<p>@Catchinginfinity, I’ll probably be adding a few colleges to the list, but that’s the base list I’m starting with. Since I plan to apply to medical school, Harvard would be a good idea since they have some grade inflation (GPA is super important for med school apps). MIT’s atmosphere is amazing from what I hear, and Harvard and MIT are both in Massachusetts, which is a huge bonus location wise. It’s only a couple of hours from NYC so I won’t be too distracted from my studies, but I can have weekend excursions to the city. (That’s assuming I get in lol)</p>
<p>Duke, Emory, and JHU have amazing merit aid. Emory is near the CDC, which is a plus. Rice, Northwestern, and Brown have BS/MD programs, which would be really beneficial. WUSTL has a top notch med school and really good merit aid. And I just love Yale and Princeton’s campuses Princeton has the added bonus of being near enough to NYC so that I can go there occasionally, but far enough so that I can’t go there daily and get distracted from my academics.</p>
<p>I plan to major in biochemistry and/or computer science. I’m fairly comfortable in biochem, but completely new to CS. I’m going to try CS and try to make it a major EC of mine by doing something significant in it. If I like it and I"m able to do something relatively good/significant, I’ll pursue it as a major in college. I may end up double majoring in biochem and CS, if I want. Even if I major in CS, I’ll still take a lot of classes that biochem majors have to take simply because of pre-med requirements. Most of the research I do will probably be in biochem, but if I major in CS, I’ll have some CS papers authored as well.</p>
<p>Yay planning ahead</p>
<p>@sonofgod98, depends. Do you plan to major in/pursue a STEM field? (I’m assuming that, since you’re on here, you’re aiming for Ivies/Ivy tier colleges.)</p>
<p>@TeamRocket - MIT’s atmosphere IS amazing. Not sure how someone who’s not interested in STEM would like it, but as a math geek, I can confirm this. I was initially interested in majoring in CS, too, which is why I fell in love with Stanford (Silicon Valley <3), but I’m starting to feel that I’m not intelligent enough for it, because CS is one of those things you need a sharp mind for and can’t just study for hours and “understand” how to solve a problem. /: Kind of off-topic, but if you have an hour or two on weekends, I highly recommend you check out Cargo-Bot (assuming you have some sort of tablet/smartphone); it’s a “game” that’s heavily based on CS logic.</p>
<p>How did you start researching colleges? Most of the things I know right now are through the grapevine, because I feel like the info on CB and Naviance aren’t up-to-date. And I absolutely hate the matchmaker tool on CB.</p>
<p>^What i did was look up schools that had my prospective major as well as companies that i’d be willing to work for recruit there. I want to work for an airline after college, so having an airline recruit at your college would be a huge plus, so that was one of my criteria. But i’m still a sophomore, so there’s still plenty of time to change. I used the matchmaker tools on CB and CC as guidelines, then went onto each individual college that i liked’s sites to see if the curriculum/job placement/faculty was considered good in any way.</p>
<p>TRG: I’m getting the feeling when you say you’re interested in CS you mean the theoretical side of it, rather than say actually coding (the application). From all the blogs and from different CS classes I’ve been in, you guys seem to be in the minority. Anyways, what makes you interested in CS being so new to it?</p>
<p>Or go to the side thing on the app when you first open the app and click messages and then the pencil on the top right. I’m not sure about desktop.</p>
<p>@Catchinginfinity, I originally felt that way (that I’m not intelligent enough for CS) and I still kind of do feel that way, but my tutor (who is a CS major at an university near me) introduced me to the field and has encouraged me to try it out, even though I think I may be bad at it. He says that if I need any help with CS, I can always contact him, and that I have the intelligence required; I just have to learn to focus it. Perhaps it’s the same with you? I’m sure you’re pretty intelligent.</p>
<p>As for how I started researching colleges, I made a list of places I’d thought I’d like to go (HYPSM, etc.) and basically just used Google and CC to find out things about them and eliminated the ones I didn’t like for whatever reason. Stanford was the first to go. I actually know a girl who went to MIT, so I talked with her about it, and MIT was added to my list.</p>
<p>@Cornball, I’m interested in artificial intelligence and neural networks. I dunno if those are more theoretical than application based (may be a bit of both), but yeah. I was actually introduced to CS by my tutor; he’s currently doing research on Markov Decision Processes, and I read one of his papers. Didn’t understand most of it, but it seemed really interesting, and I’m currently looking into doing creating my own programming language to address floating points as an introduction to comp sci. I hope to create something like what Brittany Wenger did with neural networks before I graduate HS so I can put CS on my applications. I just really like the concept of AI; it seems really fascinating. Sadly, I’m not well versed in the field yet, so I can’t really give a concrete answer as to what it is I like about CS; I just do lol</p>
<p>@loltired, I just registered as well. Here’s hoping I can pull of a 50 point increase in a month.</p>
<p>@TeamRocketGrunt I thought Stanford had a really good CS program? Plus it’s in Silicon Valley… What don’t you like about it - I’m just curious (sorry to jack the 2016 thread haha)</p>
<p>It’s CS program is top notch, but I just don’t care for California. I MAY still apply though, because as you say, it’s in Silicon Valley, but I just don’t think I’d be happy in California.</p>
<p>Gotcha. I live in CA (and the weather’s basically perfect), but I think I’d want to go to the east coast for college. Unless I don’t get in anywhere, in which case I’d just go to a UC and save the money haha. Do you have a top choice yet, or no?</p>
<p>I would LOVE MIT. The atmosphere and location are perfect <3 Only problem with MIT is that it’s the Massachusetts Institute of TECHNOLOGY, so I don’t think a biochem major would fit in there I dunno if MIT actually has a biochem major.</p>
<p>Although, if I go to MIT, I’ll probably major in CS while fulfilling pre-med reqs, so I guess that could work out. The one thing I’m scared about is that if I go to a top notch school, there will be so many people more intelligent than I, and that will make me feel extremely inferior. I mean, if I go to MIT (after miraculously getting in, of course), I’ll be surrounded by people who are inventive, creative, and just generally very smart people, while I’ll be an idiot.</p>
<p>Also, I’ve found the music I’ll blare when I go crazy in a few years. </p>
<p>Nah, I know that MIT has a great biochem major, and loads of people do non-technology stuff there. [Majors</a> & Minors | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/discover/majors]Majors”>Majors & minors | MIT Admissions)
MIT’s my top choice as well. I’ve pretty much determined at this point that I’m not going to get in anywhere other than the UC’s, but if I somehow got into MIT, I’d probably do biology or some form of biological engineering (also involving chemistry?). Possibly Brain & Cognitive Sciences as well, but we’ll see. And yeah, I’d feel the same way, inferior, if I went to MIT - everyone would be so much smarter and more inventive/creative, and I’d be the boring blob who tried to make USABO but couldn’t… (speaking of which, how’s studying going?)</p>
<p>The thing that’s pulling me towards MIT right now is Boston and their amazing math program. But I also heard that students sit in front of a problem for hours and days trying to make sense of it and the theorem eventually just “comes to them” - I’m scared that I won’t be smart enough to have it eventually make sense to me.</p>
<p>@TeamRocket - I hope that’s the case with me…HTML came easily to me when I learned it a few years ago, but that barely qualifies as “real programming” and requires little creative thinking. /: Is your tutor an actual tutor for school subjects/test prep or is he/she your research mentor? I’m guessing the latter…</p>
<p>If the only thing that made you cross Stanford off your list was location, then you should reconsider because it’s THE place to be if you want to go into CS. Google literally recruits from that school and SV location -> more intern and start-up opportunities. I’m on a different boat, though, because I want to go into software, so not sure if that would really be much of a hook for you.</p>
<p>I don’t have time for it. I plan to get my research under control over the summer, and I’ll start USABO/USNCO prep for the 2014-2015 USABO and USNCO then.</p>
<p>My tutor is neither, actually. My research mentor is a biological sciences prof. here; my tutor is just a really smart and awesome college student. </p>
<p>Yeah, I suppose Stanford’s benefits far outweigh its drawbacks. I have three sort of detached goals that I’m hoping to unify, actually. I plan to go to medical school, pursue research in both biochem and CS, and combine my biochem and CS projects in such a way that I can create some sort of startup that focuses on both the healthcare and technology sectors.</p>
<p>I really want to go to Stanford too, it’s a really hard school to get into so I would be fine going to UC Berkeley or UCLA where the admission rates are nicer. The only thing I wouldn’t like about CalTech is that it’s way too close to me (5 min drive) and I kinda wanna move out. The only reason I would go out east would be if I got into MIT or Harvard and if I got enough financial aid.</p>
<p>@TeamRocketGrunt after reviewing the first few lessons from the barron’s book and taking the diagnostic test, i feel so stupid because i don’t remember any alg 2/geometry LOL
still have time, i guess</p>
<p>thank god we haven’t come across hyperbolas and crap in calculus yet</p>
Princeton has the added bonus of being near enough to NYC so that I can go there occasionally, but far enough so that I can’t go there daily and get distracted from my academics.</p>
I dunno if MIT actually has a biochem major.</p>