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Man you sound like me 15 years ago :) I am Chinese American, got almost perfect SAT scores, top of my class, etc. I got rejected from all the schools Asian parents like (Harvard, MIT, I think Yale, etc.)

I ended up going to Cornell (I think my other choices were UPenn and CMU). Anyway, it ended up great. There were tons of things that interested me in school; I got very high grades but didn't concentrate on them. I played in bands and partied. I developed a reputation for being the guy who stayed out all night and still got 100 on all the tests people were cramming for. There is freedom in not trying to compete with others.

Like everyone, I had some rough years after college, but with a decade of hindsight it all turned out great. I also did better on the Asian parent metric of making more money than peers who went to Harvard, etc. I think it was mainly by valuing honest work (i.e. problems people actually have) rather than working on things that are supposed to be hard or prestigious. If you follow the advice of a lot of Asian parents, you'll end up working hard and not smart.

It sounds like you have a great head on your shoulders, and a great outlook on the situation, so good luck to you!

Cornell is a great school. There are certainly easy majors and easy courses available, but I was able to find courses that would kick my ass, and made lifelong friends with people who were hard working and incredibly bright.

Getting into college is only the starting point; the key is to find a place where you have room to grow and that will challenge you, and where there is an overall good work ethic. Those are the things that will really determine your trajectory later in life.

Yeah, I also meant to say that one of the things I appreciated most about Cornell is that, unlike almost all prestigious schools, it is outside the normal "east coast metro area" mentality (i.e. Boston - NY - DC).

Alan Kay (who I previously bashed here) has said "perspective is worth 80 IQ points" and that definitely applies to your education.

LOL only in asianparentland does cornell count as some kind of consolation prize.

You're definitely not naive, yours is actually one of the most thoughtful comments in this thread thus far. You can look through a lot of the posts above and easily identify who is defending the status they feel was conferred upon them by their undergraduate acceptance letter.

In addition to the comment you mentioned that Yale could have filled 3 identical classes from their applicant pool, I've heard quotes from Harvard admission officers saying 95% of their applicants would be capable Harvard students.

Another thing that is important to remember is that not only are some of the admission decisions arbitrary but they are differentiations among young people whose lives have been vastly shaped by their family and schooling. Whatever merit is, at the undergraduate level students are already being evaluated on resume and preparedness. This is not at all a competition on equal grounds for students across the country, let alone across the globe as elite US undergraduate admissions are increasingly a global competition.

Echoing your last point, instead of arguing that undergraduate admissions decisions are significant judgments we should be thankful that we live long lives that allow us to do great work outside of a system that at its highest levels does not have the volume or capacity to discover meaningful distinctions between applicants.

> filled 3 identical classes from their applicant pool, I've heard quotes from Harvard admission officers saying 95% of their applicants would be capable Harvard students.

so why aren't more position made available for these applicants? Isn't the root cause of the problem one of not enough spaces for the number of applicants? If each applicant paid their own way (either through their own, or borrowed money), how come there isn't enough spaces to satisfy everyone? A more educated society is a better society.

There are more positions made for these applicants but they are at other less prestigious schools. And I don't mean that as a negative. There are tons of schools that aren't Ivys where you can still get a great education. And I'm not talking about MIT & Stanford. There are a lot of great liberal arts schools and state schools that don't have sub 10% admission rates but still provide an amazing education.

You don't need the prestige of the Ivies to get a great education.

I was in your shoes about a decade ago, but without the perfect SAT scores (though still top notch). While applying to colleges, I got an interesting piece of advice from friends I met during math and science competitions (these are all people who are in the top 1% of US high school students in these fields). They said to pick one of the schools in my list of top choices and apply directly to their engineering (or equivalent) school. Then fill in the major field with something that fits my credentials perfectly even if I'm still unsure what to pursue.

Their reasoning goes that the engineering sections of Ivys often don't attract the very best candidates (Ivy League engineering << MIT, CMU, etc.) in these fields. So by applying in this manner, you end up competing against an "easier" pool of applicants. The major bit adds icing to your application as it makes you appear to be a focused student and allows the school to fulfill career diversity goals. Of course, all of this is just speculation but for the Ivys that rank their engineering schools separately, it is pretty clear that it would be much easier to get into those schools.

So I took this advice and that one school ended up being the only school that didn't reject/waitlist me (none of my waitlists even panned out). Once you get in, just bust your ass freshman year and "transfer" into the general school. Or if you decide to do engineering anyway, change majors (what I ended up doing).

This is just one anecdote and admissions may very well be fair. However, I don't think it is naive for anyone to think otherwise because the perception is shared by many educated people.

That is a very rough story, I'm sorry to hear this. I hate to hear successful students like yourself not get into their schools of choice.

Where did you end up getting accepted to? Did you do things like sports in school, or did you dedicate yourself to academics?

I played varsity lacrosse and track :)

Wow, so you had everything across the board, and you still didn't get into a top notch school? That sucks, I'm really sorry to hear that! What are your plans now, which college are you going to attend?

> I think that one of the benefits of our society, especially in the entrepreneurial community, is that success is ultimately the result of hard work and talent.

Benefiting who, exactly? Success at what, exactly?

Great attitude, kid! Everyone can see themselves as a victim at any point, but it's people like you who don't always read much negativity into the decision-making of others and instead focus their energy into making the best of their opportunities who go on to do great things.

Don't worry if you don't make it into your top choice. You can always apply to grad school there. :)

Private colleges don't need to be merit-based. They choose who they want.

You're right about diversity, and accepting the impact it has on the process. You should probably be pissed about the legacies, though. Why doesn't Yale set up a second school called, say, "Yale Legacies", and fill it up with the same?