High School Class of 2014

Pre-College Topics High School Cafe
6802

<p>I’ve visited Stanford (I’m from the Bay Area), and I love it! Great weather, gorgeous campus, chill people, great athletics, AND the academics of course haha. It seems to be relatively unstressful in comparison to the other top schools, according to various friends at HYPSMC, Stanford seems to be the least-stressful of those schools.</p>

<p>I’ve visited Berk, too. It’s nice, but too big for my taste, and kind of too hippie for my taste too haha. I’d enjoy going there, but I didn’t love it based on my (basic, preliminary) visits.</p>

6803

<p>I visited Brown the summer after my 8th grade year which is when I fell in love with it and which is why I have wanted to go to Brown since then. I’ve visited Harvard a lot of times, if you could really call them “visits”, because I live in the area and worked there last summer. I visited UPenn with my dad a few years ago while we were attending the Penn Relays. I went to a Cornell information session while I was there for Cornell MUN. Other than those, I can’t think of any other schools I have visited. Brown was beautiful and awesome in every single way, which is why I LOVE it!</p>

<p>This spring break I’m going on a college road trip with my family and we’ll be looking at Columbia, Princeton, Yale, and Brown (again, because I forced them too). And when I have the chance this year, I will try to travel down to Brown (again) to sit in on a few classes. I’m obsessed. I know. It’s bad. But I really can’t help it!</p>

6804

<p>Kongo, I’ve been to Purdue, Michigan, Stanford, Berkeley and Duke out of that list. </p>

<p>Purdue and Michigan were pretty similar; they have the same weather and the cities both feel worn down and drab. I wasn’t a fan of how Michigan’s campus was laid out - the engineering campus (North Campus) was several miles away from the main campus. Both have a really definite college town setup; the shops and houses mix with the campus buildings. Neither was great, but I’m probably going to apply to both in case I get rejected from my first few choices.</p>

<p>Duke is okay I guess. It’s a great school in terms of academics, but nothing else about it struck me as anything more than decent. The area is okay, the buildings are okay, the people all seemed sort of sad. I did see Mason Plumlee though. That was neat.</p>

<p>Stanford is absolutely gorgeous. Their campus just screams, “I have infinite money, and I’m going to spend all of it.” Their student rec center looks like it could be the Supreme Court building. They mow their lawns a lot, and the students are generally attractive, happy looking people. They have a lab near campus with a giant particle accelerator, and it’s close enough to San Francisco for the city to be accessible, but far enough away that it doesn’t get the bad half of Bay Area weather.</p>

<p>Berkeley is a hotbed of lunatics. It’s a great school, but the people there are unbearable. If you’re extremely liberal, you’ll be alright there. There’s homeless people everywhere, there’s hippies pontificating about organic food and gun control in the middle of the free speech plaza, they divide all the food in the world into two categories: vegan and non-vegan. If you’re one of those people, maybe you’ll enjoy it. I couldn’t do it.</p>

6805

<p>I haven’t been to any of them, sorry!</p>

<p>Guys, I have a dilemma. Colleges want 3 years of high school language, but I only have two (II frosh year, III soph. year, had to drop it for AP Chem this year). I planned on taking it again next year… but I hate Spanish. I’d be taking DE Bio instead, which would be my 6th science course (& ill have taken Chem H & AP, bio H & DE, earth science H, and physics DE). I don’t plan on majoring in a foreign language, or anything in the humanities really … I’m leaning toward computer science & programming, but I don’t want to go to a school like MIT or CalTech.</p>

<p>Math: Geometry CP, Algebra II CP, PreCalc I & II H, AP Calc AB</p>

<p>Required: Gym, Microsoft Applications I & II, Health 9 & 10</p>

<p>English: English 9 H, English 10 H, AP L&C, DE Academic Writing</p>

<p>Electives: Chorus I CP, Chorus I H, Chorus II H, Chorus II H, Foundations of Art, Computer Repair, AP Music Theory, Intro to Psych CP</p>

<p>Language: Spanish II H, Spanish III H, DE Spanish V (?)</p>

<p>Science: Earth Science H, Biology H, Chemistry H, AP Chemistry, DE Physics, DE Bio(?)</p>

<p>History: WHIII (.5 year), Civics (.5 year), APUSH, DE Modern European History</p>

6806

<p>Take the Spanish subject test. I am because some of my schools want 4 years and I only have 3. Hopefully a good test score will show them I am proficient enough.</p>

6807

<p>quidditch, you might want to check the CDS and see if MIT has EVER taken anyone with your GPA. Based on that, you can decide whether to ED to Rochester or not.</p>

<p>I think ED definitely gives you a boost, though with Rochester.</p>

6808

<p>okay… well I feel like even if applied early to MIT I would be rejected at worst, and deferred at best.</p>

6809

<p>Ugh, I feel bad about my ECs. I just don’t have that many. I have one EC that takes anywhere from 20-50 hours a week/year that I like but little else that makes me special.</p>

<p>Essentially, everything I do relates to either politics/writing or science. I don’t do any art (writing is an art but not the kind I do) or sports besides club tennis. I’m going to push myself to try a few essay contests but I lack confidence in my writing ability.</p>

<p>It’s just that I’m so nervous that I’ll never be good enough. I’m not at all happy where I am right now and I don’t want to be stuck here. And the problem is, that I probably will be stuck here if I’m not good enough to get into the top US schools because getting undergrad, even med school is way cheaper here than in America. For instance, med school is ~13k a year. Undergrad can go as low as 4k per term. So I’d feel guilty if I ended up going to the states for an “iffy” school. </p>

<p><em>TEENAGE ANGST</em></p>

6810

<p>You could check URoch’s ED rules. Some places let you ED and EA to other places…Roch might do that. Have you seen UR’s stat threads? That might give you an idea whether eD is helpful for you or not…</p>

6811

<p>My guidance counselor from school said if I ED’d there (it’s my second choice, but MIT is such a huge reach that I should probably consider it my first) I would almost definitely get in based on my school’s naviance scatterplot thing. </p>

<p>U Rochester has “Priority Review” that is due on December 1st… that is unbinding.</p>

6812

<p>Signed up for Math 2, French and Chem subject tests in May and SAT in June. Unfortunately, for May, my HS was full so I have to take it somewhere else.</p>

6813

<p>How do you guys narrow down the list of schools you are applying to?</p>

6814

<p>A lot of it was about lowering my standards, becoming less arrogant, that kind of thing. I used to want to apply to Ivy League schools and similarly selective schools but I sort of realized that’s not happening so now I just have a couple reaches and a safety. And I’ve come to love the safety more than the others.</p>

6815

<p>I picked about the top 30 academically in what I want to major in, crossed off all the ones that didn’t fit some characteristics I’m looking for. Cold weather? 55%+ male? No D1 football team? Cross off. </p>

<p>If you base the preliminary list on academics, you can base what you eliminate on whatever nitpicky things you want out of a school without worrying about academics.</p>

6816

<p>I’m in the process of making a large list of anywhere i want to go/fit academically then I’ll do more research and eliminate the ones that don’t have what I want in a school</p>

6817

<p>Haha I’m in class of 2013 and just want you guys to know that it’s never too early to start your college app essays!! The prompts are usually the same, and remember to distinguish yourself! And print out an application and fill it out over summer then when you’re applying, you have it all down!! Being prepared and ready will make you’re October-December(months most college apps are due) much easier, and will hopefully make March-April (months when most admission decisions come out) a whole lot better!! Also, your summer between your junior and senior year is very important!! Go out and join one of the many great summer programs colleges have to offer!! And lastly, SAT scores are SUPER important!!! I know a person with a 4.5 cum weighted gpa and only a 1745 gpa who was denied to all of his top choices and even some of his “safe” colleges, it was really sad!!</p>

6818

<p>I’m eliminating a lot of reaches. Before I had like 8 super reaches, but now I only have two. Then I have a lot of matches (like 8) and two safeties. So 12 schools total. :D</p>

<p>I actually really, really like one of my safeties (not sure about the other yet) so that’s cool. But I only kept schools I had extremely good reasons for keeping and that I KNOW that I like. After some research, many of my super reaches were not right for me.</p>

6819

<p>I have about 3-4 reaches, 5-6 targets, and 3 safeties. I’m hoping that I’m spread out enough where I can get 1 or 2 of my reaches.</p>

<p>But, as of right now, this list (give or take 2 schools), has been relatively constant for almost half a year now. My stats have been holding their course and I’m glad where I am right now as far as my selections…</p>

<p>I need to schedule a chat with my guidance counselor but he and I seem to be on the same page and I think he’ll back me up on my choices</p>

6820

<p>All my choices of schools regardless of reach, match, safety etc… have to pass a personal exam before I consider applying to them that way no matter where I go I can be happy. </p>

<p>3-4 reaches
3 matches
3 safeties</p>

6821

<p>The thing is every time I visit a school I go, ‘maybe I wont like it’ and then I end up liking it/loving it. I only have about 2 reaches and the rest are matches and safeties. Since I want to major in dance, I don’t think I should apply to 10+ schools because that means 10+ auditions which is a lot and I don’t know if it is feasible time and financial wise. I’ve done a lot of research on schools already, but I think I’m going to do some more and be more picky.</p>