I’m a student at Virginia Tech, which has an acceptance rate around 50%. I have a professor who attended Carnegie Mellon and MIT, and he still chose to proudly spend his entire career at Virginia Tech. I feel very lucky to be here.
@@Noah-bj1xg Absolutely!! For starters the campus is absolutely beautiful. I live in Pearson near the Torgersen bridge and it’s so beautiful that I see who I assume are photography students take pictures with fancy cameras every now and then. I also like how there’s a helpful environment rather than a competitive one. People prefer building each other up rather than being on top. There are lots of resources on campus to help with studying and mental health. The academics are very high quality, which makes sense because it’s a research university. I regret seeing it as “just a state school”, it’s truly a gem. I love it here. There are downsides of course, and I hope you look out for them as those are important in your decision making, but I can safely say that VT is an amazing school that’s worth checking out
@@Noah-bj1xgalso a hokie here, personally I would say regarding community it is probably the amount of clubs- literally anything you can think of there is a club for- consulting, commodity trading, chocolate milk, Harry Potter. Literally anything. Regarding academics I’d say a distinguishing feature is that there is a something called vt data commons where you can look up past grades by teacher by semester by course so you can get way better profs if you plan ahead.
This is very insightful - Emory, for example, has a quite low acceptance rate, but the yield is quite low (40%). Northeastern's acceptance rate is 7%. There are a lot of applicants because there aren't supplements. But truly Northeastern isn't better than a school with a 15-20% acceptance rate. So focus on the quality of the program, not the acceptance rate!
Additionally, anytime NEU puts students on as guranteed Transfers or admits them to their abroad program, they count this as a rejection (even though they will be studying at NEU for 7/8 semesters lmao)
Totally agree!!! I went to SLU in Missouri, loved my dorm, my friends that I made, graduated, then Army officer then med school. And SLU’s acceptance crate at the time was around 50-60%. You can thrive at an easy to get into school.
I go to a school with about a 50% acceptance rate that gives out big scholarships for more academically inclined students to attend. It certainly is not ranked very highly, only about #150 in the US out of something like 400 universities. I turned down NYU to go here simply because of the cost. Most people commute and the quality of the classes are rather low. Despite all this, I have seen people score very good jobs coming out of this school and fancy internships (mostly large financial institutions, 3 letter agencies etc.) By no means would I consider this a fantastic school for the program I am pursuing, but what these people have shown me is that ultimately the success a student can obtain lies in their engagement with the school. You can either treat it like a job or the start of your career.
The school I’m interested in for grad school is NYU, and I intended to apply to there, one Ivy League, one “safety” school, and one school in Germany. But then I got my application to a grad school preview event at the University of Michigan accepted, and I’ve been invited to a virtual admissions fair at UC Berkeley. Now I ended up with five prestigious universities on my application roster and no back up schools…
how many school are you planning to apply to in total? Its a very dangerous mistake to not apply to any backup schools and only go for reach schools (every ivy league school is a reach school, but not every reach school is ivy league). A good combination if you're applying to 10 is this: 3 reach schools, 4-5 schools you're confident you can get into, and finally 2-3 safeties. DO NOT fall into the mistake of overstating your safeties. I promise you that your safety will not have a 20% acceptance rate. Your dream school may be in your reach schools, and thats perfectly fine. Just don't get too overconfident with ur apps or else you'll find yourself (like so many other overachieving highschoolers) getting rejected from 8/10 of the schools you applied to because they were all reaches + a couple backups they didn't care about.
@@botnfs4640 I’m not trying to get overconfident. I’m trying to keep my number of applications within a reasonable amount. I’m only applying to schools where I can have the application fee waived. I’m applying to five universities and nothing more. If I don’t get into any universities this time that’s fine. I’m still trying to find a job and build up some savings before applying to more schools. Again, my application roster just fell into place like that. And I’m fine with that. Sometimes letting chance happen works out. I didn’t think I was going to have my application for the preview event be accepted but hey it was and it’s a pretty big honor. The school paid for my flight and hotel for this event.
Oh I am a German here, may I ask which uni/school you were considering here? And is this still your plan right now or are you mostly focusing on the US? :)
You’ve missed one of the major ways some schools lower their admit rates: Binding Early Decision plans. What would a school’s admit rate be if Early Decision were abolished?
I applied for college withouta SAT or ACT score and I actually got accepted to 4/5 schools i aplied to. Then again it was during prime COVID and i did AP and IB.
It's rather interesting to see what it's like in the US. In England where I live we use UCAS to apply to Uni, which has a maximum of 5 choices making the survivorship bias far more obvious when looking at top unis. That is, if you're not already scoring top marks in our standardised exams & halfway decent marks in entrance test past papers you might as well not even apply because it'd waste a valuable choice.
My son went to UW Madison and had a wonderful experience. It is so important to pick the school that is right for you, not just the one that seems most prestigious. You can get anywhere you want to go from a good school. Doesn't have to be a super elite school. "What" you study is more important than "where" you study.
If you're just starting out college, do not pass up community college, especially for your basic credits. There are likely still many good professors and other students to engage with and you'll save yourself money and student debt. I've heard from many people, including those in their late 30s, that are still tied to their student debt. Being smart is not having yale next to your name on your diploma. Being smart is considering the long-term and your own personal values and interests.
I agree with this! Side note: take dual enrollment classes if ever possible, and over APs since its half the time and half the stress: I also feel a lot more prepared for what college may be like after truly interacting with the profs and students. Knocking out those classes the cheapest way possible (whether its via your school offering dual enrollment OR taking community college for a semester or two) really adds up. By the time I graduate I'll already have a year (31 hours) knocked out. As for my second year (and final to achieve gen ed) something I am considering and I advise others to consider is taking classes online as you work a part time or even full time job. You get credits at virtually no cost AND earn money for your next 2+ years of your degree(s). You can essentially have a "productive gap year:" I have a friend doing that right now! And once all's said and done, it's way easier to transfer than to apply. It's a truth I've heard echoed by not just parents and friends, but counslers and even those who work college admissions themselves (especially within the state: may differ out of state).You may miss out of a couple years of that "experience" but you'll still get a taste of that but now at an affordable (and less stressful) cost. At the end of the day, the Ivy's are a fancy stamp with a huge price tag. Also, seriously consider college abroad (not exchange but actually moving and attending one there) if you're seeking "elite" classes and teachers since there's plenty of great schools such as Oxford at way more affordable prices too.
@@skylily427Act like a college student and use Rate My Professor if you choose to do dual enrollment. I had a friend who took ONE general education class and that stupid class ate up their entire second half of senior year of high school. And for what? One course worth of general education units, which probably would’ve been less work to just take once you’ve entered college.
Columbia has a School of General Studies for "non-traditional" students. These students could be those that went to the military for several years or took several years off travelling around the world or decided to go to college after changing career paths. The standards for acceptance are much lower for this school than for either of their two "traditional" colleges--Columbia College and School of Engineering, so Columbia wanted to exclude the numbers from General Studies. They were kind of already being allowed to do it by treating Barnard College as a separate institution in the rankings, even though it's also technically part of the university as well. Cornell is another one where there's some weird situation going on, as it's partly both a private and public school, depending on which college within the university you apply to. I'm not sure if they were also excluding the acceptance rates of the public schools from their overall numbers.
This is interesting, thanks for sharing your experience! I wonder how much international students affect the admissions rate. I went to undergrad at NYU, which has a high number of international students, especially from the "new rich" of Asian countries such as Indian, China, and South Korea. Ivy league schools are also very popular with these applicants. I'd imagine these students have a lower acceptance rate compared to domestic applicants, especially if they don't have the means to actually attend these expensive universities.
RMH has a section where you can look at the overall ratings of a school and see how people view it. Since it’s students rating it and not some organization it can give you a better feel for how it will actually feel being there. I encourage you to read the reviews to see what things that school does well vs poorly
Hard to say as it depends on the school. At UW specifically, admissions were separate from majors. This meant you could still get into the school but not get admitted to your major. In these cases we tell students to explore their interests on campus and reapply to their major in a year.
Hey, I've randomly come across your channel and checked out a few of the videos you made and am really blown away by the low subscriber count which I'm sure won't stay low if the quality of these videos continues. I'm someone who comes from a still underdeveloped country and am currently in the middle of taking a gap year, and preparing my applications for university. The resources for such a thing in my country are very low and generally unreliable (I know someone who got "professionally" advised to make the personal essay almost entirely about their dad when applying to Yale.) Anyway, I have a ton of questions and have loved the realistic way you portray these universities. I guess I'm kind of asking if you do consultations I suppose (perhaps if you could answer a few questions about the process as I have so many.) I am currently planning on applying to Brown as my ED, and I understand you're not a biggest fan of Ivies with good reason, however, as a student coming from a country where my parents would have to save for 5 years to pay for a single semester at a US college, I kind of need to prioritize internationally need-blind universities (at least for ED) and from the very short list of those which offer that, Brown seems like the most suitable for me. I really believe that I have the skills and personality to completely fit into their "system", but, If you are available of course, I would love to also love to talk to a genuine admission rep who is willing to help and give legit insight into the whole process. I come from a country where there's a 99% chance that I am the only one applying to these sorts of universities, and I can't even begin to describe how much it would mean to actually get accepted. Therefore, I want to really seize this opportunity fully and do everything in my power to maximize my chances. I hope that you will be able to have a 30 minute to an hour conversation just to discuss some things and personally help me. If not however, I want you to know that these videos are still great and helped a ton in their own way.
@@dies3156 Really appreciate the kind words. I'd recommend you contact the admissions office at Brown/ any other school youre interested in for the most accurate info.
Like I know there are university's out there with great reputations because of their research work. But a researcher isn't necessarily a good teacher. I've had some fantastic teachers at community college and state university. So no regrets.
Hey you made a mistake at second 25 you said that acceptance rate is the number Applicants divide by the number of admits when it’s the inverse I’m sure you know this but just wanted to clarify.
I’m not a lawyer, but you should probably take off your old work shirt while making videos. You will eventually get a cease and desist from Wisconsin, and it is misleading. Don’t say I didn’t warn you bro. Awesome video though. Thanks.
![Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]](/img/1.gif)
"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"
I’m a student at Virginia Tech, which has an acceptance rate around 50%. I have a professor who attended Carnegie Mellon and MIT, and he still chose to proudly spend his entire career at Virginia Tech. I feel very lucky to be here.
My community college has a professor who got a PhD from MIT
VT, W
I am applying to VT, could you tell me your favorite parts about the school community/academics?
@@Noah-bj1xg Absolutely!! For starters the campus is absolutely beautiful. I live in Pearson near the Torgersen bridge and it’s so beautiful that I see who I assume are photography students take pictures with fancy cameras every now and then.
I also like how there’s a helpful environment rather than a competitive one. People prefer building each other up rather than being on top. There are lots of resources on campus to help with studying and mental health.
The academics are very high quality, which makes sense because it’s a research university. I regret seeing it as “just a state school”, it’s truly a gem. I love it here.
There are downsides of course, and I hope you look out for them as those are important in your decision making, but I can safely say that VT is an amazing school that’s worth checking out
@@Noah-bj1xgalso a hokie here, personally I would say regarding community it is probably the amount of clubs- literally anything you can think of there is a club for- consulting, commodity trading, chocolate milk, Harry Potter. Literally anything.
Regarding academics I’d say a distinguishing feature is that there is a something called vt data commons where you can look up past grades by teacher by semester by course so you can get way better profs if you plan ahead.
so much to this. I recommend the books "where you go is not who you'll be" and "looking beyond the ivy league" to nervous students or parents
This is very insightful - Emory, for example, has a quite low acceptance rate, but the yield is quite low (40%).
Northeastern's acceptance rate is 7%. There are a lot of applicants because there aren't supplements. But truly Northeastern isn't better than a school with a 15-20% acceptance rate.
So focus on the quality of the program, not the acceptance rate!
Additionally, anytime NEU puts students on as guranteed Transfers or admits them to their abroad program, they count this as a rejection (even though they will be studying at NEU for 7/8 semesters lmao)
@@syeds4380 Sounds fraudulent
@@syeds4380Yeah my brother is in the Northeastern International program and thats how they smurf/fake their acceptance rate to 7%
Totally agree!!! I went to SLU in Missouri, loved my dorm, my friends that I made, graduated, then Army officer then med school. And SLU’s acceptance crate at the time was around 50-60%. You can thrive at an easy to get into school.
I go to a school with about a 50% acceptance rate that gives out big scholarships for more academically inclined students to attend. It certainly is not ranked very highly, only about #150 in the US out of something like 400 universities. I turned down NYU to go here simply because of the cost. Most people commute and the quality of the classes are rather low. Despite all this, I have seen people score very good jobs coming out of this school and fancy internships (mostly large financial institutions, 3 letter agencies etc.) By no means would I consider this a fantastic school for the program I am pursuing, but what these people have shown me is that ultimately the success a student can obtain lies in their engagement with the school. You can either treat it like a job or the start of your career.
The school I’m interested in for grad school is NYU, and I intended to apply to there, one Ivy League, one “safety” school, and one school in Germany. But then I got my application to a grad school preview event at the University of Michigan accepted, and I’ve been invited to a virtual admissions fair at UC Berkeley. Now I ended up with five prestigious universities on my application roster and no back up schools…
how many school are you planning to apply to in total? Its a very dangerous mistake to not apply to any backup schools and only go for reach schools (every ivy league school is a reach school, but not every reach school is ivy league). A good combination if you're applying to 10 is this: 3 reach schools, 4-5 schools you're confident you can get into, and finally 2-3 safeties. DO NOT fall into the mistake of overstating your safeties. I promise you that your safety will not have a 20% acceptance rate. Your dream school may be in your reach schools, and thats perfectly fine. Just don't get too overconfident with ur apps or else you'll find yourself (like so many other overachieving highschoolers) getting rejected from 8/10 of the schools you applied to because they were all reaches + a couple backups they didn't care about.
@@botnfs4640 I’m not trying to get overconfident. I’m trying to keep my number of applications within a reasonable amount. I’m only applying to schools where I can have the application fee waived. I’m applying to five universities and nothing more. If I don’t get into any universities this time that’s fine. I’m still trying to find a job and build up some savings before applying to more schools. Again, my application roster just fell into place like that. And I’m fine with that. Sometimes letting chance happen works out. I didn’t think I was going to have my application for the preview event be accepted but hey it was and it’s a pretty big honor. The school paid for my flight and hotel for this event.
@@botnfs4640 idk why my response disappeared but I really don’t feel like re-typing right now. Sorry.
@@botnfs4640Or just apply to 18 schools. Painful process but less risk involved and you can try to be more aggressive in reaches
Oh I am a German here, may I ask which uni/school you were considering here? And is this still your plan right now or are you mostly focusing on the US? :)
You’ve missed one of the major ways some schools lower their admit rates: Binding Early Decision plans. What would a school’s admit rate be if Early Decision were abolished?
Parents and students tend to overlook high acceptance rates/high graduation rates public schools, for example, a school like Ohio University.
I applied for college withouta SAT or ACT score and I actually got accepted to 4/5 schools i aplied to. Then again it was during prime COVID and i did AP and IB.
Was it an elite school?
IB!!!IB!!!IB!!!
what are the schools
It's rather interesting to see what it's like in the US. In England where I live we use UCAS to apply to Uni, which has a maximum of 5 choices making the survivorship bias far more obvious when looking at top unis. That is, if you're not already scoring top marks in our standardised exams & halfway decent marks in entrance test past papers you might as well not even apply because it'd waste a valuable choice.
My son went to UW Madison and had a wonderful experience. It is so important to pick the school that is right for you, not just the one that seems most prestigious. You can get anywhere you want to go from a good school. Doesn't have to be a super elite school. "What" you study is more important than "where" you study.
If you're just starting out college, do not pass up community college, especially for your basic credits. There are likely still many good professors and other students to engage with and you'll save yourself money and student debt. I've heard from many people, including those in their late 30s, that are still tied to their student debt. Being smart is not having yale next to your name on your diploma. Being smart is considering the long-term and your own personal values and interests.
I agree with this! Side note: take dual enrollment classes if ever possible, and over APs since its half the time and half the stress: I also feel a lot more prepared for what college may be like after truly interacting with the profs and students. Knocking out those classes the cheapest way possible (whether its via your school offering dual enrollment OR taking community college for a semester or two) really adds up. By the time I graduate I'll already have a year (31 hours) knocked out. As for my second year (and final to achieve gen ed) something I am considering and I advise others to consider is taking classes online as you work a part time or even full time job. You get credits at virtually no cost AND earn money for your next 2+ years of your degree(s). You can essentially have a "productive gap year:" I have a friend doing that right now! And once all's said and done, it's way easier to transfer than to apply. It's a truth I've heard echoed by not just parents and friends, but counslers and even those who work college admissions themselves (especially within the state: may differ out of state).You may miss out of a couple years of that "experience" but you'll still get a taste of that but now at an affordable (and less stressful) cost.
At the end of the day, the Ivy's are a fancy stamp with a huge price tag. Also, seriously consider college abroad (not exchange but actually moving and attending one there) if you're seeking "elite" classes and teachers since there's plenty of great schools such as Oxford at way more affordable prices too.
@@skylily427Act like a college student and use Rate My Professor if you choose to do dual enrollment. I had a friend who took ONE general education class and that stupid class ate up their entire second half of senior year of high school. And for what? One course worth of general education units, which probably would’ve been less work to just take once you’ve entered college.
Columbia has a School of General Studies for "non-traditional" students. These students could be those that went to the military for several years or took several years off travelling around the world or decided to go to college after changing career paths. The standards for acceptance are much lower for this school than for either of their two "traditional" colleges--Columbia College and School of Engineering, so Columbia wanted to exclude the numbers from General Studies.
They were kind of already being allowed to do it by treating Barnard College as a separate institution in the rankings, even though it's also technically part of the university as well.
Cornell is another one where there's some weird situation going on, as it's partly both a private and public school, depending on which college within the university you apply to. I'm not sure if they were also excluding the acceptance rates of the public schools from their overall numbers.
I got accepted into - and graduated from - Stanford. I applied without regard for the likelihood of my being admitted.
When did you apply
This is interesting, thanks for sharing your experience!
I wonder how much international students affect the admissions rate. I went to undergrad at NYU, which has a high number of international students, especially from the "new rich" of Asian countries such as Indian, China, and South Korea. Ivy league schools are also very popular with these applicants. I'd imagine these students have a lower acceptance rate compared to domestic applicants, especially if they don't have the means to actually attend these expensive universities.
RMH has a section where you can look at the overall ratings of a school and see how people view it. Since it’s students rating it and not some organization it can give you a better feel for how it will actually feel being there. I encourage you to read the reviews to see what things that school does well vs poorly
thanks for this, I needed to hear it.
Thanks for the tips, any advice for super competitive majors like computer science?
Hard to say as it depends on the school. At UW specifically, admissions were separate from majors. This meant you could still get into the school but not get admitted to your major. In these cases we tell students to explore their interests on campus and reapply to their major in a year.
Hey, I've randomly come across your channel and checked out a few of the videos you made and am really blown away by the low subscriber count which I'm sure won't stay low if the quality of these videos continues. I'm someone who comes from a still underdeveloped country and am currently in the middle of taking a gap year, and preparing my applications for university. The resources for such a thing in my country are very low and generally unreliable (I know someone who got "professionally" advised to make the personal essay almost entirely about their dad when applying to Yale.) Anyway, I have a ton of questions and have loved the realistic way you portray these universities. I guess I'm kind of asking if you do consultations I suppose (perhaps if you could answer a few questions about the process as I have so many.) I am currently planning on applying to Brown as my ED, and I understand you're not a biggest fan of Ivies with good reason, however, as a student coming from a country where my parents would have to save for 5 years to pay for a single semester at a US college, I kind of need to prioritize internationally need-blind universities (at least for ED) and from the very short list of those which offer that, Brown seems like the most suitable for me. I really believe that I have the skills and personality to completely fit into their "system", but, If you are available of course, I would love to also love to talk to a genuine admission rep who is willing to help and give legit insight into the whole process.
I come from a country where there's a 99% chance that I am the only one applying to these sorts of universities, and I can't even begin to describe how much it would mean to actually get accepted. Therefore, I want to really seize this opportunity fully and do everything in my power to maximize my chances. I hope that you will be able to have a 30 minute to an hour conversation just to discuss some things and personally help me. If not however, I want you to know that these videos are still great and helped a ton in their own way.
@@dies3156 Really appreciate the kind words. I'd recommend you contact the admissions office at Brown/ any other school youre interested in for the most accurate info.
Like I know there are university's out there with great reputations because of their research work. But a researcher isn't necessarily a good teacher. I've had some fantastic teachers at community college and state university. So no regrets.
Awesome. Are international students overall preferred? Especially if self paying??
Bruh my sister has fee waivers for every school I’m telling her to apply to like all top 30schools at least lol.
you got the formula backwards. its the number of admits out of the number of applicants
On Wisconsin!
Hey you made a mistake at second 25 you said that acceptance rate is the number Applicants divide by the number of admits when it’s the inverse I’m sure you know this but just wanted to clarify.
thanks king!
thanks!
I’m not a lawyer, but you should probably take off your old work shirt while making videos. You will eventually get a cease and desist from Wisconsin, and it is misleading. Don’t say I didn’t warn you bro.
Awesome video though. Thanks.
@2:42 please check your spelling!
You got me 😂
you all can still turn to Jesus Christ if you have not God bless you all
What
Please listen to Pastor Paul Rika
I turn to Jesus when I need some of the trees trimmed after he mows my lawn.
Will he give me money
@@mayanicole3886Something better than money