1540/1600 here + National Merit (1520/1520). I applied last admissions cycle, and was DOA for top schools, but mainly because of my 3.8 GPA.

this isn't necessarily true, it's around the 25th percentile of students admitted to harvard. probably not gonna happen unless there's something else special about you, though.

I got into a top ten college with a 1470. it was fairly lopsided though (800 critical reading, 670 math; apparently the scores are reported differently now?), I dunno whether that helps or hurts.

I got a 1500 with a 790 CR and 710 Math (Yikes!). Went to my state school and hated it so I just came away with the conclusion that my entire high school career was just a massive waste of time and effort.

well after a few years I ended up transferring to a local state school that accepts ~60% of applicants (iow, a very different world). I didn't like my state school very much either, but honestly the cs program was a good but more rigorous than the "elite" college I had originally gotten into.

ultimately this stuff doesn't matter as much as you might think. the state school I went to turned out to have good relationships with lots of software companies in the area. I ended up getting an internship that lead to a pretty good gig straight after graduation.

I think I got pretty great gigs out of undergrad, but I don't think the HN crowd would agree!

What gigs did you get ? How does it matter what the HN crowd thinks ?

you seem to be following this person around and harassing them on all their posts. why?

I follow the front page just like everyone else. And his comments about "perceived elitism" always stand out. Just comment on whenever I find something interesting in the comment.

Well they sure are great at proving me right ‾\_(ツ)_/‾

You didn't answer the question I asked.