>tfw won't ever make it to an Ivy League uni
How should I reconcile with the fact that there are things which I can never even dream of achieving? How should I feel when there are batch mates of mine who get through an Ivy League like it's cake and I'm supposed to feel happy for them when it's actually killing me inside?
It's killing me, /lit/. What should I read to make me feel better?
if you can't become talented by studying independently, you don't deserve an elite lib arts education
frankly, no one deserves that level of education and it turns everyone there into incubated pissbabies; much worse than any group of people who actually read and participate in culture independently and know their shit
especially considering all of the curriculum available to look over
I fucking love Trevor. Rock on OP
>if you can't become talented by studying independently, you don't deserve an elite lib arts education
I think I'm moderately smart and most of what I've learnt is through independent study, which is what pisses me off when I see people around me getting through unis which I know I won't ever get through.
It fucking hurts man.
Shameless self bump
Come on /lit/ help me here
>tfw won't ever make it to an Ivy League uni
why not? give us your life story.
I got into a top twenty uni by just getting good grades in my last high school year.
It's really not that fucking hard OP you don't have to go to Harvard to get a good post-secondary education.
>>7674848
kek I made it into a top 40 school as a C student throughout high school
>>7674890
>top 40 school
>implying that's something to be proud of
there's a pretty precipitous drop in quality/difficulty of admission one you go below the ~25 - 30 mark
>>7674829
Not op, but when I was in high school the kid who was at the top of the class, had near-perfect SAT scores, and was involved in an excessive amount of clubs, sports, and other extracurricular activities (including being an Eagle Scout) only made it into Cornell. How the fuck is anyone supposed to get into Harvard or Yale?
>>7674964
Cornell's a fine school
>>7674976
Nard Dog detected.
>>7674976
I'm sure it is, but if that's what it takes for Cornell and the other Ivy schools still demand more, how does anybody expect to be accepted?
>>7674964
There may have been something about him that you didn't know. His interview and admission essay may have been terrible. I had a friend who a literal genius who killed himself 2 days before his interview at Cambridge.
OP here. I'm not from the USA, and currently doing my masters. I've been applying for PhDs in the US and so have a bunch of my classmates. I know I don't have a shot at the Ivy Leagues because getting a PhD admit in them is fucking hard and I'm not that good.
It just feels horrible that I know that I'll never be able to get into something like that. And I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about that.
>>7674989
it's a quote from a civil action where some harvard guy shits on john travolta's character from being from cornell dude. I was just jesting.
Cornell sucks donkey dick and the stupidity of Cornell graduates are a running joke amongst those who are alumni of real Ivy League schools.
You can probably get in there no problem anon.
>>7674747
On a related note. How does one build self-esteem on the realisation of being unintelligent, and lacking any other talents.
>>7675079
Listen up undergrads.
A lot of you special snowflakes have grown up in cesspools that are sorry excuses for peer groups.
A lot of you have been near the top in your shitty samples and assume that you will also be near the top in your population.
You can either cling on to the hopes of being special one day (success is 99 presperation etc / idc if I have an IQ of 90 I want to be a PhD in math from harvard) and end up falling into a mid life crisis eventually.
OR
Stop trying to be better than other people realise that by definition it's unlikely that you're ivy league levels of special.
People from the ivy league will be statistically more likely to be happier than you or if you dont believe in quantifying that, will be rich and more famous, accept that, if you dont care about that note that, even if you wish to live a bohemian lifestyle being from an ivy will make that easier since more people take you seriously and are willing to listen to you or impart knowledge to you. In other words, dont try and convince yourself that you're not missing out on anything because you are. You're missing out on a shit on, society is full of fools in self denial who try to evade this fact, it's easy for their denial to multiply since most people are fools who are missing out on a lot.
This is a chance for you to realise how much you care about the way other people conceive of you, you weak little shit.
What losers like you are going through is normal, now you can either be an idiot and still try feeling superior or realise that basing your sense of self worth on your absolute advantages in life isn't sustainable unless you're very special (terrance tao can jack of too himself all he wants).
By definition I know mostly everyone reading this isn't very special.
TL;DR: learn to suck it up now.
>>7674767
You get mostly the same quality of education regardless of where you go
Ivy's only give you an edge after graduating, looks great on your resume
>>7675419
This is exactly what I needed. Makes me feel like shit, but then makes me feel weirdly better.
If you can write more anon, I'd love to listen to you. Thank you.
what are the most /lit/ liberal arts colleges in America? non-ivy, I mean.
>>7675419
>People from the ivy league will be statistically more likely to be happier than you
>>7675419
Yes of course *sniff*, but what is the next step and so on*pulls shirt*?
>>7674897
A good library is a good library
Top 40 libraries are all the same
>>7675697
Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, Vassar, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd.
just a few off the top of my head
>>7675750
You seem knowledgeable about this, anon. Are Kenyon and Hamilton highly regarded? I'm thinking of transferring after this year.
I'm going to a state college, but I highly doubt an Ivy League university is any different. People are people at the end of the day.
>>7675761
Yes, especially Kenyon, but really anon any of the top 20 liberal arts schools will be pretty much the same in terms of academics and prestige. What you should be doing is touring schools you're interested in, setting up interviews, getting info from the admissions department, forming relationships before you apply that can help you along the way. If you have someone in the school answering your questions and knowing that you're interested, you'll have a much higher chance of being accepted.
Mainly it'll come down to personal preference. The student body will vary by location and you should take that into account, but for the most part they will all be highly liberal, white and wealthy. On 4chan it may seem like the end of the world to be around liberals, but the fact of the matter is that most people are fine and you'll find a niche of friends (even just your roommate/suitemates) simply by being at the school, unless you're a drooling autist.
>>7675761
>kenyon
alma mater of John Green
>hamilton
alma mater of Ezra "no fucking around" Pound
why don't you tell me which school is better?
Ivy League is literally meme though, you're better off without it.
>>7675821
It may be a meme in that you can find smarter people elsewhere who just happened to be less rich or spent less time busting their ass to get perfect grades, but Ivy League schools do have the most money to hire top tier professors and have the best facilities and all that. So if you're looking for the most "/lit" schools, no, ivy leagues will probably not have the most literary students. But they will have the best professors and you'll be set to get rich after you graduate.
>>7675791
Thanks, anon. That's quality input and I appreciate it.
>going to stem school for physics
>need to go to a good grad school for any real prospects and do research
>not wholeheartedly devoted enough to science to keep up with research and shit done by classmates
>not wholeheartedly devoted enough to the humanities to compete with more talented writers or painters
All I want to do is be a well-balanced renaissance man, but the world has become too specialized for me. What do I do /lit/?
>>7675830
No problem. If I may ask, where do you go now?
>>7675829
But you can only go to the schools if you are rich to begin with. ie nepotism.
>>7675419
Implying you have to be "Special" to get into an Ivy League school and not just a rich snot.
You're right on your other points though.
>>7675842
True, and that's the reality of the society we live in. But I wouldn't say they're as much of a meme as just meant for breeding top academics and businessmen rather than truly passionate intellectuals.
>>7675783
Whatever helps you sleep at night buddy.
>>7675839
You're too dumb for either and definitely too dumb to be a renaissance man. It has nothing to do with the world pal, it's you.
>>7675842
>>7675846
Sour grapes mentality at its best. If you actually looked up ivy league demographics you'd see legacy admissions are quite low as a percentage. They exist sure but the ivies are incredibly well endowed and most admissions are need blind since they can afford scholarships.
The vast majority of students at the ivy leagues are middle class.
>>7675858
And why do you assume that? I'm 18 and I'm getting through one of the most notoriously difficult programs at one of the most notoriously difficult schools in the country without a problem. My issue is that I'm half-assing it because I can't bring myself to independently study as much about this specific subject as the people I'm with. They have very few interests outside of physics, so they devote much more time to it.
>>7675864
ok, but money isn't the only factor that can be seen as nepotism.
>>7675841UMass Amherst.I basically just try to take as many classes as I can in the better Consortium schools. But hopefully that won't be a problem for long.
>>7674747
>>7674754
Ivy League is trash, stop stroking the over-inflated ego of over-praised academia.
>>7675829
Ivy League schools water-down their curriculum to appease their sponsors and to meet their quotas. Modern universities are a joke that ought to be left to destroy themselves.
>>7675864
Somebody is stroking their ego.
>>7675876
So why are you trying to transfer? I know a few people who go to Amherst and they seem to like it (although Williams is better kek). Don't you want to get your degree?
>>7675875
dude the overwhelming majority of people who get into ivies don't know anyone and aren't getting in cause of nepotism
for every famous politician/actor's kid that gets in to harvard there are 10 average joes who had the right mix of hard work/talent/intelligence/charisma who got in
like i know it's really easy to point to examples of some totally undeserving jackass at an elite school and cry foul on the entire system, but honestly, you're just not that good/smart. it's on you pal, not the system.
>>7675892
do you even go to school? or went?
>>7675892
butthurt anon who got rejected from good schools detected
consoling himself with the "universities are a meme" meme
tell me how that's going for you 10 years from now when you're making $15/hr (thx for raising minimum wage obama!) at mcdonalds
>>7675906
I entered and am now re-entering a decade later. I don't see how this affects my criticism though; I presume you're just looking to make some fallicious presumption like: >>7675909
I make much, much more than $15/hour.
And am not American, either. Why are you being so presumptuous? Did I not make your fat ego make cummies?
>>7675903
I'm aware I'm not that smart. I still laugh at people who think that going to an Ivy league college makes them more well off than other individuals.
>>7675918
I thought you were saying that school in general was bullshit or something.
>>7675897
I think you might be confusing UMass Amherst with Amherst College.University of Massachusetts Amherst is just the flagship campus of the state university. They happen to be in the same town.
It doesn't have quite the same prestige, to put it delicately.
>>7675937
Oh, sorry. Running on zero hours of sleep. Well why are you transferring?
>>7675924
They are now that they've become enthralled by trendy politics and put profit above education.
>>7675920
no one said that, but way to strawman
but you have a higher probability of doing well in whatever field you choose if you have a brand name university on your resume. to dispute that is absurd.
I literally can't express how much better my life has been since I attended Oxford. I went to a state school and gradually became the stereotypical moody, withdrawn sensitive type who both despises the quality of his immediate culture and feels a weird pride for having been raised in a sort of anti-intellectual and brutal environment. I was all set to take my Russell Group humanities BA and spend my life working as an anonymous, insecure wageslave forever thankful of being offered a job and forever too insecure to pursue my creative ambitions. The chip on my shoulder had become something of a wedge, and I felt too out of place regardless of my environment, too resentful and bitter to even attempt to make it in the artistic world. Then I finally applied for Oxford and got in to study an English MA, with reassurance that should I work hard enough a career in academia or within one of Oxford's affiliated companies would be almost guaranteed. I turned up as apprehensive as usual, and the first few days were spent regretting my decision and desperately feigning a cultured personality. But then I realized that the people there were just interesting and that the snobbery and exclusivity I had anticipated was just a myth borne out of my working class upbringing. I've since graduated, having spend the year dining in grand halls with groups of interesting people, dating several girls (one of whom, a petite Russian whose family traces back to the aristocracy, is now my fiancee). I work four days a week at a publishing company and earn £38k a year. I regularly meet up with friends from my college and visit Oxford for nights out and for meetings with my professors. The Martin Eden-esque novel I have been writing for two years has been selected for publication at a major British publishing house and, honestly, I could not have imagined a few years ago how great life could be. I come on /lit/ and see how pathetic you all are and just shake my head and chuckle. If I saw you guys on the street I would of course throw you a penny or discuss Bukowski or whatever "realist" writers you enjoy, but ultimately I would be able to tell within ten seconds if you're an Oxbridge grad and would dismiss you as a potential source of good company if you are not. I never thought I'd know what it was like to be objectively better than somebody else, for the value of my existence to be superior to the value of a stranger's, but now I do and I've never been happier. People are awed by power and prestige. All I need to do is mention the university I attended (if only for a year) and they immediately begin to hunch and look at their feet because they know they are in the presence of greatness.
>>7675947
Mostly just because I want a level of student/faculty interaction and connection that isn't achieved very easily at a large state school. I'd love smaller class sizes, a more engaged student body, and just an all-around more academically rigorous undergrad education.
Fingers crossed, at any rate.
>>7675962
Yes, because the whole world has bought the meme that 'Ivy Schools are da bes!'.
>>7675984
your point being?
>>7675993
That they're trash schools.
>>7675998
That's just not true, though. Even if you're going to make the argument that places like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia are better to attend as graduates than undergrads, you can't deny how tremendously well-equipped they are to provide an education. And the whole "shit for undergrads" thing doesn't even apply to Princeton and Dartmouth.
>>7675998
the vast majority of people in world agree they're good schools. they're perceived as good schools, and they have empirically proven their ability to product leaders in all fields, from business to politics to art to science.
but mr. special snowflake on a somalian lip piercing imageboard says otherwise! guess we've all been rused :^)
>>7676019
You sound poor and angry anon. I'm sorry you had a rough life.
I'm 19 years old.
I am handsome, smart, athletic and virile.
I have a novel that is in it's final editing stage, and a creative writing professor at my college has read the first draft and thinks it's saleable.
I have a girlfriend who is confident, articulate, playful and spontaneous.
I have a small group of interesting friends from different social and academic backgrounds, and I also have many other acquaintances who see me as a reliable source of humour and good company.
Both my parents are alive and in good health.
I have no regrets.
I have already experienced three existential crises, the latter of which was described as having the depth and profundity of a man twice my age.
I am a passionate lover, a sharp thinker, and a trader of witty repartee.
I am not self-pitying, meek or needlessly humble.
I will live a good life at your expense.
>>7676019
>To do absolutely nothing but indoctrinate and profit off of stupid self-absorbed children who want their ego stroked.
...What? Have you seen the facilities of the Ivy League schools? Have you seen the names on their faculty?
You're just being contrarian.
>>7676035
>fallacies
>>7676019
You just got BTFO
>>7676044
>he needs to samefag
>>7676035
>More Ivy Leaguer fallacies, I see.
m80, speaking as someone who was rejected from the only Ivy League school he applied to, you sound absurd.
>>7676062
I've never seen someone this butthurt just because he didn't get into an Ivy. This is a special kind of autism.
Anon, you know people can lead happy, fulfilling lives absent an Ivy education, and that you don't need to let your obsession with the "Ivy League fallacy" define your life, right?
>>7676066
More fallacies, I see.
Please come back when you learn to speak without making extreme presumptions. Stupid child.
>>7675892
>>7676019
>>7676035
>>7676053
>>7676075
>>7674990
why?
>>7675047
All Ivy League graduates are stupid, you moron.
>>7676102
Didn't leave a note. He was crippled by a fear of failure though. He also loathed himself deeply.
It's been 7 weeks since I applied for PhD in the US and I still haven't got any acceptances. I'm having a bad time holding it in /lit/
What do I do?
>>7676119
>oh no, i might not get into my shitty meme school
>>7676131
That was a very funny post anon, very detached and cool. You should treat yourself to a pair of sunglasses to celebrate your wit.
>>7675839
I feel you man. I don't go to lectures and I only read the material when I'm attempting the problem set. I hate lab. All I enjoy is playing around with ideas but I never put them into interesting words. I dream of writing yet all I have are my shit, rough, half-arsed journals. I also know that I'll hate myself if I get anything less than a distinction this year. That won't happen. I'm always conscious of wasting my 'potential' and also this opportunity I was lucky enough to be given. Before university all I wanted was to be there. Now it feels as though I'm being forced in one direction. It certainly doesn't help my self-esteem that I tried and failed to change to physics and philosophy. I'm too proud to follow that up at a different university.
>>7676119
I'm sorry to hear it.
>>7675851
Do people at Ivy Leagues not have the same urges as other humans?
>>7676024
lol desu
>>7676208
No they don't. They have ambitions to reach the upper echelons of business, tech, politics, etc., while most people at state schools just want a boring, office job.
The upper echelons of higher education are a self-perpetuating cycle of bourgeois enrichment. Lil Rockafeller gets to go to the best prep schools money can buy, so even if he's a total asshole or a complete bore he'll be able to get into any school in the world. The world is truly damned if we judge others on their school and work achievements instead of their moral character.
>>7676262
>frogposting
>evoking everything to prove how society is keeping him down
>zero introspection and self reflection
wew lad
The problem is your goal is to get into a university rather than actually achieving something
>>7676270
>first-worlder, rich ivy league art kids in charge of understanding
>>7674964
I went to an average public school, had a cumulative weighted GPA of about 3.8 (shitty first couple of years, but very good finish), and scored a 2260 on the SAT (incl. 800 on the CR which probably helped).
My dad, grandfather, great-grandfather, and two uncles all went to Yale, but none of them really gave any money to the school, and if they did, it was never anything more than a few hundred bucks. My family isn't extremely successful or elite as the older generation's educations may suggest. My dad and his brothers probably got in because of their father's connections (from New Haven, blue-blood as fuck). I didn't have the advantage of those connections. Moreover, the last thing Yale was looking for was another middle-class white kid. Diversity.
Despite my average grades and relative lack of activities (I did swim team and tutored ghetto kids), I got wait-listed, and eventually admitted. If I had to guess why, I'd put my money on the essays. I put my heart and soul into those, and tried to avoid the bullshit.
>>7674747
At least for undergrad admissions, the top 5-10 schools bottleneck academic qualifications to preserve their "academic culture", you know, status quo institutional bullshit.
If Harvard and MIT really wanted to, they could exclusively accept sterling wunderkinds without at all disturbing the size of their admit pool.
Ivy League students are not brilliant people, they're just rather smart, rather agreeable, rather hard working, rather extroverted. By "rather", I'm of course still suggesting relative excellence, but nothing extraordinary by any means. What they have that others do not is a happenstance convergence of disparate traits, and most of the selection process relates to brute business ends on part of the institution. That is, these colleges want to reify themselves and their traditions, not pursue some abstract notion of an academy.
All that said, the brighter you are, the greater your odds are in general, but the Ivy League meme snobbery is totally facile given the objectively unremarkable portrait we have of those admits.Only Caltech and Harvard Law kids have any bragging rights
>>7676388
>caltech
>literally autism: the school
wew lad
>>7676388
Yale Law is better.
Also, Yale's campus is the literal GOAT.
>>7676322
I'm not quite aware if you're supposed to keep them secret or whatnot, but could you post one of your essays as an example? I'm curious about what would distinguish a heartfelt essay from one thats not; I've never read or written any that were meant for colleges.
>>7674964
be black
