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Sup, TL.net, how's it going?
College Part as follows:
+ Show Spoiler +
So I have decided that I should get advice for applying to colleges. I think you guys could help me. My stats are as follows (I'm currently a junior):
GPA: 3.998 or something like that\
190 PSAT (I took it last year, and I was like, "lol fuck this shit")
SAT2's: MathLv2:800, Chemistry: 790, Biology: 790
I am a varsity tennis and a varsity swimmer. I suck at tennis compared to swimming (I don't really win tournaments, but I win races). I placed something like 4th or 5th consistently for my division (keep in mind, I'm in a reaaaaly puny state). Also, my times are pretty close for the Division III cut times. I should be starting this year for tennis, playing something like 6 or 5 if I get lucky.
As for other extracurriculars, I play violin (2time All-State, 1time All-New England) and I do Quiz Bowl (our team went to the 2011 NAQT Championships, we're one of the first teams from our region to make the playoffs, but we got knocked out the first round).
I'm taking (essentially) all Honors courses, and I have a good (not excellent) relationship with my teachers. I answer questions, and work hard most of the time, but I have not been recognized in my school for anything really.
I want to go to a really good college. Being accepted by an Ivy League school would be really nice. Or any other good school for that matter. I really don't want to go to community college or to a state university (I visited the campus and hated it). So any advice from people who have been accepted to said colleges would be much appreciated.
I do want to point out that, yes, I do understand that if I don't make an Ivy League school or something like that, that my life isn't over. I just think that I could do it, and that it would be a real shame if I had what it takes to do it and I didn't. Because that's what life is about: being the best you can at anything you do, and taking pride in it. The reason I want to go to such prestigious institutions, is that I want to be surrounded by the best and brightest America has to offer--in my town, a pretty good town, there are still lazy assholes who waste time and fuck around doing nothing. They complain all the time (think whiny zerg player on B.net forums) about how teachers are too hard and shit like that. I don't want to be around that.
If you guys could tell me what I need to work on, or just tell your stories, I'd really appreciate it.
And now for the blog part:
+ Show Spoiler +So, school has started up, and I'm looking forwards to it. I'm watching the US Open Finals right now, Rafa vs. Djoker. I'm rooting for Rafa because he's a baws. I love watching his footwork. It's sooooo good. Djokovic had crazy returns during the semifinal against Roger. I think that Rafa will come out on top, because ATM he seems to be better (though Djokovic plays really courageously and has plenty of confidence from yesterday). Either way, this is shaping up to be wicked awesome. You can watch if you want to, just go to google and search the US Open to find the website and the streaming video for free, I think.
So as for school and other stuff, I'm doing pretty well. I haven't written a girl blog yet, but I think I might later on. The thing is, I don't really like any of the girls at my school (I had a crazy ass crush on one of them, but after I got to know her better, it went down the toilet). They're either (1) dumb as shit, (2) bitches that I hate because they're bitches, or (3) taken. FML. I guess I'll just focus on school now. I like school, but I'm beginning to hate a lot of the people. Like my class. And the sophomores. And the freshmen. The seniors are cool though.
Warning: is a bit long, but I'd appreciate if if you read it.
Also, PROTIP: if you're writing a blog on the TL website, in the box, hit CTRL-A, CTRL-C once in a while. It's like saving, just in case your window closes. If your computer crashes, well, that sucks, this won't prevent it, but just saying.
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Blazinghand
United States25560 Posts
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN YOUR ENTIRE COLLEGE APPLICATION PROCESS is picking a safety school where you will be *happy*.
Once you've found a school you're 100% sure you'll get into, and if it's the only school you get into, you're sure you'll have a good and happy college experience, then everything becomes gravy: the rest of your college apps seem much easier/nicer since you know at the very least you're going to this awesome school.
I personally applied to Occidental, and was absolutely sure I'd get in, and I'd be happy going there. I then proceeded to apply to very hard-to-get-into liberal arts and ivy league schools, and when I got waitlisted and rejected from most of them?
I was ok.
No matter what, your safety school will be one of your choices later on. Choose it wisely; which safety school you apply to is the most important decision. Do not apply to a safety school you will be unhappy or even just ok with; pick one where you will be truly happy, and everything beyond that will be bonus pool.
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All I have to say man, is continue to do well in your junior year. I know it's been talked to death how important it is, but i royally fucked it up and I'm paying for it now.
(Don't drink during the week every week, it severely affects grades.)
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Just get a good SAT score (2250+) and with decent essays you should be in anywhere you want. Keep doing your extra curriculars, keep up on your course work, etc. Apply to the Ivys, a few west coast schools such as Stanford/UC Berk/Caltech depending on what you're into (always good to try for a change of pace), and a couple safety-ish. If you're into a specific program, go to a school that focuses on that. Many schools may not excel in general but have excellent programs for specific majors.
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There's a really interesting blog about getting into competitive schools over at Study Hacks. His advice is to do fewer things but to do them better. Colleges (esp top colleges) aren't looking for a bunch of average, well-rounded people. They're looking for people who will exceed in their chosen field.
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Ok thanks for the advice.
Update on tennis: holy crap, first Nadal broke, but the Djokovic broke back and... it's just crazy. Djokovic currently leads 6-2.
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I'm a freshman at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and I love it here. It was my reach school, as well. It's a really nice campus, you should at least visit and apply. For someone like you, though, this might be considered a Safety School. But it's awesome!!!
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On September 13 2011 06:10 GigaFlop wrote:
I'm a freshman at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and I love it here. It was my reach school, as well. It's a really nice campus, you should at least visit and apply. For someone like you, though, this might be considered a Safety School. But it's awesome!!!
I've been getting lots of mail from them. I think that I will come visit sometime, and it looks good. Do you know about financial aid from them, or just aid in general? (My family is nowhere near rich).
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On September 13 2011 06:12 PenguinWithNuke wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2011 06:10 GigaFlop wrote:
I'm a freshman at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and I love it here. It was my reach school, as well. It's a really nice campus, you should at least visit and apply. For someone like you, though, this might be considered a Safety School. But it's awesome!!! I've been getting lots of mail from them. I think that I will come visit sometime, and it looks good. Do you know about financial aid from them, or just aid in general? (My family is nowhere near rich).
I'm the oldest of 5 kids, and I'm still here at a 45k/year school. I forget the aid I was able to receive, but it definitely helped.
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On September 13 2011 06:12 PenguinWithNuke wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2011 06:10 GigaFlop wrote:
I'm a freshman at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and I love it here. It was my reach school, as well. It's a really nice campus, you should at least visit and apply. For someone like you, though, this might be considered a Safety School. But it's awesome!!! I've been getting lots of mail from them. I think that I will come visit sometime, and it looks good. Do you know about financial aid from them, or just aid in general? (My family is nowhere near rich).
I feel like in general, financial aid at schools you will be looking at is pretty generous. You might have to do work study, or take out a really small loan, but bigger, more prestigious universities these days are generous.
Take a look at Wash U in St. Louis for a mid-tier school. Rice and Carnagie Mellon are also good schools that aren't "tip-top" but are very good. Of course, all of this depends on what you're studying. I definitely think you should find a good safety school, but you have really strong stats and extracurriculars, and definitely have a good chance at a top school. Don't just apply to like Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and MIT though! Even for the very best, I feel like these days Harvard (etc) are crapshoots. Cornell, Dartmouth, and "lower-tier" Ivys are good choices.
But please tell us what you want to study! We can help you more that way ^^
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Ooh, Wash-U is where my tennis captain from last year is going. He's a smart kid, but all the Ivies rejected him.
I don't want to go to Dartmouth, because it's REAAAAALLY close to home, if you catch my drift.
I want to study something like engineering, or something like that. I'm really interested in biology and I love math. English and social studies? Meh, not too keen on those, but that's probably because my teachers were meh as well.
When I visited MIT, I took a look, and I loved what they had. That's going to be one of my reach's for sure.
TL;DR, I want to study biology, maybe going into medicine (though I heard from my violin teacher, whose husband is a surgeon, that a medical career sucks), or engineering. I'm not terribly keen on finance, and I don't want to be an English major or humanities major. Just not too keen on that.
Additional information: OP is Chinese. How does this affect my chances of getting into universities?
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Come to UChicago! It offers a level of prestige that rivals the Ivy Leagues, but with (from my experience from friends) a higher level of intellectual and academic rigor. If you put in the work and are intelligent enough, the University of Chicago will probably give you a better education than any school in the nation (dependent on field of course). And it's also easier to get into than Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford
Don't come here if you want to do engineering (we don't have a program), but if you want to do premed/science or any social science you should definitely consider us. We have a top premed program, lots of great science programs, and the nation's best economics department and top other social science programs.
And we're also a DIII school. I actually swam here my first year, it's a pretty good DIII program with absolutely amazing facilities. Ratner Athletic Center is one of the best pools in the midwest, and a dream to train in. I quit because of other time concerns, but the team was great, and I had a lot of fun with it and improved by insane amounts. The team is also like 50% asian, which as you probably know is weird for a swim team. What kind of events/times do you swim? Just because I can probably give you an idea of how you'd fit on the team.
But anyway, enough of my recruiting. Just consider applying here. I did, coming from a similar background to you (asian, A's, honors/AP, swimming), and I've absolutely loved it here.
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I am definitely considering UChicago. I have a friend who is currently going there, and I think she's doing a premed thing. Lots of Asian people sound pretty cool, and it would be a refreshing change (I can literally count the number of Asian kids on both hands in my school).
I'm not a terribly fast swimmer (I don't have the brute strength or stuff like that to really sprint freestyle). Where I shine is in breaststroke. My fastest time is something like, 1:07 or something for 100 Breast, but that was last year, and I was slumping. I haven't swam all summer, just played tennis, so the swim season is just starting up. I plan to hit sub-minute times before I graduate. I made Age Groups for 200 Breast, but that was a couple of years ago (I think I did something like 2:33).
These times aren't laughably bad for a 16 year old, are they? I always think they suck, but my state sucks at sports lol.
Just one question for you, where in the country did you come from? I'm New England, and I've never been out Midwest. What's it like?
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Asian, you say? Let me quote something I overheard from an asian chick to her asian friend at orientation.
"Let's go Asian-hunting!"
I'm not sure if this is normal, though.
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Assuming you continue your academic streak/ don't write crappy personal statements you should have a decent shot everywhere you apply. I came from an "ivy-feeder" high school and most kids my year did not have as much on their plate as you seem like you do; granted it was a bit less competitive when I graduated HS. My advice is apply to everywhere you can actually see yourself attending/enjoying (thinking 10+ schools). This'll hopefully weed out the randomness that comes with the college admissions process.
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On September 13 2011 08:03 PenguinWithNuke wrote:
I am definitely considering UChicago. I have a friend who is currently going there, and I think she's doing a premed thing. Lots of Asian people sound pretty cool, and it would be a refreshing change (I can literally count the number of Asian kids on both hands in my school).
I'm not a terribly fast swimmer (I don't have the brute strength or stuff like that to really sprint freestyle). Where I shine is in breaststroke. My fastest time is something like, 1:07 or something for 100 Breast, but that was last year, and I was slumping. I haven't swam all summer, just played tennis, so the swim season is just starting up. I plan to hit sub-minute times before I graduate. I made Age Groups for 200 Breast, but that was a couple of years ago (I think I did something like 2:33).
These times aren't laughably bad for a 16 year old, are they? I always think they suck, but my state sucks at sports lol.
Just one question for you, where in the country did you come from? I'm New England, and I've never been out Midwest. What's it like?
16? That's decent, but I think it all really depends on what happens from there. At least for me, 16 was when I started really getting into training and improving by leaps and bounds. I swam Fly, IM, and some mid-distance, but I've never been a big guy either, always a technique-and-underwaters guy. I came into college with like a 1:48 200 Free, 52.5 100 fly, 1:59 200 fly, and 2:00 200 IM. I ended up going a 52.0 100 fly, 1:44 200 free, and 1:55 200 fly; placing in 10-12 range at conferences. We had a couple of really good breaststrokers, though I'm betting they'll have graduated before you start applying. I'd say something close to 1:00 in the 100 breast and 2:15 or so at the end of senior year would put you in a solid role-player spot. Also remember that I improved a ton when I went to college. It was the first time I had really lifted seriously and was a higher level of training than I was used to.
I'm from Virginia. Honestly, it's whatever you want it to be like. In college, your experience is going to be defined a lot more by who you surround yourself with than the place you're in (except perhaps beach campus vs. everything else). The one thing is that everything closes earlier. And it gets hella cold and windy, though in New England you're probably used to that.
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United States7481 Posts
how did you do so poorly on your PSAT? for the rest of your scores that's pretty bad... and you lose out on a lot of potential money for it.
you asked above about RIT. they give a lot of financial aid - they offered me a LOT of money and i had a far worse GPA than yours.
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I don't know what you're interested in studying, but as a fellow small-towner from the Northeast who wanted to get away, maybe consider some schools abroad? With your scores, assuming you continue, you could definitely have a shot at Oxford or Cambridge or LSE across the pond. I'm heading over for graduate school shortly and am so excited. Consider it!
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On September 13 2011 10:33 Antoine wrote:
how did you do so poorly on your PSAT? for the rest of your scores that's pretty bad... and you lose out on a lot of potential money for it.
you asked above about RIT. they give a lot of financial aid - they offered me a LOT of money and i had a far worse GPA than yours.
I took the PSAT when I was a sophomore. As a sophomore, you can't get in on the scholarship. So I didn't study and just took it for the lulz.
On September 13 2011 10:45 See.Blue wrote:
I don't know what you're interested in studying, but as a fellow small-towner from the Northeast who wanted to get away, maybe consider some schools abroad? With your scores, assuming you continue, you could definitely have a shot at Oxford or Cambridge or LSE across the pond. I'm heading over for graduate school shortly and am so excited. Consider it!
I'm actually a British citizen living in the States (moved here when I was really little). So my mom is pushing me to do that, but I don't really think I'll like England that much. I visited last winter. I remember that one girl from last year got into Oxford and she's going there now. Congrats on going over there. I will definitely consider doing so, because it'll be cheaper than an American school, and it'll be a great experience. I just would feel like such an outsider though.
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EPT
