>>23701264I was in the same situation when I first started college - acceptance to a global top ten college for applied math. Here’s my perspective.
They would NOT have let you in if you couldn't succeed in this kind of program - not just pass but succeed.
You CAN succeed. It's just going to be way more work that you think it will be. Especially in the first few years (the whole time, if you’re going for grad school). For example, regularly, you will study as much as possible and still fail. That doesn't mean you can't do it. You just have to reassess how you work and try again. Be resilient.
What happened to me and what happens often to students in our position is that they underestimate their abilities, and they also underestimate the amount of work that it should take to perform at the level they would like.
You're absolutely smart enough to succeed, it just might take an insane amount more work than you expect it to. You will have to sacrifice. And that's true for everyone. People who say otherwise are usually lying.
The rare people who succeed in these programs and are honest about how they do it will tell you about living in the library, studying for hours a day over summer breaks, doing 2x-3x the amount of assigned work, finishing entire textbooks, etc. You will have to sacrifice.
Don't listen to
>>23701517. He's citing statistics. I was actually in one of those programs. The kids who succeeded were doing the kind of work described above and the kids who didn't succeed weren't doing that work. Race wasn’t much of a factor. Though to be fair, non-White/Asian kids were less likely to do that kind of work.
So, you should start preparing for your fall classes over the summer. Like seriously preparing. If you're in math or a math-y field, you should be learning all the pre-reqs for your college courses that you don’t understand confidently. Then, you should get a head start on the semester's material.
