If you're smart, user. Why don't you study at :

You need to do a lot, not only good grades.
You can be easily accepted if you won an international competition like IMO (International mathematics olympiad)

What do you study ?

Natural Sciences

Everyone has good grades, they are a necessary but not sufficient criterion for entry.

D-d-does Columbia belong with the ranks of these giants?

Has second largest number of Nobel Prizes according to Wikipeidia

Sure.

What do you study ?

Physics

Expensive, and the only benefit is meeting useful people.

I'm not in that weird niche where I have lots of money but want to be an entrepreneur.

>Natural Sciences
Nice.
Also, nice.
Good luck !

The Ivies give so much financial aid, it's not even funny. Stop blaming artificial boundaries for your failures

>Expensive
Not even. These schools cut costs like crazy for anyone who isn't absurdly wealthy. This is the flimsiest excuse and it annoys me.

I'm at Berkeley for MechE, better than all but MIT on that list.

>berkeley is better than cambridge for engineering
top kek

Meh. Going to any of those places would certainly be nice, but not strictly necessary to succeed in any given field. I'm currently going to Rice University, and I should be able to do just fine once I graduate.

I didn't apply because I want personal educational attention in my undergrad rather than rampant competition. My school will give me a better chance of getting into an Ivy for grad school than an Ivy will.

>personal educational attention
You do oxford and cambridge colleges will have like 10-15 students per year per subject max, right?

And you get several supervisions weekly with your lecturers in one on one or 2/3 sessions.

Your excuses don't apply.

Because I'm still in high school

>MIT
Too many autists

>Harvard
Ivy League is a sports league, it has nothing to do with education value.
See "harvard cheating scandal" for more info.

>Oxford
Same as harvard.

>Cambridge
Because the UK doesn't teach Epistemology or Empiricism, which is UK Nobel winners never contribute to anything.

>CalTech
Because it's a playground for companies wishing to waste their education.

>Princeton
Only Princeton Law has any meaning.
No one goes to Princeton for STEM.

>St John's

>being poor

Did you forget a /s for Princeton?

Princeton has no law school and its STEm graduate programs are the top of the world

I easily had the grades for Oxbrimperial but went to my local university without thinking and regret it massively.

Veeky Forums is fucking retarded when it comes to this topic.

>hurrdurr ivies are shit for STEM

So why did mochizuki go to Princeton for undergrad? And Terence Tao for his PhD? And ten trillion other examples?

>hurrdurr my state school is just as good for STEM
>USAToday ranks South-North Alabama Technical Community College's Code Monkey Studies course as the #22 ranked course in the country for graduates who go in to IT Help desk roles

Yeah......... Very impressive....

>the courses are the same
>99 % of sci talks about Calc 1-3
>MIT does it (and more) in two courses
>Caltech and the British universities make you do proofs from day one

Among many other factors

Trinity master race you sub human waste of space

>hurrdurr ivies are shit for STEM
they're shit for STE

>trinity
top kek, enjoy your college full of asians, autists and 0 attractive women

tripos/year?

If you were actually smart enough, you would've made the decision to go there

I had no real ECs in highschool.

My 4.0 and 98% test scores wouldn't have gotten me in.

Also, I don't really care. I'm not motivated enough to succeed at a rigorous university.

>Oxbrimperial
this is not a thing

because I'm not smart
:(

>tfw my college is named after Trinity College at Cambridge
>I will never not have to explain that no, it's not THE Trinity

>Go to top school where they throw work at you just to look tough causing burnout
>vs
>Go to no-name school, pass with time to fuck bitches and then do PhD at top school which is when university prestige actually matters.
There was this google presentation that said generations of gifted students are being screwed up because they always apply for top schools where they just end up getting depressed at being mediocre and failing.

Nah, i want to be on /b/, but on campus Id rather not be scrolling past all of the cancer and porn threads, so i go here or Veeky Forums or /v/

I'm smart but lazy

Because I went to Stanford since they offered me free tuition.

>Why don't you study at :
cost.
not a minority so my 4.0 and perfect ACT didn't mean shit.
went to a free college instead.

Why do people keep saying that? Ivies and other top-ranked schools give 100% need-blind financial aid

>I want personal educational attention

bfy tw/5nFX

what grades? 3 A*'s? in further maths too? you sure you'd have passed the interviews too? you definitely 100% on that? you definitely good enough to pass the entrance exams, right? this all true mate?

>tfw I could have got in to oxford but didn't believe in myself enough to apply

>tfw I was predicted BBB

>tfw I got AAAA

>Includes Harvard, MIT, Princeton and Caltech but not Stanford

pic is comparison between stanford and harvard donors

>AAAA
You do realise that is a *minimum* requirement right? Loads of people get 4A or better and still don't get in.

What matters is how you do in the interview and the entrance tests. Go do some STEP papers and see how you get on

I wouldn't get in. Even if I could, I still wouldn't have gone because of costs of travelling, distance away from home etc. It doesn't help I'm from Canada. I possibly would've made it into Waterloo but I didn't try because at the end of highschool all the adults in my life were telling me "it doesn't matter what school you go to, go to the cheapest one that's also closest to home."

I got an A in AS too btw,
So
A2: A A A A (Chem, Bio, Phys, Maths)
AS: A (English and a B in General [lel])
and considering I'm an underprivileged working class lad should be a free ride :^)

0 A* and you think you are oxbridge material?

You would get destroyed at interview

Any advice for someone that's hoping to apply this year?

what were your GCSEs

but I study at Imperial and have a job offer at a bulge bracket investment bank

This so fucking much!!

Veeky Forums ain't nothing but a last resort

Lel pretty shite, all 9As, 4Bs, something like that I can't remember

Sure thing... You realise it's A*AA for 3 A levels and around AAAA for 4?

sounds fucking sweet

>not having 10 A* at GCSE
>thinks hes oxbridge material

achtually i'll think you find that oxford like to see an improvement from GSCE to ALevel, my results show i went from little acorn to beautiful oak

Again, that is a minimum requirement. Considering only the top 3 grades (as they do on admission statistics), the average student accepted to Cambridge has at least 3A*.

undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/files/publications/undergrad_admissions_statistics_2014_cycle.pdf

You aren't as clever as you think you are

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2395440/A-Level-results-Student-7-A-s-heads-Stanford-REJECTED-Oxford-University.html

Because I am a postdoc, not a student.

They publish using the top 3 a level grades received.

Your best 3 grades = AAA
Number of students in Cambridge who got 3A or worse = 2.7%

Of the 2103 applicants who achieved 3A in their best 3 A levels Cambridge accepted 112.

Presumably they were shit hot in their admissions tests.

Do you seriously think you are oxbridge material?

>stat goes up to 2006

lol I am a fuckwit and didn't read it right, the numbers are worse:

1,407 applications, 66 got places. That is an acceptance rate of 4.7% for students applying to cambridge with your grades.

desu mate, this is assuming the AAA has the same acceptance rate as AAAA, which is probably not true, I can almost guarantee that if the data was split you'd see a a difference.

That being said, I'd rather be a big fish (currently the top 5 in my degree at my uni) in a small pond, than a little fish in a big pond

60% of students got 3A* at least, if not higher. 4A is not an achievement bro

Also most people I know here did 4+ A levels, most got 3+ A*

it's just backroom equation pushing for Lloyd's, no swanky london millionaire dream, but it's definitely solid work, especially since starting on £40k +bonus (I know that's actually relatively low but it's just the maximum starting salary they could put me on, it'll rise in a year's time, or so I'm told) straight out of school is living the fucking dream for all I care

silicon valley intern salary is $100K/year USD (70K GBP)

UK salaries BTFO

shit gcse's:
3A*,5A,B,2C

as:
4A

got an offer (A*A*A) for the summer do maths and philosophy next year.

and my maths UMS was shit-tear (compared to full-ums fags)

and i didnt have further maths as / wont have further maths a level at the end of the year

oxford clearly dont give a shit about grades compared to cambridge. they have a Maths Aptitude Test which they use a lot though

Good luck mate, try hard ;^)

It's not the end of the world if you don't get in Senpai

They are meme universities (minus MIT).

haha thanks m80, ive got a decent insurance offer. tbch im not really obsessed with the place, but for some reason i think people around me will think im such a pseudy prick if i dont get in. like "haha showed that smug bastard".

is all of science and art just a bunch of lonely losers trying to prove they're smart or is that just me?

Tbh I think some of the appeal for science is that people automatically assume you're smart for doing it

mfw dutch mbo4 cuck doing web dev because i fucked up art class so couldn't do havo . end life when ?

factor in cost of living expense in cali and it'll work out about the same

you can still make a lot of money in SV if you know how to spend your money wisely

Source: poorfag that grew up in the bay area

which we are.

nice try liberal arts major

There but for the grace of Allah, go I. It's astounding to me that dutch schools allow arts and crafts and sports class to affect people's futures like that.

>Caring about what instittute you go to and not learning from the internet

LMAO, enjoy your debt, oh you're going to waste 4 years learning something you can learn in 1-2 years???

LMAO

You do things for money?? LMAO

PLEBS, PLEBS, PLEBS

>MIT
>CalTech
too expensive. not sure if i would have gotten in

>Harvard
>Oxford
>Cambridge
>Princeton
my cheap state school is better than them in my field (ECE)

>my cheap state school is better than them in my field (ECE)
Well memed

1- they are expensive, if my family had the financial resources to spare I would consider it

2- they are filled to the brim with narcissists and delusional people who think they're special and are completely self-absorbed, why go somewhere where you will be surrounded by assholes? Isnt the point of life to enjoy yourself? If I wanted an 80hr week in a cuthroat bussiness with lots of money and no life, maybe I would go there

3- they are memes. you can get a good education or even a better one in other good universities. The only reason to go is to a) get name brand name (which is important) b) get high quality connections with smart children of rich people, that helps a lot

4- its your life. its your choice how you live it. what if you just want a different experience? Must everyone want to go to the most famous universities and towns? That fame on its own is a downside, in that people, and the institution itself, become self delusional. I want to go to a good place that is focused on the topic of interest itself. Not in one where the focus is in staring in a mirror

This wasn't really the plan, but it has turned out pretty nicely for me now that I realised I'm not a brainlet, and should have had the confidence to pursue better things:

I went to a top 10 uk uni for maths, planning on applying to Cambridge for part III of the tripos; grades going very well at this uni and it means I have much less stress and a lot more fun as an undergrad compared to my oxbridge friends.

It's much easier to be a big fish in a small pond in such a situation, and as a result it means by being one of the few who actually give a shit/ are quite good at the subject, lecturers are much happier to give you fairly unique opportunities; Ie research as undergrad (Inc. paid research internships over holidays, etc.) which will in turn help when applying for post grad.

Illinois?

I can get there are many arguments for not going to the top schools but you'd have to be willingly ignorant to believe the schools doesn't give a fuckload of money in grants to help out poorer students

but I do study at Princeton

Not enough effort exerted to distinguish myself outside of grades/SAT in highschool for Caltech or MIT, not British, and not Jewish enough for Ivies.

Because I'm an Ausfag and didn't want to leave

I'm transfering in next semester for math.
Sup bear bro.

Nice! Welcome to Cal.
It's a great school, but it's tough. Don't be discouraged if you get a shit GPA. Math has the second lowest average in the school.

Because the strength of your (american) high school record is not based on merit.

Artificially low grades (ideologically motivated) in humanities courses are a big issue. Cronyism/patronage is as well.

Beyond outright cynical abuse of the system, subjective assessments are also severely prone to cognitive bias. A teacher's general impressions of a student him/herself (re: subconscious, unexamined beliefs) heavily color their judgement before they've even seen the work they're assessing. Background factors are noteworthy as well. The "racism of lowered expectations" giving black and hispanic students higher grades for the same performance/effort/ability, judges ruling favorably on parole hearings far more often at the start of the day and after breaks, and the effects of the uncanny valley are key illustrative examples.

So in a way, come across as the wrong type of spergy and you're fucked, carry the invisible markers that make you a target for mass bullying and you're fucked, get an insecure teacher you end up disagreeing with in your dispassionate attempt to formulate the objectively strongest, most complete argument and you're fucked. Sit, stand, walk or speak the subliminally "wrong" way and you're fucked. Regularly get less sleep than you need, appear outwardly tired and you're fucked. Fail to hide your depression perfectly and you're fucked.

>mfw the imperative to examine one's own hidden and implicit beliefs in order to confront bias comes from fucking Socrates
>mfw those who insist on treating passing familiarity with various aspects of western civilization as a legitimate academic discipline shit on the very roots of that civilization in some mad drive to imagine away the Kafkaesque nature of the gatekeepers to all fields and the only thing they accept as a vehicle of intellectual status
>mfw virtue signaling trumps substance here too
>mfw we'd literally rather invent imaginary problems (AA, STEM gender quotas) than even acknowledge this issue

>having 139 IQ
>being poor my whole life due to my grand parents labeled as public enemies coz they are not with the communist government, completely shunned from society.
>living in ex commie country now

>doing wagecuck job and thinking of moving up to a software developer in hope to get visa for the USA someday

I'm not Jewish and/or Rich, nor am I eligible for affirmative action.

Sooooo

I'm going to attend Cal State Chico in the fall, getting my degree in Finance.

How fucked am I?

All I can say is that I'm glad people like you exist, user.

...