Who actually goes to target schools???
I just finished my freshman year at Boston College and with nothing to do aside from sit in my room and study, I've been thinking about this. I know I'm a loser for still being salty about not getting into a target, 1 year later, but I just really don't know what I could have reasonably done better in high school to make it so that my life isn't harder. I had 4.37/4.39 GPA and 1580 SAT. My class rank was 5/370. I took 10 AP's and got 5 on all the exams. I was the VP of Finance for DECA, Vice-Captain of the Debate Team, and Student Council Vice President. I made ICDC but didn't win anything. I also took 4 econ classes at a community college and interned at a local wealth manager for 2 summers.
What did the target schools actually expect me to do? Not get an A- in AP Phys C? Take 3 more AP's so that I get Valedictorian? Start my own investment bank? The most tangible thing I could have done is win an award at ICDC. Being an Asian Male also hurt me. But I don't think that Penn State is looking for ICDC winners, and Penn State waitlisted me. And don't get me wrong, BC is a pretty good school, but I don't know who the people are that are actually going to target schools, and I don't know what they did better than me.
Might have something to do with the fact that you dont know the different between UPenn and Penn State
No, it was Penn State. Penn-Fucking-State. I applied to it thinking it would be a safety school.
haha
i remember a month or so into my senior year, penn state randomly reached out and told me it would open its doors for me for athletics, but i politely declined and suggested someone else on my team instead lol prob been seething about that ever since
i also thought penn state was a safety school, didn’t even get main campus.
-------
Probably should’ve gotten an A in that physics class
Did you go early decision to your #1 target school? That's a big draw (I'm old, apologies if targets don't do ED anymore, I applied to one school and got in before Christmas).
Other than that, your number 1 mistake is not having rich, legacy parents.
Isn't BC a reasonable semi-target?
In any case, what you could have done is be black instead of asian, hope that helps
From my understanding, it's a semi-target only because BC's alumni network is strong in Boston. I could be wrong though.
i dont really care about the distinction one way or the other.
the only question to be answered is:
if you attend BC, get >3.7 GPA, and network, do you have a solid shot of getting a BB IB internship?
I believe the answer is yes
Did you attend a public school? I had similar credentials (1590 SAT (2340 all)) and was rank 3/~700. I didn’t even attempt to apply to any ivys - the only “reach” I applied to was Rice which I got waitlisted from. Also an Asian Male. Unfortunately if you’re not valedictorian, have an insane extra curricular, or from a private school it’s a crapshoot.
Let’s do the math: 2K undergrads accepted a year, ~18% Asian, half of which are males. 200 kids across the country (not including international kids, so more like 100) get in. Are you a top 100 Asian male in the US for your age? There’s 3k high schools in the US - 3000 valedictorians. You’re looking at 15K students that are similar to you (top 5 in their HS class). Good luck differentiating yourself.
But it’s fine man. BC is a great school and IB is easily doable from there. I went to a public uni and easily got through to a top BB -> PE. If you crave prestige just shoot for b school down the road. You’re doing great!
It was a big competitive public charter high school
The reality is if daddy paid 70k for swanky prep school (Trinity/Nobles/Berkshire/etc) you would get in.......ironically these same people are convinced they earned it
Not sure about the ivies, but I think you should consider transferring. I think most people don't realize how easy it is to transfer to a great school. I had a buddy that had a 3.0 in high school, went to a tier 2 state school (meaning tier 2 within that state. One that probably no one here has ever heard of), got a 3.8 GPA there is first year and was accepted into multiple solid schools as a transfer including one semi-target (think NYU / USC / UT-Austin caliber schools). I can only imagine that with your background you could get into a target as a transfer.
yung bull I went to a boarding school and all the HYP kids were retarded but had good “personality”
Lol you're like a pokemon that says its name first
alr yung bull
They had a good last name lmfao
in full honestly, they really did not, nor were they that rich
I did. You went about it all wrong. Should’ve picked up a sport with a high barrier to entry like $2,000 in equipment every year that only northeast white people play (think lacrosse).
I’m an average to below average athlete but gained admission through this hobby.
No, you're a loser for going to BC lol
Not even IN BOSTON!!!
found the BU alum
BU's in Brookline not Boston
Nope, but I was in New England. BU just has the hottest chicks in Boston so know the campus.
I’m going to give you a hard time bc you need to fix your attitude.
Everything you listed, good grades, good test scores, extracurriculares, etc are the PREREQUISITES for getting into a top school. The biggest differentiator is the essays and the story you tell. It’s very similar to “Tell me about yourself”, but this time you’re trying to tell a college admissions officer why you’ve done everything you’ve done in your life, what passion it’s formed, and why that makes you unique against the 80,000 other people.
Now in your defense (and please don’t think that this is the ONLY reason and please think about the above points), the college admission process post-COVID has gotten really difficult. When you don’t include test scores, it allows for anyone to apply that can meet the GPA standard. And we know how easy that is to scheme in HS. Numbers go up, acceptance rate goes down, and other diversity factors are at hand as well. But, that is all the more reason for applicants to do something in hs that they are passionate about, and cater their extra curricular towards that. For example, my friend who goes to Harvard was All National Musician for Violin AND National FBLA champion and was able to connect these two to show his passion for business and music. He really stood out and his essays had to have been good and it moved the needle
Lastly, it is such a “luck of the draw”. When a school only selects 5% of applicants, you’re literally splitting hairs. Your application gets read when the AO is having a bad day? Cut. You catch her on a good day and that little humorous line in your essay made her laugh. High grade. It’s such a crapshoot
Don’t let the name of your school make you feel any less qualified or successful. At the end of the day, the school you go to is pretty good and I’ve seen plenty alumni in finance. Try and let go of the prestige of the “target” names and understand you can get similar opportunities with the additional work. It’s not the end of the world
Literally splitting hairs? Sure. That exactly what they do at Harvard admissions office.
Excuse me but providing good responses like that is not cool. This is WSO. We are here for the blood sports.
Penn state waitlisted you? What a loser lol.
Chill. He probably got waitlisted for yield protection.
Who cares?
My friend got into Harvard and College of Charleston (full ride) and declined Harvard for the full ride. He had a 1600 SAT and was a black belt in martial arts. He worked at a hedge fund in college and then went to Equity HFT at Citadel for a few years.
Honestly so happy I live in UK. University (college) admissions are much focused on your grades and how good you are at the subject your applying to.
The American university using the UK approach is Caltech and everybody there wishes they got in somewhere else. A really crappy place to spend four years.
You want the honest truth? Rich parents send their kids to prep schools like Trinity/Deerfield/Berkshire/Nobles....the hilarious part is the people who go to these prep schools have convinced themselves that they have no advantage and actually earned it.
Should have gone to boarding school and have legacy
You sound like a lame nerd who would join the high school bowling team thinking it would help with college apps. As an absolutely insufferable archetype, it’s not surprising you didn’t get into a target; you being a carbon copy of thousands of others does you no favors, but keep “rule following” and being guided by mommy and daddy.
i mean... no 18 year olds are that interesting. he did what he was supposed to do.
the people with ECs "saving the world" are the lame-os guided by mom and dad.
I mean…this is wrong. There’s a palpable difference between the lame studyhard who does things because his tigermom has yelled at him since 6 months old and the smart and hard working guy who’s a chiller, maybe played a sport or two in high school, has a marginally interesting hobby and can have a relaxed conversation.
I’ve done alumni interviews for my target undergrad for the last decade and after interviewing 50+ high school kids, not to mention all the prospective summer analysts I’ve interviewed for banking over the years, it’s so easy to tell the difference within 2 minutes of meeting someone.
The recent college applicate age groups are from peak US birth rates. College class sizes have not corresponded in growth. You're just born in the wrong time period, unfortunately.
My only guess it that your essays weren't great. However, I'll admit its stupid that that is the make or break.
As an aside, what I do find confusing about the college acceptance debate is that in the affluent town where I grew up the college placements for the public high school go out in the local paper every year. I have not noticed a shift in placement levels over the past decade plus - ie same number kids to Ivy's and cal/ucla today as 10+ years ago. If it was really getting impossible, these numbers would be declining year over year. My guess in part of what is happening is we hear the stories like the OP but those are actually just pretty rare. No one broadcasts how as a white/asian male from a public school they got accepted with a 1450 and good but not valedictorian grades, but they do.
The placement numbers from each class into good schools could be similar, but the requirement / stats to get into the colleges have gone up, so it's still more difficult now compared to a decade ago
Yes and no. First there is more grade inflation - thats a fact. It also depends on how one defines difficult. Its just a percent distribution, so the top say 10% of a HS class is going to the same colleges they always were going to but maybe now everyone has to work harder. Its essentially a cold war. So more difficult in the sense you need to work harder in HS (absent grade inflation) but that's just a response to incentives, not that the distribution is changing. Phrased differently, the odds aren't changing but you need to run faster to stay in the same place. Though this is how its always been, its just getting more extreme. The 2010s harder than 2000s harder than 90s harder than 80s and so forth but again grade inflation has been crazy over that period of time as well. Lots of puts and takes. The race to zero aspect is certainly making it less fun. The common app and easy to apply to colleges are also distorting the numbers. Kids apply to way more schools than say 10, 20 years ago.
Del
national awards, published research, etc
just be born rich? quite simple
For me, perfect grades in a rigorous curriculum (IB), 1590, leadership in a bunch of clubs, national Model UN awards, etc. coupled with hopefully persuasive recommendations and essays landed me a T10 school (and waitlists at Harvard/Princeton). That’s as a non-diversity. But yes, these last few years of test-optional admissions have been hell on Earth and talented kids really got the short stick, don’t get me wrong. Even pre-COVID, I’m sure I would’ve landed wayyyyy more schools than I did. The application process is so much more difficult than even 10 years ago and nobody treats it that way.
Yeah, I should have won a national-level award in DECA. I probably could have had I not spent time in Student Council and Debate, I was only average at debate and I only did Student Council bc I thought it would help with college apps.
Just enroll at a top school in your area
Sorry bud, better luck next time in the DEI lotto and Legacy game. You could always change your last name to Rodriguez or Hidalgo and reapply
Really not your fault- College admissions has gotten out of control. So much of it is about legacy/athlete/race/some ridiculous story/some made up research project/etc.........
Especially in the COVID years which were test optional. People who are not very intelligent at all were getting into top schools because of their fairy tale ECs....
Don't worry though- things will eventually even out. There's a reason schools have reverted back to requiring standardized testing. And there's a reason why firms are expanding their list of target/semitargets- they know that many talented people like you slipped through the cracks
Few things:
As someone mentioned in the thread, grades and test scores are a prerequisite, not a qualifier. There are like 30k high schools in the States, which means there are 30k valedictorians, and 150k with class rank 5 and above. I highly doubt SAT is definitely a differentiator but college admissions isn’t about IQ.
To get into a top school, you have to either be really fucking good at one thing or be excellent at a bunch of different things that you can somehow connect into a compelling narrative. That’s why essays are so important and why some kids pay thousands of dollars to get professional help on them (even thought you don’t have to). I remember reading a post on A2C from an AO-turned consultant, and this was the gist of it: Even if you have the best grades and 1600, a personal statement that tells some bs story about how you learned something during a competition (which AOs probably read thousands of) is not going to leave a meaningful impression on the AO, and they won’t fight for you during the committee meeting. Compare this to a heartfelt story by some kid with 1490 SAT and okayish grades of helping his little sister with some random art project and finding passion for art that they incorporate into their future engineering projects. Pepper that with nice writing and that’s an ivy admit.
College admissions are a weird kind of competition, where you’re really trying to just showcase why YOU are great and not why you are better than someone else. It’s kinda like a beauty contest, where it’s not about some objective symmetry metrics but about person’s entire look and delivery. There’s definitely a luck aspect to it, and there’s a ton of unfairness to the process today, but that’s not the primary reason why someone doesn’t get in.
You're not a loser because you didn't get into a target. You're a loser because you're done with freshman year, arguably the single most transformative school year of your life, and you still have the same mentality you did coming out of high school.
First off, No one cares about your 4.37, your 1580 SAT, or your 10 APs, because the truth is that it's easy to achieve all of those if you have resources. The SAT is a joke once you figure out how the math section works. GPAs are so inflated nowadays that it's simply ridiculous. What sets you apart is your story. There are kids with a lower GPA than you, lower SAT, fewer APs, that got into ivies. Why? Because they had a better story than you. I'd take a kid with a 3.8 and a 1400 on his SAT that had to sacrifice his grades because he was working a part-time job to help his/her parents with bills over a kid with a 4.4 and a 1600 that hasn't experienced a single day of struggle other than studying for an exam.
Regardless of all that bullshit, who the fuck cares. You got into BC. Target, semi target, nontarget, who the fuck cares? Grind your ass off and get what you want. Even if it doesn't come to you instantly, keep at it until it does.
"You're not a loser because you didn't get into a target. You're a loser because you're done with freshman year, arguably the single most transformative school year of your life, and you still have the same mentality you did coming out of high school."
That is true.
"First off, No one cares about your 4.37, your 1580 SAT, or your 10 APs, because the truth is that it's easy to achieve all of those if you have resources. The SAT is a joke once you figure out how the math section works. GPAs are so inflated nowadays that it's simply ridiculous."
The high school I went to was a very competitive charter school, I had to take an exam to get into the school. My high school had an avg GPA of 3.8 or so but the classes were genuinely difficult, much harder than any class I've taken so far in college.
"What sets you apart is your story. There are kids with a lower GPA than you, lower SAT, fewer APs, that got into ivies. Why? Because they had a better story than you. I'd take a kid with a 3.8 and a 1400 on his SAT that had to sacrifice his grades because he was working a part-time job to help his/her parents with bills over a kid with a 4.4 and a 1600 that hasn't experienced a single day of struggle other than studying for an exam."
My parents worked hard their entire life so that I don't have to work a part-time job to help them with bills. Then what? How do I 'craft a story'?
Should have told your parents to quit their jobs so you could have a better college application stats
Dude, you're looking too deep into it. Obviously not everyone had a part time job to help their parents with their bills. That was just an example that I gave to help you understand. I didn't write about that for my essay, but a different struggle that I went through that still created a compelling story. It also doesn't even have to be centered around struggle. It can be centered around growth, an epiphany, whatever. If you, as a highschool student, look back on your 18 years of life while writing your essay and you can't even come up with one singular instance of growth/struggle/whatever and spin it into a short 650 word essay, do you truly believe that you even deserve to go to a "target school?"
Some advice man- Stop living in the past dude. Like I said, at a certain point nobody gives a fuck what college you go to. There are people who go to colleges infinitely lower ranked in terms of recruiting than BC and still get great offers, and there are people who go to Harvard and don't get offers. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and just hustle.
transfer - i have seen people from bc transfer to columbia, cornell, & georgetown (3 transfer-friendly targets with very strong recruiting).
dartmouth & duke are crapshoots for transfers, but doesn't hurt to try (great social life at both schools!).
i would also do brown if you're in no need of finaid, as they are need-aware for transfers.
since you're in MA, i would also look into transferring to williams & amherst too.
usc is a pretty good west coast target that is transfer-friendly too.
notre dame, michigan ross, vanderbilt, & northwestern are great transfer-friendly schools with a fun social life, although competition at ross will be stiff and northwestern alums seem to stay more in chicago (nyc still doable!)
you should also aim for the moon and give yale & wharton transfer shots too, as i have seen it happen before, albeit rarely.
best of luck and keep pushing!
It’s just pigeon hole principle dude. There are 20,000 high schools in the US so that means there are 20,000 valedictorians and 20,000 salutatorians. There are only ~17,000 spots in IVY league schools. 2million take the SATs and the top 1% is how many students?
Given these numbers, it’s clear that stats just simply don’t filter candidates enough. You need to do more and craft a good story and ultimately be lucky.
del
There are thousands of other students just like you in the same boat... difference is none of them are ranting about how unfair their situations are on WSO.
I would suggest reshaping your attitude and making the most out of your situation (which isn't even bad), and potentially transferring colleges if you really care that much about going to a target school.
Move forward. Maybe it was all so unfair, but here you are. What's your next move? You can chose to be bitter, or you can realize you are at an excellent college with lots of opportunities and a great community of peers. Be the guy that gets involved, makes friends, finds a way to make a meaningful contribution to the BC community, and has a great time in college.
Everyone I know that went to BC went BB IB -> name brand PE/HF/VC. Obviously not all BC students can do that, but it’s not uncommon. The secret is that those guys were cool, well-rounded, well-adjusted guys. That’s how they got their jobs / solid careers. I doubt any of them even applied to Ivies.
Work on being a likable, well-rounded person and everything will fall into place. The fact that you even took the time to write this post after your freshman year tells me you’re not there yet
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