You're in a bubble. It's nowhere near that hard to get into non-elite universities, which the vast majority of college-bound students attend. Just keeping your grades up and doing well on a standardized test will get you into a good (well-regarded in at least some fields, very well-known at least regionally) state school—and the ones in the next couple tiers under that are even more lax. Then there are community colleges—ask nicely and they'll probably let you in at least on a probational basis, even if your grades were incredibly bad in high school and you don't have much else going for you.
And that's for the students that go at all.
[EDIT] Incidentally, from tales told by my various teacher friends, the students who genuinely have crazy-busy schedules are almost always the ones who are extremely into playing two or more sports. Even half-serious participation (so, maaaaybe gunning to play college ball, plus the mostly-delusional but fairly-common parental aspirations of having a pro-league kid) means being in a league that makes you travel a lot, and lots and lots of practice, for each sport, plus extra training camps and shit like that. I believe tales of some schools where the students are stressed over academics and non-sports extracurriculars (plus the single requisite sport to keep Harvard from binning your application) but out in the vast reaches of non-elite America, only a few students have very-high schedule pressure, and most (not all, but most) of those are because of a strong focus on sports.
Im an immigrant that attended a community college, transferred to a “top 10 CS Uni”.
the CC didn’t even acknowledge the school I went to exists so i just took some placement tests that landed me at Calc 1 etc
most americans dont know how good they have it, sure things could be better but you’re literally better off than most of the world no matter what class you’re born in here
I think community colleges are one of those under-appreciated excellent institutions the US has (in addition to our institutions and systems that actually do kinda suck, compared to our peers, that get a lot more attention). They're available just about everywhere that many people live, it's pretty easy to get them to give you a chance unless you have a very recent history of being a committed academic screw-up—even if your history's a bit unusual, or you've had some screw-ups farther in the past—and in a couple years you can establish a record that represents a big step toward achieving an at-least middling life outcome, while opening up access to the next steps.
I hope the admissions process and the rest of it was still relatively painless, despite their not recognizing your school. I'm sure immigration itself was pretty unpleasant—sorry about that :-/
Exactly, its a bubble many teens feel they are in, that's the problem.
It's easy to say years later "You're in a bubble", but that doesnt make the situation any better.
I'll likely look back on my life when I'm retired and say "I was in a bubble" worrying about housing prices and the cost of living, but that doesn't diminish its importance to me right now.
And that's for the students that go at all.
[EDIT] Incidentally, from tales told by my various teacher friends, the students who genuinely have crazy-busy schedules are almost always the ones who are extremely into playing two or more sports. Even half-serious participation (so, maaaaybe gunning to play college ball, plus the mostly-delusional but fairly-common parental aspirations of having a pro-league kid) means being in a league that makes you travel a lot, and lots and lots of practice, for each sport, plus extra training camps and shit like that. I believe tales of some schools where the students are stressed over academics and non-sports extracurriculars (plus the single requisite sport to keep Harvard from binning your application) but out in the vast reaches of non-elite America, only a few students have very-high schedule pressure, and most (not all, but most) of those are because of a strong focus on sports.