MyChances.net Members Blog

Updates from Brent RSS

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  Brent 2:07 pm on September 17, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: college loans, politics (2), reform, student loans

  House Passes Sweeping Student Loan Overhaul -

  The House of Representatives passed legislation today (Thurs 9/17) which would effectively make the US Government the sole provider of loans for college students. This effectively wipes out 3rd party providers of student loans. This would have major ramifications for players in the private sector (including some that run sites of our competitors, such as collegedata.com, or who fund directly or indirectly certain other college websites).

  According to the Wall Street Journal:

  “Under the legislation, all lenders would be cut out of the market for originating loans. There would still be a role for private banks and lenders to bid for a limited number of contracts to service the loans after they are made by the government.”

  Source:
  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125321217589620383.html

   

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  Brent 12:16 pm on August 25, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: for the lulz, just for fun, procrastination

  

  Best Photo Ever

  Discuss.

   
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    kahkah14 3:37 pm on August 25, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    Wth? Ha, thought that was a person at first…

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    James 12:08 pm on August 26, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    Best family photo ever.

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    sidshuk 7:03 am on August 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    bahahaha!

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  Brent 1:05 pm on August 8, 2009 | 5 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: hackathon, small talk, weather

  Enjoying a beautiful day in Menlo Park. beautiful outside and I’m hacking away! Anyone else out there?

   
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    JA1 12:29 pm on August 11, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    I hate you

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      Brent 1:31 pm on August 11, 2009 Permalink | Reply
      

      no need for hate

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        James 2:40 pm on August 11, 2009 Permalink | Reply
        

        Hateopotamus.

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    JA1 7:23 am on August 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    Where do you go? Stanford, right?
    UGH! You guys are sooooo lucky!

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    JA1 7:26 am on August 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    I haven’t got a rat’s chance in… to get in to Stanford or Yale

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  Brent 6:28 pm on August 2, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Giants, San Francisco

  Just got back from the Giants game - beautiful day up in San Francisco. Giants beat the Phillies 7-3. A quick caltrain ride up to San Francisco is one of the perks of Stanford, so you should all probably add Stanford to your college tracker

   
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  Brent 9:44 pm on July 29, 2009 | 9 Permalink | Reply
  

  I haven’t blogged about this yet, but I love Stanford.  That is all.

  

   
  • 

    cvickst 10:04 pm on July 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    me too

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    goldeneye98 9:56 am on July 31, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    That’s a beautiful picture! I’ve always wanted to go to Stanford, but I’m afraid it’s too much of a reach for me.

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      Brent 1:24 pm on August 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply
      

      hey you should try applying - no harm in trying. if you don’t apply then you have a 0% chance. add it to your tracker so we can rate your chances. If you boosted your SAT scores a bit, I’d say you would have a better shot, but you do have a lot of extracurriculars.

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    cvickst 11:22 pm on August 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    brent do u think i would have a chance of getting in?

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      Brent 12:16 am on August 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
      

      Hi cvickst, sorry for the delayed response! my bad. I do think you have a shot at Stanford. It certainly isn’t outside the realm of possibility - You have a REALLY good ACT score, and your GPA is similar to mine. Actually - our extracurrics and such are relatively similar.

      It won’t be easy, as the current economy has caused the number of applicants to skyrocket, and it wasn’t easy for me either - with all the top schools, it’s always unclear about who will be accepted and who will be rejected. Just keep a positive attitude, and put your heart into your personal statement. Let your personality and personal experience shine through. It’s interesting - the admissions officers have to read tons of personal statements, so at the same time you want to make sure you stand out, but you also don’t want to try out gimmicks, cause they see a ton of those too.

      So don’t be afraid to go through a handful of essays until you have one that you’re satisfied with. I think I had one or two of my main Stanford essays that I completely threw out (didn’t save a sentence from) before I happened on what I decided to write on. I wrote my personal statement on the 5 CDs that I would keep if I were to get rid of all possessions in my life. (the prompt was “Simplify, simplify, intoned Thoreau. If you were to scale back the possessions in your life, what would you keep, and why?”)

      I had simple premise, but I baked my personal background (Nevadan) directly into the essay and I was able to demonstrate my intellectual curiosity and my personality through the exploration of music through the eclectic CDs that I love so much.

      Of course, everyone has to find their own “substrate” to hinge the essay on, but hopefully you submit something memorable that allows the admissions officer to learn who you are and what matters to you.

      Remember - the school you get into doesn’t say who you are. Your time on campus tells the school what it is, and you can make the most out of any experience. There are good parts and bad parts of any university, and I know I could have had a great experience elsewhere too. America has a ton of really good universities - so make sure to do your research and have a handful of matches and safeties that you truly like, so you can be sure to go to a college that you are excited about.

      Best of luck, and I hope the application is smooth for you. Apply early and apply often (sorry if this is a bit sloppy, it’s late and i’ve been coding )

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      Brent 12:20 am on August 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
      

      oh, and i forgot. Have a few adults read through your essays AND your application in general! Nothing makes deciding between two similar candidates easier than when one has a sloppy app and the other does not. So get it proofread (offline!) by adults, family, teachers, etc., and know that if you do get rejected, it wasn’t because of a silly typo!

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    goldeneye98 6:44 am on August 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    If you don’t mind, could we possibly see your essay?

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    cvickst 10:05 am on August 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    wow thank you very much for all of your help brent. it is greatly appreciated. maybe when i write my personal statement you could read through it and give me your opinion on it.

    but anyways thanks a ton

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    goldeneye98 11:28 am on August 4, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    Yeah! Thanks for the insight!

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  Brent 5:04 pm on July 15, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
  

  hi!

   
  • 

    Brent 5:05 pm on July 15, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    bye

  • 

    James 5:33 pm on July 15, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    Bye. Fixed the bug.

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  Brent 10:48 pm on July 10, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: College Admissions, College Rankings

  New college rankings system based on revealed preference of accepted students. Check out the article here: http://www.mychances.net/blog/2009/07/10/new-college-rankings/

   
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  Brent 4:32 pm on July 2, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: 4th of July (2)

  4th of July?

  What’s everyone doing for the 4th? I’m heading down to LA, and have been stuck in traffic forthe past couple hours. Going to chill at a beach house I rented witha couple friends!

   
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    James 4:40 pm on July 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    Am on the Boltbus going to NYC.

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  Brent 12:08 am on July 2, 2009 | 5 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: features, site updates

  Member Blog Posts Now in Personalized-Feed!

  Whenever you post in the member blog, your post will now show up in the news feed! Let us know what you think of your new blogs. Hope you like ‘em

   
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    James 8:32 am on July 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    Is something broken on the memblog page now? I can no longer make a new post. Also, it’s now asking for my details when I reply to a comment, instead of auto-filling those details out.

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      Brent 8:39 am on July 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply
      

      Hmmm your cookie must have been lost somehow. I only updated our classes, nothing else, so it could be something else. And if you are on dev, you for sure won’t see the post box because the cookie isn’t set up for all domains, as far as I can tell.

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        James 12:19 pm on July 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply
        

        Correct. I must have lost my cookie

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        James 12:22 pm on July 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply
        

        “I’ve lost my marbles” - Name the movie.

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    Brent 1:46 pm on July 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    

    Lookie lookie, I got Hookie.

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  Brent 10:54 pm on July 1, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  just chillin