<p>anyone’s school cool with them graduating in 2010?
mine was like, as long as you finish your grad reqs as in english, math, a sport, and an extra artsy class i never got around to taking lol, i can graduate.</p>
<p>simon’s rock is another program for younger students (16/17) at bard college.
it’s not as focused on grades and stuff though, and i THINK it’s easier to get in. not positive.</p>
<p>I haven’t DARED to hope to have the chance to ask (wow, nice long string of infinitives) my counselor about graduating yet. Seniors at my school are getting results for schools they applied early action or decision to. Things are tense.</p>
<p>that was the first thing my gc was concerned about.
not even whether or not i should apply. it was oh, can she still graduate?!
lol.</p>
<p>Oh, ok…I’m graduating this year…I wonder how hard transferring would be if we didn’t like it after the first year. I think RHP itself sounds pretty prestigious…it might be appealing to schools, but- I don’t know- transferring is as a rule tough</p>
<p>apparently loads (95%) of freshmen stay at usc.
i would consider transferring, but transfer admissions, at the schools i would want to transfer to, are more competitive.</p>
<p>For anyone whose high school won’t let you graduate alongside RHP, but still want a high school diploma (equivalent), there is always the CHSPE in california: [California</a> High School Proficiency Examination (CHSPE)](<a href=“http://www.chspe.net%5DCalifornia”>http://www.chspe.net)</p>
<p>haha
for those of you who can’t graduate but live out of california, there’s always the GED.
[as in me & a lotta people on here]
it seems like usc is prevalently californians.</p>
<p>Hey y’all.</p>
<p>I’m a Californian student who also applied to the RHP program. I made the minimum on the Dec. SAT (2090) but I’m not sure that it’s good enough. I’m pretty intimidated by reading your previous posts, for you generally seem a highly amazing bunch. </p>
<p>April . . . April . . .</p>
<p>I’m probably as nervous as the rest of you.</p>
<p>welcome to the thread, poirotsfriend. what are you planning on majoring in?</p>
<p>yeah, welcome! 
and don’t be intimidated, i got around the same: 2110.
& i THINK results for us are in feb.</p>
<p>psymonsays511: Thanks. I’m personally looking at Philosophy and Public Policy (whatever it is, I’m certainly doing a double major) because have an intense interest in both. I am, however, a semi-professional musician, and a lot of my resume is based on my accomplishments relating to such. I am also an ardent writer and composer and bibliophile and all sorts of other things of that nature. I bank on anachronism.</p>
<p>dopaminescene: Thanks to you as well. But you did break the 2100 barrier. (I was so close though . . .) My mum did mention we get our results just after I posted previously, so I’ll amend that. </p>
<p>February. February.</p>
<p>Do you suppose that we’ll know sooner if we did not get chosen? I’m going to die of anticipation. </p>
<p>By the way, happy Christmas y’all.</p>
<p>what musical instruments do you play and what kinds of music? are you thinking of joining the marching band?</p>
<p>I am a viola and piano player, and I teach both instruments in addition to the violin . Although my field is predominantly classical, I am developing a neo-classical style of my own, do my own recordings and play in public once a week. I play a lot of popular tunes from shows and such as well. And no, I am not considering the marching band, for the simple reason that violas are not band instruments.</p>
<p>Wow. I’m impressed. You know I’ve been trying to find out about other potential RHP-ers all over the net and finally I found something lol. I guess I’m a little late to the party since all of our applications are in but I think it would be cool to just chat about this stuff until February. Well at any rate, let me introduce myself. I am half-Asian (dad is from india) and half-Caucasian (mom is white) + was born and lived in US all of my life. While all but 3 of my dad’s siblings have professional degrees (and he has a PhD), noone in my mother’s immediate family has ever gone to college (she did for like less than a semester then got pneumonia and dropped out…I’m presuming that that really doesn’t ‘count’). I live in central PA (but in a city) and I go to boarding school near Philly. Ninth grade yr i guess i messed up pretty badly (91 avg. mainly bc of really low B in a 12th grade statistics course i was taking at the time…ouch), but its been all uphill since then (except in 10th grade when i screwed up pretty bad on precalc midterm and got a B in that). I have consistently taken the ‘most rigorous courseload’ in my school. However, as a small selective school (<180 students in gr. 7-12), it offers few Honors/AP courses til the 11th grade (it takes pride in its academic courses, which it claims are the equivalent of honors courses elsewhere). THis year I’m taking 3 AP courses, 1 honors, and 2 academic (req. 4 graduation 
)… so it was not quite natural 4 me to apply to RHP; in fact, I still doubt that my chances are that good 
Still, things are looking up for the most part since then… i got a STELLAR recommendation from my English teacher (as in, I couldn’t have written anything better without being ridiculously dishonest which she of course wasn’t) and something similar from history teacher and my essay turned out really well I think (I did the Newton/ something that changed your course in life topic). SATs were a downside though. I only took them in December and only scored a 2150 (750 W, 720 M, 680 CR). How bad do you all think that is going to hurt me? Extracurriculars are decent - I mean nothing to phone home about. I helped to found the Computer Club at my school and am <em>unofficial</em> President/‘Master Chief.’ I was elected to Student Congress this year (it was its first year in existence at my school) as 1 of 2 11th grade reps and I have a lifelong passion for politics (unfortunately I am also very liberal and live in an area where the Democratic presence is reeeally weak. I mean they don’t even RUN candidates for local offices most of the time. Thus, no internships, opportunities there :(. ) However, I have always been pretty vocal about my views on politics and world affairs wherever I am (got me in2 BIG trouble in like 7th grade… long story… basically involves defending Kerry at my-then school. It was parochial. I still bear those scars. lol). This kinda showed in both my english teacher’s rec. and my counselor’s form on Part I. At first I wanted to major in software engineering… then my calculus teacher got to the chapter on Implicit Differentiation… I am now less inclined to follow such a path … However, I am pretty strong in the humanities too, and I have recently decided to major in history, go to law school, and then become a politician somewhere down the road. I am also a member of the History Club and I am, at least in my Eng. teacher’s opinion (she runs the peer tutor program 4 my school), a great peer tutor. And I am webmaster of my school’s Student Congress’ official blog… I know the extracurriculars aren’t quite as sterling as they could be but then again, when you go to a small boarding school there are few clubs and little potential to make new ones. In addition, its nearly impossible to get the school to let you go off-campus to do any projects on your own … and GPA isn’t exactly where i want it… about 4.01 weighted, due, yet again, to the dearth of Honors and AP courses at my school… so, that’s kinda where i stand - didn’t really mean to get so lengthy with it… what do you guys think my chances are… I know that RHP is looking for someone passionate or talented in a particular field. For mr I’d say that would be politics and law… even though i have little actual ‘solid’ extracurricular activity in these fields I have shown a passion for them through my actions (aka - sending emails out to my whole school community with solid reasons to vote Obama, being the unofficial spokesperson for almost any liberal view in my school, having an emotional breakdown at the age of 8 upon hearing of the Bush v. Gore ruling, etc.) and have recently incorporated them into a role of student leadership (the Congress), and by trying to stimulate the democratic process in my school community (mass emails, S.C. Blog, etc.)… so that was kinda my sell line to get into the program… At any rate I’m ranting…lol. What I actually came here to ask was: How much aid does USC usually give if you are accepted to the program? My family income is <40K/yr and my dad is really kind of nervous that we won’t have enough money to pay… How much aid do you think i can get and how should i go about getting it? I know FAFSA is the first step, but after that everything gets kind of murky…lol. Is there anybody who can enlighten me to all this out there???</p>
<p>At any rate, please forgive me my rant, have a good holiday season, and, of course, best of luck for February!!!</p>
<p>poirotsfriend: that is a pretty impressive resume when it comes to music.</p>
<p>iprihar216: on average, usc meets 100% of students financial aid needs so you probably have nothing to worry about. with regards to financial aid needs, i think the best place to go is the usc website</p>
<p>iprihar216:
I’m indian too! LOL
your stats are fabulous. i would say that you are just as in the running as any of us.
and you’re sats are fine. you made cut-off by a large margin.
and as psymonsays511 pointed out, fin aid at usc is great.
i think we get about 10k merit aid, but the needbased aid is 100%. so money need not be a concern if you meet the criteria.
and i don’t think that not having an internship in politics looks bad. i mean, not many people can swing one–even in the sciences. i met age barriers every time i asked for an internship at colleges around here. so, summary: you are a very competitive candidate. don’t worry about your sats or fin aid, or stats.
and welcome!</p>
<p>poirotsfriend: i BARELY beat it and i scored upper 600s on math and cr. and 760 on writing.
so without that writing score, i’d be more screwed than anyone.
i was really disappointed that i didn’t at least get 7s on everything…if i did, i wouldn’t have to take the sats again for next year. (assuming that i don’t get into usc)</p>
<p>iprihar216: You are probably far more qualified than I, academically speaking. Out of curiosity, what do you do for community service? Also, I’m guessing you made it very clear of your political persuasions in your resume, and I can’t decide if that would be beneficial to you or not. I’m a stauch conservative (let’s please not get into a debate about it) as is a substantial number of the USC student body. Regarding this, I wonder if the admissions would lean more towards your favor or against it; will they lean towards diversity or ‘best fit’? For the record, I made zero mention of anything regarding my particular political stance in my resume, although I did put down my two potential majors as Philosophy/Public Policy. (Phil. because I think it is one of the most valuable areas of study, along with ethics, and public policy because I intensely love working with people and being a leader, it’s a program especial to USC, and I anticipate it will lead me towards a good job, possibly near if not in the political arena.) Anyway, you sound like a smart democrat, which in my experience is a rarity these days, so I congratulate you on that point. </p>
<p>If you don’t get into the USC program, I recommend looking for internships at local law offices, even if you’re from a highly conservative area. Not just colleges etc. Try any of your local congresspeople. And don’t just accept what they say on their websites ‘we don’t take internships’ or ‘we only take college students’ etc. Call them, tell them about you, get them interested. I’m going after a congressional internship this upcoming summer, so that’ll be really exciting. </p>
<p>dopaminescene: Well, I didn’t get 700s on everything either, so I guess we both run similar chances, eh? But I’m taking the SATs again in March and then in . . . I think June? I’m just doing them over and over again until college app time. And I do notice that my score does go up every time. </p>
<p>psymonsays: Alas, but I am not going into music except as a possible minor, so I don’t know at this point whether it is a detriment to have been so involved in music or not.</p>
<p>Newcomers! Yesssss!</p>
<p>I was in California (Los Angeles, actually) for the past week or so for winter break. The weather is nice, but I’m a little let down by the transportation system. I’ve never been to LA, so I assumed since it’s the second largest city in the U.S., the public transportation would be comparable to New York…but no. It seems like navigation is a little hard without a car…Correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
<p>poirotsfriend, I also play the violin (I think you mentioned a few posts earlier that you played viola, piano, and violin)! I don’t consider myself a semi-professional, but I still teach and play in a wedding band. So I guess I’m a con-artist…Just kidding. Welcome to the thread!</p>
<p>And same to you, iprihar216. Your academic achievements look good, and your SAT score is perfectly fine. I have a hunch that for USC, as long as you meet their minimum requirement for SAT (which isn’t low in the first place), a 2100 and a 2200 are pretty much the same in their eyes. The rest of your application package weigh more.</p>
<p>Anyways, nice to meet you guys!</p>
<p>Thanks very much. Oh yes, Southern CA transportation is something one must acclimate one’s self to when living down here. It’s heinous, frankly. I don’t like driving freeways at all, but it’s highly necessary when one is going here, there, and everywhere about town. </p>
<p>I’m looking for a wedding band who might need my services; if only you lived down here! But maybe you will be next year, so that would be awesome to form one of RHP kids. :D</p>
<p>For the record, our weather this past week has not been at all typical of winter. I was talking with an elderly neighbor and we both agreed on how it’s been a long time since we had a truly rainy Christmas season. Usually we have just a little bit of rain then sun all the rest of the day. So you came during one of the least typical weeks of winter. Right now there’s not a cloud in the sky and the sun is bright and beautiful. J’aime California.</p>