Journal #8, March 8, 2009

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-chanceme9-2009mar09,0,1741864.story?page=2

It’s a day you’ll remember for the rest of your life. It’s the day you get accepted to college. Will it be Stanford, or Berkeley or even MIT? But students spend up to a year waiting and waiting to hear back from these universities to see if they have been accepted. Students have created a way to communicate with other students to determine if they have a good shot at being accepted into the school of their choice. These websites such as mychance.com and collegeconfidential.com are websites where students post their grad point average, SAT scores, and any other credentials that colleges look at. Other hopeful students can look at your credentials and can respond to you on what your chances are on being accepted to the universities you have applied to. Some say that the biggest downfalls of these websites are that the responders rely too heavily on the numbers, test scores and grade point average. There are numerous occasion were people who are responding back to other hopeful applicants become to harsh. Some responders come back with replies such as “You have a better chance of being struck by a meteorite than getting in, unless you have some ridiculous hook”. A hook is a special way to get in, for example ethnicity. Karl Bunday, a volunteer moderator on collegeconfidential.com , says "The ethnicity thing is a big firebomb”. But many students think this is a very good stress reliever in the process of waiting for the letter from the school with their acceptance or rejection.
I think this is a great way for hopeful students to actually see what pthers thin their chances are of getting into the school of their choice. This is also a great way to relieve some stress for the hopefuls. I wish I would have known about these websites during my application process. This would have made my life a whole lot easier. I think that college officials will eventually go on these sites and put their input in on these future students. This is a great way for students to not only relieve some stress but also to see what their odds are at being accepted.

http://www.hundredsofheads.com/31-569-1.Article/College-Confidential--Who-Can-Say-What-to-Whom--When-----and-Why-