@luckyme123 Here are some of my favorite classics! They’re great food for thought:
Wuthering Heights
The Metamorphosis
Catch-22
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Candide
Night
The Island of Dr. Moreau
And some of my favorite YA novels:
Five Flavors of Dumb, by Antony John
Stolen Songbird, by Danielle L. Jensen
Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys
Graffiti Moon, by Cath Crowley
Enjoy!
Speaking of books, has anyone read much Haruki Murakami? What book would you recommend?
@photogeek8 Sure! Questbridge is a scholarship program that helps low-income students get into their partner colleges on a full ride. As of January 20, 2016 Questbridge has 37 partnered colleges participating in this.
It holds a National College Match where chosen Finalists pick up to 12 of the partner colleges they wish to be “matched” to. You can be matched to only one college, and you are obliged to attend that school if you do get matched. The only exceptions to this match rule [of the partner colleges, of course] are MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale.
If you do not get “matched” you are given the option of applying to Questbridge’s Regular Decision (unlimited applications unlike the Match). If you are chosen as a Finalist but do not wish to participate in the National Match, you can apply to the partner colleges in the Regular Decision pool and get generous financial aid (no full ride like the Match scholarship) if accepted.
Next month Questbridge will open up its College Prep Scholars application for the juniors. This program is intended for the selected students to get an advantage in the college admissions process. If you get accepted into this program, you can be offered a full tuition scholarship to one of the summer programs of one of the colleges. You could also be invited to a college admissions conference at either Yale, Stanford, or Northwestern (you pick the college you want to attend the conference).
It’s a pretty cool program.
@desideratum I attempted to start a club called “Junior State of America (JSA),” I don’t know how influential it is where you live- but in my state/county it does not exist.
@QueenOfBohemia Thanks for the elucidation!
@desideratum I love bean!!!
some classics I like:
anything by Edgar Allan Poe
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Great Expectations
Common Sense
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
books are considered “classic” because they are super good and packed full of interesting themes and such so IMO basically any classic can be enjoyable as long as you put the effort/time into reading it!!
some good modern books:
Life of Pi (so so good)
Into Thin Air
A Brief History of Time (of course I had to include Hawking)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (I know we already talked about it on this thread lol)
any of Khaled Hosseini’s books (pro tip- read them when you are alone so no one sees you ball your eyes out)
some good YA books:
Gone series by Michael Grant (probably my favorite series- you get so emotionally invested in it!!)
Legend series by Marie Lu (so good)
Ender’s Game and rest of series
I am Number Four (terrible writing style, but the plot is just so good and makes up for it lol)
Between Shades of Gray
@luckyme123 I’ve hear Mein Kampf is pretty good
Ender’s game is very very good! Please read 
It seems crazy to me that there are clubs to support practically every charity under the sun but not the World Wildlife Fund. I love animals, and I would totally start that club, but fundraising can be kind of a dead end at my school, and I’m not sure how else we could support the WWF…also, I’m afraid nobody would join.
Laurie Halse Anderson writes really, really good books; so does Khaled Hosseini. I also love Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. The Night Thoreau Went to Jail is probably my favorite play. It’s great.
I’m ecstatic right now–unless I somehow managed to get a B in Marching Band (which would be really, really sad), I got a 4.0 first semester! I managed to raise my physics grade to an 89.7, just enough to get me to an A.
Congratulations! @tonystarkofwinterfell
I’ve heard great things about Gone Girl, but unfortunately have never read it.
@iamnotironman -
The Legend series and Life of Pi are SO GREAT. We had to read Common Sense as part of our summer assignment for AP Lang & Comp this year, and although it was dry at times, Paine’s argumentation - I see how effective it would have been at the time, and he was great at rhetoric! AH. I’ve been wanting to read A Brief History of Time for a while now, but haven’t got a chance to read that either.
@desideratum I love Thomas Paine and his arguments, and you should definitely read A Brief History of Time!!
And speaking of Stephen Hawking- all of you guys should check out this awesome video from a Caltech event that features Stephen Hawking playing a game of quantum chess with Paul Rudd. It’s my new favorite video of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi0BzqV_b44
@desideratum how about founding a chess club? My son did that in 9th grade and went from 4 to 17 members in three years.
@iamnotironman Hilarious video! And I got halfway through A Brief History of Time during winter break, but I can’t finish it now since school’s in the way. Very interesting so far, though I wish he included a bit more math into it.
That video was great!
Does anyone know of any research summer programs with room and board that I could apply to as safeties? I applied to extremely competitive programs and just in case I don’t get into them, I would still like the opportunity to do research since the closest university I have is too far to travel to in my area to do research for a safety.
^
@GrandBudapest
I read “Norwegian Wood” and “Kafka on the Shore”. “Norwegian …” was very depressing. “Kafka …” was weird and quirky. There may be more uplifting ones by him but I don’t know which. My friend read 1Q84 and got very confused. His works are just a little too weird for me. Are you sure you want to read his work?
Hey guys so our school is now doing scheduling and I’m so annoyed because senior year is when there are so many options for classes to choose from. Can you guys rate my schedule for difficulty? Also I’m not trying to pack it with APs because if you take honors or below and get a B avg u can be exempt from the midterms and finals. (Yes!) Does anyone have advice for which course to take???
Humanities H (what’s this class like?)
Research H
Orchestra/band
AP psych
AP calc AB (I won’t do super well) Or AP stats
AP bio or AP environmental science (harder now not sterotypiCal “easy” because years back ppl cheated so…)
Spanish L2 (I suck at language so should I take it or switch with something else like anatomy H OR have another study hall because ALOT of seniors say college apps OR an art class because I love Art but never took any classes I HS but it’s kinda late now)
Study hall left over from PE classes because seniors don’t take em.)
Sorry this was super long but I hope you guys will help me and give recommendations for me.
Thanks!!!
@penngirlpending What do you want to major in?