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14fighter
United States226 Posts
Anyways so i'm going to be a senior in high school in about 20 days. The thing is I have no clue where I should be regarding looking at colleges and such, I have a general idea of what im going to do and a few picked out right now but I haven't done anything really regarding colleges. I'm hoping you guys who have already experienced all this can help me out so I can get on track and help myself Thanks <3!   | ||
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PrinceXizor
United States17713 Posts
Writing these essays is great practice for the admissions essays you will have to write, and you can even get free money out of it, so why not. apply to more schools than you want to go to. if you want to go to state, then apply to state, university of ____, central _____ eastern _____ southern ____ ect ect ect. it'll be an extra hundred or so to your parents or you, but you get to go visit these schools and find the place you are truly happy at. make sure to visit schools you want to go to in state and make an effort to look at out of school states that you seriously desire to be in (if any) start early. like first couple weeks go to guidance and ask for scholarship info. right now you should ask parents if their company have scholarships, ask your boss, ect do everything you can do soon. and apply early, when you apply early you get notified early, which gives you more and more time to make an informed decision about where you will be living for 4 years. Living in dorms is GREAT for meeting people and establishing friendships. so make sure to find out about dorms at schools you are interested in. | ||
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Juliette
United States6003 Posts
visit whatever's in your state, take tours, and check out the campuses. Most important is the location. I made my choice this year because I liked UofI's campus more than UCSD. | ||
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Tobyone
United States31 Posts
Don't feel like you have to move across the country just because your going to college. I'm moving about 5 hours away from where my parents live, and my sister went to college about 30 minutes from here. If you want to go to a state school, unless there is a specific reason you want THAT school, for God's sake stay in state. Most state schools are pretty equal as far as academics go. Out of state state schools just cost a lot more. The location is very important. Make sure you go on a tour of the place before you decide to go there. If you pick a school out in the middle of nowhere in a small college town, then what is on campus will be your entire life for the next few years. If you pick a college in a big city, then expect people to be going home on the weekends (leaving you alone on campus =(). Start with the basics and look at the colleges in whatever state you live in. Hope this helped. ^_^ | ||
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14fighter
United States226 Posts
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N.geNuity
United States5112 Posts
In addition, most majors will have the same or similar pre-reqs for the first 1-2 years so if you do want to go out of state or something really badly (or for a specific program you are interested in), keep in mind there is a good chance you can go to a public school and transfer after 1 year to save at least 1 year of 40k tuition at some private school. Even community colleges can offer pretty much the exact same course material for 1.5 years for most majors, and those can be directly transferred to other schools. Also, there are good cheap out-of-state programs (or big scholarships, essentially making you basically pay in-state costs when you're really out-of-state) for some schools like Univ. of Alabama, Univ. of Oklahoma, Texas, Florida universities, etc for various things like national merit or specific majors. My friends who started college 2 years ago said this was especially true for like Alabama computer science program. If you were already discounting out-of-state or private schools because of the cost, you sometimes can find programs that you can go out-of-state for the equivalent of in-state costs. A lot depends on what major you are thinking of (mainly, the big distinction is whether you are thinking of math/science, humanities, or a specific pre-law or pre-med), but don't scoff at in-state public schools, even if you are in something like Wyoming. *edit* oh okay astro/physics/aerospace this can be a little bit different, depending on your ability. Aerospace I think is a little more specialised, as like 1/4 of my friends at my school (georgia tech) are out-of-state students for aerospace and they didn't like their own home state's programs for some reason (or didn't have a good one). Georgia tech is ranked highly for aerospace. I am not aerospace myself. Physics is something I would advise looking at instate programs, as vast majority of states will have decent physics programs. | ||
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Game
3191 Posts
As far as the social aspect of college, your first semester is typically easy in regards to challenge, not time management. Thus, I think it's a good point here to explain that college is nothing like high school. For the most part everyone is open, both in hearing you out and communicating. If you aren't an idiot, you'll be fine. Most people are not pompous and you'll have nothing to worry about, as I know many incoming college students are anxious about these types of things. A big tip I'd like to give you now is to prepare your diet. No matter your income, financial status, or profitability, you will be cooking. You need to know how to cook properly. You will feel a deep melancholy if you don't eat properly. Water purifiers are your BEST friend, as most colleges have poor water supplies by the city, as well as their surrounding areas (reference to apartment living). If you learn how to properly marinate and spice your food, and eat a balanced diet, you're already way ahead of the game as well as most of your class. Whatever you do, wherever you live, get your own bathroom. <---- fuck yes rule #1 I could say more, but I only read this blog and responded to it because I'm procrasinating on my "to get list" for when I go back up to my school for my junior year. Hope it helped. Edit: I know when I say balanced diet it's intimidating financially. That's not how I intended it to sound. Chicken breasts, ground beef, lower cuts of beef, and various other lower cuts of meat and fish are cheap. The lower cuts of meat are easy to spice and slow cook to perfection. If you can't make an epic roast, get a crockpot, it will do all of the work for you. Vegetables are expensive, but certain ones aren't, and they're absolutely necessary given how easy it is to turn to carbohydrates and soda as a quick filler. Broccoli for instance, is cheap as hell. | ||
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noobcakes
United States526 Posts
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14fighter
United States226 Posts
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krndandaman
Mozambique16569 Posts
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Nymphaceae
United States350 Posts
Not sure how smart you are, but I would say to apply to the schools that you'd like to go to, but if you're undecided about your major, perhaps you should go for a community college and focus on general studies. The majority of freshman and sophomore courses are generally extremely easy compared to the Jr. and Sr. level courses. A lot of people will disagree with me on this, because they don't want to say that some one got their education for a quarter of the price (A D or C at a community college is probably not close to being equal to a C or B at a Uni, but a B or an A should be close to each other). Good luck with school though. | ||
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krndandaman
Mozambique16569 Posts
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Nymphaceae
United States350 Posts
On August 10 2012 03:22 krndandaman wrote: if he's financially unable to then yes, community college would be a good option. other than that there is no reason to go to community college unless you got terrible financial aid and you'd be looking at community college vs $60,000 per year college regardless of rank. if I have the money I might even take the 60k college as long as I'm financially able to afford it. college isn't only about the academics, nothing against community colleges but other colleges have a better overall experience (remember, college isn't just school anymore, its also your home for the next 4 years). Yeah, some people still live at home while they go to college you know. There are dorms for some comm. colleges, and there are some way better than others too. I'm not sure what you mean by 60k per a year, unless you're talking about paying for some private school out of state or something. I will say that whichever school you decide to go to, math is always the same, chemistry is always the same, and physics is always the same. It doesn't matter which school you go to, there are not enough class hours for your teacher to teach you everything in the book/books that you may want to know, but he/she can at least guide you in a good direction. It may be tougher to pass certain classes at different schools, but I would say the experiences would probably be similar. If you're undecided about your major, I would strongly recommend you to focus on your core courses. That way you won't lose many hours, if you decide to change majors during your sophomore year. Also I would recommend checking out majors in which there aren't many people doing them. It's kind of easier to get co-op jobs in some interesting like the Caribbean/Sahara/Middle East with less competition. | ||
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joe_
30 Posts
http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx Physics is going to be a very general degree with less immediate after college options. Not to say that physics is a weak degree or useless degree but many physicists go on to get their masters before entering the workforce. Just something to keep in mind. Aerospace engineers appear to have a relatively easy time finding work even with the current economic situation (I work with many of them, I am a mechanical engineer). I guess what I am saying is you may want to consider how long you want to be in school, and what you think you'd like to do in life before making this decision. If money is a restriction definitely stick to public university. As many others have voiced the difference between a private and public school is not big enough to warrant spending thousands of extra dollars. I will however say that while community colleges are cheap their quality varies and in my experience the classes never came close to the difficulty of the courses I took at university. Not to say that all community colleges are terrible but you have to expect some drawbacks. You get what you pay for. (generally) | ||
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