At my Bay Area high school, yeah, it would be weird to have to study for MONTHS while also studying HARD to get a 1550+ if you're studying hard. But there's a lot of variance.
There's the people who could easily score 1480+ with no prep but really struggled with 1550+ due to silly mistakes. These people still should have a place at T20s, especially if they performed well in classes and had compelling ECs. These are often the type of people whose parents would not allow them to get a 1540 so they would have to retake and study excessively even AFTER getting a top 1% score.
I would also say most people, even those who found the SAT easy, did study for months. The SAT is an easy exam but it's easy to mess stuff up and it's not super forgiving of mistakes. While no one I know truly locked excessively into the SAT (it never caused any major stress for any of my friends nor did anyone create complex study routines or spend 7+ hours per week for months), a lot of people did end up spending upwards of 30+ hours (in totality) to prepare. Naturally, if you spend hundreds of hours on a given AP course, you can spare to spend a few months and a few dozen hours studying for the SAT, aka the most important exam of one's adolescent life.
Outside of my bubble of a Bay Area HS, it's mixed. I know plenty of people at UC Berkeley who found the SAT quite hard, especially toward the ceiling. Perhaps it was because their high school wasn't as good as mine, the fact they simply didn't have years of grinding MCQs/similar exams in middle school (like us South Bay kids did), or because they might just not be as intelligent on an IQ level. However, many (not all) of them still deserve their admission despite having to work very hard to get a 99th percentile SAT score. They have other compelling factors to them and most of them succeeded in school, even in difficult classes, to a reasonable level.
In terms of surviving at a T20... ehhhhh, it really depends but you usually don't need a top 0.5% SAT score. Most people will do fine with their 1440 (or even 1320 😱😱) with some narrow exceptions for specific schools/major/class combinations.
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u/Spiky-Penguin2023 7d ago
"or because they might just not be as intelligent on an IQ level"
I might have to disagree with that... You see, believe it or not, but I personally know of someone who was officially tested at IQ 78, yet still scored a 1560 on the SAT on their second attempt...
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u/chumer_ranion Retired Moderator | Graduate 8d ago
I don't know what OP would say, but the answer is no, that's not a sign.
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u/Goldenflame89 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yeah it’s a flag, but 1550 is a bit too high imo, know loads of smart people who get 1520s. But thoze tests should not be difficult to get a 1500+ on, it’s primarily freshman math and basic grammar rules to get to a 1500. This sub has some weird contrarian bullshit where they try to sell everyone that standardized testing is somehow totally seperate from reality. If you have to try really hard to get a 1500+ it’s probably just not for you.
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u/Spiky-Penguin2023 7d ago
Good point. I do agree.
But tbh, I'd say that anything 1550+ is mostly luck-based rather than meaningfully determining true ability/aptitude.
That said, would you say that having to work really hard for the more difficult exams like USAMO or IMO is a red flag? As in, could it suggest that someone is not "MIT material?"
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u/Goldenflame89 7d ago
No lmao because everyone tryhards for the IMO and USAMO because those are actually hard tests. You are expected to struggle and try there
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u/Goldenflame89 7d ago
Also yes past 1550 it is very luck based, primarily on what vocab words you get for english
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u/Intelligent-Deal3073 4d ago
imo i feel like sat score doesn’t correlate with how well of a student you are or whether you get in or not. I didn’t go to a t20 despite being accepted for one. ik my friend who didn’t get into one and also did terribly on the sat, sat through a rigorous five hour standardized entrance exam and got a near perfect score
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u/elphsi 9d ago edited 4d ago
I mean it’s kinda a mix of natural smartness and willingness to grind. U can easily be smth like top 25% intelligence and still land a t20, as stuff like the sat become mostly pattern recognition (which is def obtainable if u take tons of practice tests). Also imo, the act is a lot more learnable than the sat (I’ve seen multiple ppl who plateau at 1450 in the sat get 35+ in the act) which again shows it really comes down to your drive in the end most of the time. You still have to be smart but u def don’t have to be some sort of genius to get into a t20, as it’s more about intellectual vitality than anything.
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u/BellMundane6735 9d ago
Yeah but in response its also weighted much less, 0.04% get a 1600 but 0.2% get a 36
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u/IthacanPenny 8d ago
25th percentile is a room temperature IQ…
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u/Ok-Attorney-5504 8d ago
25th percentile is roughly 90 IQ so not room temp unless your air conditioner is broken
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u/ImmediateEye5557 6d ago
You can be very smart and hardworking and STILL not get into a t20. I got denied from all the t20s when I was in HS and now I am in MD school about to graduate. So no, its not always a reflection of “not being good
enough to get the grades and scores.” Many students applying to these top schools have access to more resources, tutoring or prep classes, research or career mentors, advising services, that not everyone has access to. It makes it really difficult when you do not have these resources to compete with this crowd and it DOES NOT make you any less worthy, less hard working, or less deserving. Hope that helps.
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u/pleasantly-aloof Old 9d ago
When I was applying I was definitely posting these questions and I ended up at HYPSM. Yes it was incredibly low odds, but “if you have to ask then the answer is no” is not really useful advice, nor is it 100% true.
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u/BellMundane6735 9d ago
"but there's a green circle right there!!"
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u/pleasantly-aloof Old 9d ago
I don’t understand the reference you’re making here and cannot respond
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u/BellMundane6735 9d ago
Logical fallacy of someone making a claim that a group of circles is mostly red and someone responds that "theres a green circle right there". AKA You are the exception and your comment adds nothing and doesn't prove me wrong at all
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u/pleasantly-aloof Old 9d ago
The fact that there are any exceptions means that the statement “the answer is ALWAYS if you have to ask then the answer is no”. Your statement leaves no room for nuance or exceptions.
And it’s not one green circle either.. every cycle several people on this sub post multiple t20 acceptances. I understand it’s still rare relative to the general population but within this sub getting into a t20 is pretty common. I mean just search the name of any t20 and you will see hundreds of green circles lol
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u/BellMundane6735 9d ago
This is sub is also highly self selecting, the census proves this. Statistical data is on my side here lol
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u/pleasantly-aloof Old 8d ago
Exactly… so if anything posting on this sub makes you MORE likely to get t20, whereas your post is arguing that if you need to post to ask here you aren’t getting in.
Anyways this is a pointless conversation, good luck on your apps!
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u/BellMundane6735 8d ago
correlation, not causation. Posting on this sub doesn't make you more likely to get into a better college lol
Agreed, you too
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u/pleasantly-aloof Old 8d ago
lol, do you think I am literally saying that posting on this sub by itself increases your odds…? idk if you’re just trolling me at this point but some advice: improve the reading comprehension, decrease the ego.
i don’t need luck on apps, as i just said i already graduated.
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u/BellMundane6735 8d ago
"so if anything making posts on this sub makes you more likely to get into a t20"
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u/aimtoexcel 9d ago
I don’t agree with “if you have to ask, the answer is no”. Even students with perfect stats get rejected from T20s. And I don’t think asking for advice on Reddit means someone isn’t deserving of getting in. Isn’t that kind of the whole point of this sub?
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u/Comfortable_Cry_9657 9d ago
"if you have to ask then the answer is no" idk bro i made posts like this last cycle and i got into a good amount of top 20s lol
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u/Legitimate_Focus5085 9d ago
adding on to this, not everyone NEEDS to go to a T20 either. im applying to law school for example and id rather graduate with a high GPA from a tier 2 university
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u/Possible-Poet-7287 8d ago edited 8d ago
You guys talk a big game about your high school being more rigorous than MIT and Harvard being a concentration of the top 0.01% but you’d all get smoked on real challenging academic metrics like the Putnam or grad level courses.
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u/BellMundane6735 8d ago
Nobody made any kind of claim like that lol i'm confused
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u/Possible-Poet-7287 8d ago
Read the comments and look at your post. You’re talking about a basic high school test and people are saying “getting into mit was the easiest part huhuhuhh bro!!” Like as if you guys aren’t taking freshman level classes at MIT or the SAT isn’t an exam for adolescents. Do you guys really think you’re geniuses or smth?
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u/Used-Departure9606 9d ago
Not true until T-20s stop just taking anybody. So many highschools are insanely rigorous that some valedictorian whos going to Harvard would be bottom 30% at. That becomes even clearer when you look at schools like UC Berk and UCLA that look at geography over equity in admissions. So yes, you can be below average or average and still get into a T-20, its a combination of what high school you go to and its rigor, etc.
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u/Flat_Pollution8085 9d ago
I went to the kind of rigorous high school you’re talking about and was not in the top of my class, but I still got into a T10 because colleges know about schools like that. They aren’t just giving spots away to valedictorians for the heck of it. There are, however, always dumb people at even the most selective universities. Some of my classmates baffled me.
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u/Reasonable_Map_6622 9d ago
not for me my stats are mid and got into t20 but my ecs were good and i started from middle school or freshman year!
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u/DoubleHexDrive 8d ago
What does any of this mean in a world where Ivy League schools are offering remedial math classes?
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u/Any-Peak-2805 8d ago
yup when ivies stopped SATS I was shocked how many students couldn't read and just had nothing to say and no original thoughts
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u/Perky-Stripper-Joint 7d ago
It’s just how life works some stuff is nature not nurture this take isn’t that hot at all
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u/blueberrybobas College Junior | International 9d ago
Take is mildly hot but this gets recycled every week on this subreddit
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u/BlackberryKey6837 8d ago
Please take into account that you are talking to a niche audience. Outside of Redditt people don't have that obsession with prestige. They simply apply to where they think they have the best chance and can afford. I mean even the best students know that getting into the likes of MIT has a luck factor into it even with an otherwise perfect profile.
What exactly is the point of your post? I am confused.
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u/Glass-Raspberry5264 6d ago
Anything above a 1470 is fine for a top college not sure what all this is about.
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u/LuckyVariety8854 3d ago
I had 18 B’s and 1 C in HS, got into 3 t20’s (applied to 5), you guys can make it happen
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u/InterestinglyLucky 9d ago
When I see claims like "people who attend T20s are 1% to 1.5% of the American college population" I get a little nervous - because most statistics are just made up.
I did some digging, with a nominal definition of T20 schools, and came up with 1.7% IF you count community colleges. The denominator gets a lot bigger! (My sampling of T20 had a total of ~43,000 enrolled students, and a total entering class including CC of 2,530,00.) Two public flagships, UCLA and Cal are included. If you just use all privates, that number is ~39,000.
Anyway, when you exclude CC and cut off at the top 300 colleges and universities in the US, it's about 850,000. So about 5.1%.
For those reading this, keep your head on. 5% to get into a T20 is selective. But NOT ONE PERCENT. Sheesh.
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u/Still_Squash8987 9d ago
you arbitrarily cut off at the top 300 when there are obv way more colleges in the US. it’s ok to say most kids won’t cut it and that t20s are super selective
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u/Pleasant_Curve_9024 6d ago
Yeah lmao this is the dumbest “analysis” ever. There are 365 schools in division 1 alone. Why not only include the top 100 to give yourself even more inflated odds? I guess students going to schools outside of the top 300 are so dumb they don’t even count as real to this person?
OP claims “people who attend t20s are 1% to 1.5% of the American college population”, homie finds 1.7% and then removes the entire bottom 2/3 of the pool just to give himself more hopium. All in a comment that starts off with “most statistics are just made up” 😂. Alanis Morissette would be proud.
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u/BellMundane6735 9d ago
Sorry for dropping the 4%. Yes, you're right, now you'll be part of the 95% and not the 99% lol
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u/JasonMckin 9d ago
This thread demonstrates a recurring problem with discussions on A2C. Because nuance and complexity often go to die on A2C. Trying to state any kind of hypothesis, sometimes a bit imprecisely, is met with grandstanding, strawmanning, disputes over tone/language, and accusations of black-and-whitism. What eventually happens is that stating intellectually nuanced or complex things becomes difficult.
The OP/Bell camp is correct on many points
- Competitive/selective universities are radically more selective than many people appear to believe.
- A significant number of applications every year to most T20s don't meet the minimum viable credentials just to read by multiple AOs let alone be admitted
- Even amongst applicants who are minimally academically competitive, they still need to distinguish themselves on intellectual curiosity, character, initiative, recognition, impact, etc.
- In such a competitive environment, there can clearly be no last-minute shortcut or "wake up call" as the OP implies to compensate for a record that lacks sufficient academic preparation and achievement
The OP/Bell camp's absolutism simultaneously might be their weakness
- The opposing side is calling out some the harsh tone and implied absolutism in some of the Bell camp's statements.
- For example, highly talented/qualified applicants can ask for reasonable advice all the time, so using reddit is not a universal sign of lacking qualifications, judgement, work ethic, or achievement (let alone this being a remarkable, weird thing to say while posting on reddit).
- These criticisms are likely valid, but it doesn't invalidate the fundamental thesis
The Sly camp is correct on many points
- There's no deterministic formula for admission and simply having good grades and scores is obviously not sufficient. Non-quantitative factors are important too like demonstrating authenticity, character, exceptionalism, recognition, and impact and those things don't perfect correlate with scores and grades.
- This is the anti-absolutism argument
The Sly camp strawmans and grandstands eroding their own credibility
- The anti-absolutism criticism is legitimate, but it then straw mans Bell's argument as claiming that only the most perfect applicants get admitted. The Bell camp never made such a black and white claim, even if their language comes off deterministic
- The more rigorous approach for the Sly camp would have been to use a scalpel to fine tune Bell camp's statements, acknowledge the defensible part of Bell's thesis, and focus on the misleading overstatements/generalizations. That would win the argument.
If the Bell camp were more precise about their argument from the get go, they would leave the Sly camp no opportunity to scalpel out their words and win the argument. If the Sly camp were more precise about isolating the Bell camp's words, they would win the argument. Instead of faithfully fine-tuning the surface area of the argument into an intellectually check-mated position, it becomes classic A2C food fight filled with overgeneralization, strawmans, and grandstands that obfuscate the legitimate points being made on both sides.
The Bell camp is sharing a genuinely good point: stop looking for shortcuts and invest in the multi-year hard work of becoming a deeply talented, distinguished, exceptional, collaborative, impactful student. If the Bell camp could say that without absolutism, you would win.
The Sly camp is sharing a genuinely good point: hard work is not a universal guarantee, because it's insulting to suggest that everyone who was not admitted was lazy or stupid. Maybe some of them were, but definitely not all. If the Sly camp could say that without strawmanning, you would win.
Both of these things can be true. Because if you don't work hard, you're unlikely to be admitted. But if you just work hard in predictable, non-unique ways like just taking tons of AP classes or spreading yourself thin superficially across tons of ECs, then it still shouldn't be a shock that the lack of distinction, depth, recognition, impact doesn't overcome the mindless work. Quantity never overcomes quality.
A high quantity of effort is not what universities want, it's a high quality/depth of authenticity, character, initiative, judgment, exceptionalism, recognition, and impact. I once spoke with a student who bragged about taking every AP class in their high school (like 15 of them). I asked one simple question: that's great, can you tell me what you learned from that experience? And shockingly, the student couldn't name a single thing. That's one simple example of the difference between mindlessly doing work versus building genuinely intellectual depth and personal growth.
This is the confused world that students live in today where they're just racing to rack up on credentials without much evidence they actually learned, grew, or had impact from it in a significant way. Understanding all of this requires significantly more nuance than either camp is demonstrating in the thread.
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u/Haunting_Software_55 9d ago
AI slop
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u/JasonMckin 9d ago
Oh yeah, that’s another A2C thing, just lazily accusing people of AI slop for being intellectually nuanced instead of reading and engaging in faithful discussion.
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u/Haunting_Software_55 9d ago
Using bold text to make a point/subtitles, the bullet point structure, the “both sides are bad” perspective??? It’s obvious, sorry.
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u/JasonMckin 8d ago
Man, this sub is so cooked. Trying to make an intellectually nuanced argument and actually writing in a structured way is dismissed as AI.
It wasn't AI. It was an adult using real intelligence. I'm saddened and disappointed for those who can't tell the difference.
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u/Haunting_Software_55 8d ago
You’ve said “intellectually nuanced” more than once now. AI slop
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u/JasonMckin 8d ago
You can stop falsely accusing me of using AI just to excuse avoiding reading and understanding the actual content of what I was saying.
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u/JasonMckin 7d ago
Not that I plan to obsess over this more than it deserves, but I was re-reading my response to see if maybe I used too many SAT words or something else triggered the accusation. What's funny is that I actually made a bunch of grammatical mistakes and I ended literally with a personal anecdote to illustrate my points.
I hope the students who are actually curious found it useful, because I really don't know what to say to someone who can't spot the small errors I made and thinks any use of bold font and long words is AI.
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u/tjnightcrawler 9d ago
Most the T20 are 400k private colleges where the middle class are not welcome, they're expensive country club schools where A's are the default. Some of these schools are 30% legacy, filled with rich kids with some niche sport. Just look at the common data on most, some have only 40-50% reporting SAT/Act scores. This isn't a elite crowd. The smartest kids no doubt go to state flagship schools for undergrad and major in CS/Engineering or some other hard science. You need brand names when you're looking to fool others.
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u/wrroyals 9d ago
I wasn’t going to pay $400K. My kid focused on our state schools and schools with automatic merit scholarships. He got his BS/MS in CS for free and is a top 1% earner.
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u/Rude-Evening7637 9d ago
This is probably the most toxic post I've seen.
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u/BellMundane6735 9d ago
In response to a toxic culture where mediocre kids think they're entitled to a t20 admission despite not having put in the work
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u/Rude-Evening7637 9d ago
Stfu
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u/BellMundane6735 9d ago
i guess lmfao bro cant think of anything else to say so he js crashes out
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u/Rude-Evening7637 9d ago
Circling back to this-- I never got into a T20, I'll admit I wasn't competitive. However, I can tell you where you go to college has literally 0 effect on the life you'll live or your success. I am a third year in medical school and some of my classmates were at the top 20s and guess what, we all ended at the same place. It's probably a better decision to remain humble and work hard instead of tying your worth to an instiutional rank that has no bearing on the type of job you'll secure. It's hard to see it that way because most people who are scoring well on the SAT and AP classes have tied their entire worth to be the top
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9d ago
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u/Rude-Evening7637 9d ago
You're in med school? Also not everyone is prestige chasing, I'm applying EM lol. Doesn't matter. You guys are the only one that do
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9d ago
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u/Rude-Evening7637 9d ago
I was trying to motivate people on this sub because you guys all freak out about top 20s. Like get a life. It doesn't matter. I'm sorry this is all you have going on in your life
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u/Rude-Evening7637 9d ago
Well most people aren't applying derm and ortho. Most med students are applying IM, FM, EM.
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9d ago
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u/Rude-Evening7637 9d ago
Are you good dude? No med school class has 60% of the class applying derm, you fabricated a stat out of no where.
Also does prestige chasing really matter to you that much?
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9d ago edited 9d ago
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u/Rude-Evening7637 9d ago
Prestige is not a factor in medicine. You aren't in medical nor the profession so I'm not sure where you get the confidence in saying all this. Probably the same person who thinks DOs are inferior to MDs.
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u/justapersonn111 6d ago
you're getting downvotes but you're honestly right, reddit just isn't ready to hear it
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u/Rude-Evening7637 6d ago
Yeah I mean I was the same way in HS, then I quickly realized where you go has 0 bearing. In fact I wish I chose my state school and went to school for cheap vs the T50 I got into. Made no difference
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u/Ordinary_Corner_4291 9d ago edited 9d ago
The hot take is not everyone should go to a top 20. If you have to grind incredibly hard to be a marginal candidate, you might not have another grinding gear that you will need in order to survive the T20. Especially if you pick a major that is remotely demanding.