<p>So, after doing a bit of research I found that some schools indicate a preference to those that show an “ability to be successful in the indicated major”. Well then this makes sense for a major like math, where your math classes and ACT Math subscore will be indicative of the success in that field. Same for other fields.</p>
<p>My major of interest is computer science and I was wondering how this concept applies to me. Although my school categorizes AP Computer Science as a math class, I don’t believe it to fall completely under the math category. </p>
<p>I believe that success in computer science might be better linked to ACT English than ACT Math. Those who know programming languages might be able to relate. Programmers scan code looking for errors just as readers scan sentences for grammatical errors. Also, in some sense each language has its type of words. For example, methods can be verbs, classes can nouns, etc…</p>
<p>While this may sound farfetched I do believe it to be true. The reason this concerns me is because my ACT English is 34 while my ACT Math is 30. I’m worried that colleges will think that I’m not fit for computer science, even though I’ve been coding in Java for over a year now.</p>
<p>Question #1) Do you think ACT English is indicative of success in computer science?</p>
<p>Question #2) Probably too paranoid of a question, but do you think a 34 english and 30 math (might as well add that reading is 29 and science is 33) will not show too much success in a major of computer science?</p>
<p>1) English skills don’t help much in CS to be honest. Math skills do especially discrete math. You can be the best at CS and have a 0 at ACT English. But you can’t be the best at CS and bad at discrete math. When you finish your intro to prog class, other classes won’t concern with syntax but you will be using languages such as C/C++, java or python to analyse algorithms, create data structures, you will learn about how operating systems work under the hood, computer architecture, scientific programming and a few other toipcs. All of these need good programming, math and problem solving skills</p>
<p>2) I don’t know why you are so concern about the ACT, it is just a test. However, if your major is CS, you should really consider improving math skills. I don’t see how ACT English or even ACT Science are going affect you. As long as you are good at math, programming and at solving problems. You will be ok if you are willing to put the time. Good luck</p>
<p>Computer science is not just programming. It is a very mathematical discipline.</p>
<p>This topic was studied back in the 80s and at that time the research indicated that ACT Math was a better predictor than ACT English (though neither are great) but the tests have changed since then and average performance across the sample does not tell us how you personally will fare.</p>
<p>Reference:
Butcher, D. F., and W. A. Muth. “Predicting performance in an introductory computer science course.” Communications of the ACM 28.3 (1985): 263-268.</p>
<p>I got a 33 English, 34 Math, 31 Reading, 35 Science with a 33 overall, and quite frankly, the ACT is not an accurate indicator of how one would fare in CS.</p>
<p>I can see why ACT would be linked to how well one does their first year in college, but I doubt its linked in anyway to how successful you can be in CS</p>
<p>Those are fine scores. The fact that you like Java coding means you may like CS and do well. Certainly persistence would be a good trait too. Maybe CS majors can add other indicators.</p>
<p>General reasoning is correlated with one’s ability to write code I imagine and the ACT english section tests general reasoning (and some memorized stuff). So I would say there’s a correlation.</p>
<p>
That’s definitely not what makes someone a good programmer (though it’s helpful if you can easily spot errors).</p>
<p>Computer science is very closely related to languages, that’s completely true. But language skills relevant to computer science have to do with the mathematical aspects of language. That said, I think it’s a perfectly valid question to ask whether success in CS correlates better with ACT Math or ACT English/Language. However, asking people’s opinions isn’t very useful; unless there are studies on this, it’s just wild conjecture.</p>
<p>That said, in my experience, the kind of people who make the best programmers and computer scientists typically do very well at certain kinds of language tasks - like proofreading, sentence construction, word choice, etc. I would not be surprised if there is a significant correlation between performance in the two areas.</p>
<p>Agree with the last post. I am not sure that we can really be so sure that standardized test mean all that much. Some very intelligent kids don’t test super well.</p>
<p>Languages (or more appropriately linguistics) and math have some (some, because it requires just a subset of math) things common, in the sense that mathematics is what we use to define language constructs or analyze languages or as well meaning. Being good at languages doesn’t necessarily mean that you have developed the mathematical approach to languages, because language learning doesn’t require that (it requires more like memorizing, study and common sense, that’s usually how languages are learnt/studied). However CS would be really about the analytical/mathematical approach to languages and about having aptitude to define your own languages and abstractions/language constructs and analyze existing languages in a functional sense.</p>
<p>Although you won’t be necessarily seeing the above mentioned connections when programming in a language X, where X is some pre-defined, imperative programming language. The linguistics part in computer science is what underlies some of those languages, but especially languages of higher abstraction (e.g. functional programming languages), so you’ll hit the concept e.g. if you start to define/develop your own languages or read about programming language theory (i.e. “the linguistics for doing computation”).</p>
<p>Computer Science requires lots of reading, lots of writing, and lots of comprehension of written materials in a hurry. English comes in very handy…</p>
<p>Humans simply don’t understand computer syntax as intuitively as they understand language syntax. Sometimes you can just pick out and fix an error; a lot of the time you would never have guessed an error could have occurred unless you test the code and just pin down the error. Couple that with algorithms and all the classes on computer logic and you have a pretty math-heavy field.</p>
<p>Aptitude tests (SAT/ACT/IQ) are meant to predict who is below average. Your scores are high enough for it not to really matter exactly what they are.</p>
<p>I did horrible on my SAT writing and reading, aroung the lower 33 percentage. But I was on the top 85 percentage for math. I am doing quite well. There is no relation between coding and reading.</p>
<p>Check back with us in a few years when you’re stuck, Google for answers, and have to shift thru 3,000 hits to find the one that applies to you, determine in a couple seconds if the thing applies to you, etc, etc.</p>
<p>That’s how the ‘real world’ operates. Unless, of course, they teach Microsoft cloud service bus esoterics in college :D.</p>
<p>Some research shows that the best predictor of success in physics grad school (as far as standardized tests go) is not the Physics GRE but the verbal portion of the general GRE.</p>
<p>I wonder if those 500V, 800M GRE’s and SAT’s are the same people I’m stuck with that can’t read a spec, and can’t write an email to a customer or supplier to save their lives. Engineering is a team sport, no matter how good you are with Fast Fourier Transform, it’s unlikely you’ll email one to an irate customer as an explanation.</p>
<p>So, keep practicing your cursive :). I am a darned good engineer and coder not because I’m super smart or anything, but because I can read (and read between the lines) and write far better than most of my peers.</p>
<p>Hey guys I have a question which may correlate to the topic of the thread. Personally I am very good at English. I’m wondering if my English skills would be able to help me to get financial aid into a school so that I can pursue an education in CS. I’d really like to receive a full ride to a good school</p>