The College Thread =D

Talk about anything under the sun or stars - but keep it civil. This is where we really get to know each other. Everyone is welcome, and invited!
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The College Thread =D

Postby CezeN » Sat Feb 06, 2010 9:35 pm

Pretty much, what college did you go to/are you going to/do you want to go to and what was it like?

I was just wondering if anyone would be so kind as to share their college experience. Was it the best of times, the worst of times, or both?
Was there anything you wish you knew, or any specific mindset you wish you had, going into college your first year?
What did you like most about your college or your experience?
(you don't have to answer all the questions, anyone would be fine, anything you want to say)

Hopefully, I can gather some hidden experience-only insight before I go off and join whichever one I get into.

Basically, if you have any story or anything you want to say/share about college, I invite you to say it.
---------------------------------------------------------
Colleges I've applied to:
WashU, Emory, Duke, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, University of Notre Dame, and Northern Arizona University

Colleges I've been accepted into:
Northern Arizona University (the rest will get back to me around April or May)

Other colleges I wish I had applied to:
Texas A&M (Only as like my last-resort backup Uni, however they offered me like almost a full ride into their Honors program in October, I opened the letter in January though :wink: )
Rice University

College that I really want to go to:
1. WashU St.Louis
2. Vanderbilt

Please participate and share, if you want.
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Postby human. » Sun Feb 07, 2010 12:22 am

Oh! College is big on my mind, too!

I have applied to: Texas A&M, University of Texas, North Carolina State, Duke, MIT, Princeton, Yale

All for Chemical Engineering, except Duke, which is Mechanical because they don't have ChemE.

I have been accepted to: A&M, UT (partially), and NC State

And then I had interviews with the last four, three of which were in the last two weeks. Other than MIT, the interviewers were extremely.. persuasive. And insightful! It's really cool to talk one-on-one with an alum because they tell you all sorts of things. The Yale interviewer was really nerdy (even sat in that very nerdy, excited pose where you pull up one of your legs and lean in close--we've all done it before, I'm sure!). And he talked about how his class protested during the late 60's to make Yale co-ed. The Princeton interviewer was really motherly and told me all about the different places I would fit in there. The Duke interviewer was a huge sports fan and talked to me all about Krzyzewskiville, and how I'd never want to leave. It was just really helpful to get to talk to them about their experiences at their respective colleges, and all that the colleges have to offer.

I sort of wish I had applied to Georgia Tech. Sort of. It's a great school, but I already know a couple of people in my school who are going there, and I'd really prefer to get away from everyone here.

I'd say Duke is my top pick for where I would be happiest and reach the greatest potential. But Yale has that amazing video about going to Yale...

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Postby Jayelle » Sun Feb 07, 2010 12:34 am

Are "College" and "University" interchangeable words in the states?

I would never call it college here, always University.

That being said. I went to a Christian university called Canadian Mennonite University. It was the best experience of my life. Living on campus was the best thing I ever did.


Currently, my husband is applying for PhD programs, so it kinda feels like I'm applying for University since it effects my life so much.

He's applied in Canada at UBC, UofCalgary, UofSaskatchewan, UofManitoba, McGill, UofToronto, Memorial University (in Newfoundland)
In the States at: Duke, Rochester and Florida
and in the UK at Oxford.


ETA: Hey! We could all end up at Duke together...
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Re: The College Thread =D

Postby zeroguy » Sun Feb 07, 2010 1:04 am

Was it the best of times, the worst of times, or both?
Was there anything you wish you knew, or any specific mindset you wish you had, going into college your first year?
I went to a rather large US university. I majored in computer science, and graduated in 3 years. I am good at CS-y things. Consider that creating bias for some of the below:

Ever hear that (american) (undergrad) university is a 4-year vacation? It really can be. Try not to get lost in it.

My college experience was really good, I think; I had a lot fun. My only potential regret would be not having enough fun, really. I focused a bit too much on academics, but that's just the type of person I was.

What I think is just good advice is just to try to hang around people who are far away from your bad habits. Coming into college I was a techie computer guy who probably worried too much about grades and stuff. So I tried to hang out with non-techie people who were more layed-back. Coming out, I think I made it to a happy medium of having fun and dealing with classes.

The most common, uh... way-you-can-f***-up, I think, is getting lost in the fun, forgetting there are classes and assignments to do, etc. "Dude, I have such a huge exam tomorrow..." "f*** it, let's get wasted! Ha ha ha ha, we're so screwed, ha ha ha!" Stuff like that. You have a ton more free time to get academic stuff done, I think, but there's also a ton more distractions.

It's possible to burnout from overwork and stuff, but I honestly don't know if I've ever seen that personally. Usually people working insanely hard was a result of putting off assignments or just taking way too damn many classes at once. Uh, don't do that.

Some more concrete/simple things... One thing that may seem obvious, but I saw a lot of people ignoring: depending on how your system works for signing up for classes, doing it as early as possible can make a big difference between getting a good and bad schedule. And if a class is full, talk to the professor! A lot of the time, they'll just let more people in; any requirements or conflicts can almost always be worked around if you just get the approval from the right person. And people always drop classes...

At one point, I think I may have thought getting early classes may be good for me; make me get used to getting up early or something (I am not a morning person). That was a mistake; I never was very awake for anything before 10 or 11 AM, and soon avoided classes at those times. I now work starting at 9AM every workday, and getting up at noon for most of college doesn't seem to have created a problem for me. But your mileage may vary.

Edit:
Are "College" and "University" interchangeable words in the states?
They're still supposed to mean different things here as far as I know, but at least for colloquial usage... they're effectively the same. Though you still have "the engineering college" or "the college of fine arts" within a single university, but people still call the university the "college" and "going to college" and such.
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Postby Wil » Sun Feb 07, 2010 1:09 am

Supplementing what zero said: Two year schools typically have "college" in their name, while four-year schools and above (masters and doctorates) usually have "university" in their name. But, as zero said, people still use the word "college" interchangeably in the states.

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Postby neo-dragon » Sun Feb 07, 2010 1:41 am

University didn't stand out as anything particularly great for me but teachers college was enjoyable.
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Postby human. » Sun Feb 07, 2010 1:44 am

ETA: Hey! We could all end up at Duke together...
Let's do it! I hate waiting to know if I got in or not...

Edit: And I'm pretty sure college is the more commonly used term for post-secondary education of any type now, here. But second to that I have heard trade school for two year degree programs. The only time I really hear "university" used is when saying the name of a school, or when talking to my friend in Britain, who calls it uni.

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Postby locke » Sun Feb 07, 2010 3:16 am

I went to USC, applied to MIT, USC, Princeton and some engineering college in Terra Haute.

USC was my first choice, Princeton and MIT were my backups, and I didn't get into my backups but that was okay cause I went to SC.

And that transformed me into a football fan. I had a lovely college experience. I loved living on my own. I liked living in the dorms. I sort of wish I'd had a more party/wild experience in colelge, but I'm always the guy that's uncomfortable at parties standing by a wall not talking to strangers, so even if I had done more parties I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it.

I do wish I'd gotten free of an ex earlier and gotten to sex sooner in my college experience (or during, actually), but things have worked out all right, I think, but to a degree some of my college years were wasted on me working really hard, and getting really good grades.

Make a really broad pool of friends outside your dorm and major, and do that by doing something like pledging, working at a campus job or operation that's sufficiently different because so many of my friends moved away after graduation. its a good thing I had two pools of friends to draw from, because one set of friends not a one stayed in LA and the other set of friends all stayed in LA.
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Postby v-girl » Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:26 am

I went to a large state university for college, and now go to a smaller (but still big) state school for medical school. I will probably always look back on my 4 years in college as the best in my life. Maybe it's because I went to a state school, but I didn't have to study that much for my grades and I spent a lot of time hanging out. I did study a lot, but probably not compared to those who get good grades at the more prestigious universities. I did work really hard when I was studying for the MCAT though.

I'll be applying for residency in the fall. I'm thinking a lot about the big names - Duke, Northwestern, UChicago, Pitt, Penn, Vanderbilt, and maybe even Hopkins. Duke has an awesome program, but may be a little too far from home.

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Postby jotabe » Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:41 am

I went to the USC too! :D
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Postby Graff^ » Sun Feb 07, 2010 6:58 am

I would like to attend(almost unattaniable dream college)Yale. But actually I'd just be glad to get my degree in Psychiatry from any college.
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Postby Rei » Sun Feb 07, 2010 9:57 am

I started my degree at a small university college with a first come, first admitted policy, which suited my high school transcript juuuuuust fine. I did a couple of years there and then transferred to the University of Toronto where I did another three-and-a-half years to finish my degree.

Overall, I would not fall it the best of times, although I have certainly enjoyed it more than high school. That, however, has less to do with it being university and more to do with changes in myself. Probably the best thing for me was moving well and thoroughly away from home. Not that home is a bad place, but it forced me to learn to live on my own by removing the option of returning to the comforts of the familiar whenever things got difficult.

Res was not the best experience for me, but mine was an odd situation. When I came to UofT, they must have said, "Oh! this is your first year at UofT! you must be a first year!" and then put me on the floor with a huge number of OTHER first years. So at the time, I was 21 and my room mate was 17. I was also very nearly the oldest person on the floor, with only the don and one or two others being at all older than me. I had a fair bit of difficulty fitting in, and had little interest in becoming a first-year party-er for the sake of trying to get to know people.

What DID work for getting to know people was I joined the swing dance club, and ran into people I had met in my department but hadn't figured out how to get to know them before.

All in all, it was not a bad experience. It also wasn't really OMGBESTEXPERIENCEEVAR!!1! It was a part of life that happened, and now other parts of life are happening or about to happen.
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Postby Syphon the Sun » Sun Feb 07, 2010 10:57 am

Supplementing what zero said: Two year schools typically have "college" in their name, while four-year schools and above (masters and doctorates) usually have "university" in their name.
College doesn't always go with "community," you know. The vast majority of four-year liberal arts schools are "colleges." William & Mary and Dartmouth are "colleges."

Americans have been calling it "college" over "university" for centuries, primarily because that's all we had at one time. The British didn't think our schools qualified for "university" status and we just sort of left it at that.

Eventually, we started naming schools "university" when they had multiple "schools" (College of Liberal Arts, College of Business, School of Medicine, whathaveyou) within it and naming schools "college" when they only had a College of Liberal Arts (though the College of Liberal Arts is certainly expanded to encompass more in the latter).

ETA: I think this is a great topic and (hopefully) when my line-edits are done, I'll be back to post about my experience.
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Postby Wil » Sun Feb 07, 2010 11:06 am

College doesn't always go with "community," you know. The vast majority of four-year liberal arts schools are "colleges." William & Mary and Dartmouth are "colleges."
Ahh, totally forgot about those! Good point. :)

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Postby Dr. Mobius » Sun Feb 07, 2010 11:08 am

some engineering college in Terra Haute.
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Postby CezeN » Sun Feb 07, 2010 2:25 pm

My parents really want me to go to Duke, since they have some people they know in North Carolina, since we used to live there.

LOL is it bad that I haven't done any college interviews? :lol:

But yeah, it'd be weird, yet cool, if we all ended up going to Duke.
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Zeroguy/Locke- Meeting people outside my major, who don't do the same sort of thing as me, sounds like a plan. A good plan.
I mean, I need to learn to talk to strangers. And to people I have nothing in common with. That's my biggest flaw right now.
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Postby CezeN » Sun Feb 07, 2010 2:28 pm

Also, I need some help brainstorming.

Other than going to an interview or the college rep meeting(if they came to your highschool), how exactly did any of you show your colleges that you were interested in them?
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Postby Sonikku13 » Sun Feb 07, 2010 2:58 pm

I want to go to the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse... or the University of Minnesota, but grades will be an issue for me... darn 10th grade year was messy.
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Postby megxers » Sun Feb 07, 2010 4:19 pm

I have a very complicated relationship with college. I've been in it for the better part of five years, have a BA, want to go back to grad school, and am taking courses all over the place while working to try to sort things out. I greatly miss my full research library access and am hoping I get some of back when I sort of enroll at the local university here. My main problem is I know more or less what I want to end up studying and focusing on, but I don't know where and in what exact department. I would very much like to be back in school full time by the time I'm 22 though.
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Postby Gravity Defier » Sun Feb 07, 2010 6:05 pm

Looking through here, it hits me that I'm still one of a handful of people I know (here and meatspace) who had an experience of college being High School Redux. That is to say, it was unpleasant. I'm not sure if that makes my view more or less valuable, or value neutral.

It boggles my mind, seeing/hearing about the hoops and the personal struggle people have gone/do go through in their pre-college experiences.

My parents didn't go to college (my mom didn't even finish high school in the traditional sense) and neither did my two older brothers. At some point in my own K-12 experience, I was told I was smart, gifted even, and that I was going to college. I have to wonder, sometimes, if I would have gone at all if it weren't for my need to do as I was told by my parents and other authoritarian figures (teachers, counselors).

We were always pushed to gather information (graded on it, I think) on different colleges and write papers on occupations we wanted as adults, so I ended up with a large amount of literature from colleges/universities across the country but I didn't pay them much attention. As for the aspirations helping to narrow down my choices...it really was quite laughable. I wanted to be an architect, a teacher, a musician, an author, a marine biologist, an artist. I lacked the confidence to think I could actually be any of them and so I couldn't decide on one to pursue. Repeatedly being told and reassured I was smart served the purpose of confusing me and making me doubt even more; "What are these people seeing in me?" is a question I constantly asked myself. I am a good student but they're confusing that with intelligence.

By that I mean I am very good at mimicking or absorbing information and spitting it back out. As soon as you ask for original thought, however, I tend to start folding. Especially in Literature/History based classes. I lacked the ability to put what I learned in any sort of real world context and often felt overwhelmed at what it seemed to take to get the big picture. I never noticed my peers having this problem, so although I graduated in the top 20 of 500+, I'm not and wasn't altogether sure I came out of HS with a better education than those lower than I was. To jump ahead for just a moment, this feeling of being woefully unprepared and lacking in knowledge was greatly magnified when sitting in a college classroom with these other kids who seemed to have their act together.

As I often do when overwhelmed, I acted out of blindness. My attitude was "If I don't know that I'm cut out for college and don't know what I want or am capable of being, I can at least not make the mistake of wasting a lot of money trying to figure it out." I took my full ride to the in-state school because it seemed like the smartest thing I could do monetarily and hey, my favorite teacher went there so it couldn't be too bad. The unfortunate part of that was, most everyone I considered a friend or acquaintance in HS also took the easy/cheap way out and went to that same school.

To make matters even worse, I decided to request being put in the same dorm room as one of my closer friends. Sure, it helped with my paranoia of leaving my things in a shared space (and in my head, vulnerable to loss through carelessness or theft) and it was a comfort to not feel all alone. But it also robbed me of the experience of knowing no one and thus being forced to get out and meet people. That is one of my biggest regrets.

I did eventually join an organization (ROTC) and let me tell you, they were about as different from me as you could get. Naturally athletic, where I had to work very hard at it to be at their level on one of their bad days. Very conservative, whereas I was a bleeding heart, tree hugging, communist liberal. And they had a confidence I was barely beginning to acquire, through a slow and painful process of making a lot of mistakes most kids go through in high school. The positive (that later became a negative) was that we were somehow able to be friends of a nature. My whole social life was hiking, movies, parties, dinners, workouts, trips with these people. When I was basically told I wasn't going to be given the opportunity to continue in ROTC because of an old headache issue, my social circle took it as a weakness on my behalf and effectively forgot I existed.

As far as getting to know classmates, I felt like a leper, much like I did in high school. I don't know if I naturally have a "f*** off!" face as my default, if it was my sitting in the front of the room for all my classes, or something else but it seemed to me that even in my major, everyone had formed their circle of friends and I wasn't making my way in. Part of me wondered if it was my lack of desire to drink. I got drunk once, with my ROTC buddies, but refused to do it again after that one time. I even tried joining a club but it turned into another situation where I showed up to get things done and no one wanted to get any closer, socially, than was required to get my help.

My dorm experience was god awful. Getting past the roommate situation, my floormates hated me. When I was in ROTC, I was getting up at 4, 5AM at the latest some days and even though I lived in the corner unit, at the end of the hallway, they often parked themselves close enough in the hallway that when they stayed up all hours making a lot of noise, I was losing sleep. I tried approaching as kindly as I could, asking them to move it to a common room or downstairs but they didn't give a s*** and continued. I took it to the RA, who did nothing but ask them to move. After that, I started receiving calls from a few, in which they would tell me, "You know you're a bitch, right?" There were also small confrontations in the bathroom, to the point where I had to threaten the RA, the HA, and the entire housing organization on campus with pressing charges for harassment if they didn't get these girls under control. That threat seemed to work but it made the girls who weren't involved equally likely to stay away.

I had one semester that I really f****** up, academically, due to depression but other than that, the classes were the only thing keeping me sane in college. I tried to keep the classes as early as I could -8, 9AM- because my attention seriously cut out after 4PM, as in, the latest class I could take with the hopes of paying attention had to start at 3PM if it was an hour long, 2PM if longer.

The work itself was tedious but not necessarily hard. Read, read, read, write lots of papers. Such is the life of a social science major/minor.

I also got a lot of flack from my dad about my major (Geography) and how I was planning to use it after graduation. I wasn't planning on it, actually. I just liked what I was learning. Politics, economics, history, sociology...it was all rolled into one. It went very well with my inability to find something I thought I could master. Various other people have also questioned my choice in majors but I can only tell them it was what made sense at the time.

Strangely enough, the thing I loved most about my college experience was learning how much I loved walking.

Otherwise, I didn't make any lifelong friends, I didn't have any standout moments or experiences I'll fondly look back on when I'm older.

Sorry this was so long.
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Postby steph » Sun Feb 07, 2010 10:30 pm

Alea, I sympathize with your college experience. Although mine was not the same as yours, what I felt while reading your experience felt like college did for me.

I'm the youngest of 6 kids, all of us born within 5 years. I didn't have any special skills or talents like my siblings did, besides being a good student. When it came time to decide on a college, my parents basically told me that I could apply to any school I wanted, but I was going to CSU. Ft. Collins was just 15 min north of us and I was going to live at home and go there. I picked psych as my major because I didn't excel at anything. I learned some stuff while there, but I just wasn't finding the joy in learning that I should have. I made one friend at the Institute (a church building right off campus where we went to church on sundays and had elective church classes during the week), but, for some reason still unknown to me, no one wanted to be friends with us. With freshman classes of over 100 people, making friends there was kind of out the question. I didn't really have any positive experiences at all. By my 4th semester, I was just going to class on test day (except my 8am lit class, that I actually did enjoy) and passing with a 75%, which is pathetic for a normally A/B student. At that point, I had to make the decision that college was not for me.

I spent a month of the following fall in Europe with my parents and then enrolled in massage school in Las Vegas. That was the best thing I could have ever done. I enjoyed each day of class. I found something I was talented at and enjoyed doing. I learned so much about ME. I never truly knew myself before. I graduated from massage school with a 4.0 gpa, perfect attendance, a whole bunch of life long friends and the confidence I needed to have when I met Brian just a few weeks later.

Sometimes I get caught up in the world's way of college being a necessity and I regret my decisions. Luckily, I end up smartening up and I realize my life went the way it needed to go. College is not for everyone and when my kids are nearing the end of high school, I'll encourage them to look at universities AND trade schools and pick what is best for them.
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Postby zeroguy » Sun Feb 07, 2010 11:44 pm

Make a really broad pool of friends outside your dorm and major
Meh, I pretty much only made friends with those in my dorm, freshman year. It's more convenient that way; they're always in the same building!
LOL is it bad that I haven't done any college interviews? :lol:
I went to a couple of these. They were worthless.
I mean, I need to learn to talk to strangers. And to people I have nothing in common with. That's my biggest flaw right now.
If you like trials-by-fire, go to a university where you know exactly 0 other people that are going to it. That has the potential to turn out very very badly.... but it's what I did, and it worked out well.

(Okay, technically I knew 2 people here, but I didn't know that at the time. And I never saw them.)
Other than going to an interview or the college rep meeting(if they came to your highschool), how exactly did any of you show your colleges that you were interested in them?
...applying to them?
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Postby Yebra » Mon Feb 08, 2010 3:41 am

The British system's a little different in that the application system's centralised so the experience isn't quite the same but I can't imagine it's any more fun so good luck!

I took a year out and reapplied some places with my final grades, got into some better unis as well as finding some work and travelling (Hi pweb peeps!) - I'd recommend it if it's anything anyone's considering, it was a good gap between the two, but then I was doing that in a slightly better economic climate so I don't know.

As far as uni itself, first year wasn't terrible, but this year I moved into a house with some strangers and it's been pretty awesome so far. I'm pretty sure I've got the best student room in town through pretty much blind luck. Working on some interesting research areas, making films, finding some great friends, yeah this is pretty good so far. Sorry to hear some people had a bad time of it.
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Postby Rei » Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:32 am

I also took a year off before I took up university. I'm very glad I did that because it gave me time to work and be sure that I actually want to go to university, as opposed to going because that's what successful people do.

(And yet, it's the people I know who DIDN'T go to university that are making good money and not in horrific debt right now, because they went into the trades after high school and began making money right away.)
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Postby Syphon the Sun » Mon Feb 08, 2010 3:19 pm

I got my B.Sc. from a small, private, liberal arts college in the Midwest (if you’re super-interested, PM me). While I was there, the enrollment numbers were somewhere between 600 and 700 students. I grew up in small towns, so I felt comfortable in a smaller, close-knit community. And I liked a lot of the aspects smaller schools have to offer.

We didn’t have lecture halls and classes weren’t taught that way. The focus was always on the students, not the professor; they wanted our reaction to the reading and wanted to make us actually think about the subject, not simply memorize things. I didn’t have a single class taught by a T.A. and, because of that, really got to know my professors. Instead of taking one or two classes from a professor, I had the majority of my professors half a dozen times or more. And I’m friends with a number of former professors, which means when I need a letter of recommendation, I don’t have to struggle to find someone I took maybe one class with who was somewhat impressed by me. I had more people offer to write letters of recommendation than I needed. And when I needed in a class I didn’t have a prerequisite for, they’d let me in without question because they knew me and knew I’d be fine. I didn’t have to spend three hours petitioning the administration, professor, or department heads to let me in. And the professors would think of me when they had a job opening. We had a new President of the college my senior year and she wanted to start a program to research the myths, legends, and traditions of the school. I’d only met her at the inauguration, but she hired me as the historian in charge of the project on the suggestion of some of my professors.

I really got to know my fellow classmates, too. Instead of a few classes here and there, we had a majority of classes together. So if I missed class, I’d know twelve other people who could tell me what material was covered or that the deadline for some paper was extended without having to ask. If I was inclined to study something, I’d have friends in class to study with. I made a lot of lasting friendships and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that the school was so tightly-knit.

I also got to play football, again, for which I’m very grateful. Sure, it was Division III, but for someone from a high school of 230 students and who sat out the latter half of his senior season with a broken leg, it was quite comforting to know that the memory of your last time on the field wasn’t going to be of limping off towards the trainers.

There are some downsides, of course. Our library was smaller (though we could still get anything we wanted through interlibrary loans), the technology was outdated (absolutely no wifi on campus, no smartboards, projectors, etc.), fewer majors were offered than at bigger schools (though it was much easier to help design your own specialized major), etc. But, all in all, I’m glad I went to my alma mater.

As for advice, I’ll echo the opinion that if you have the option, live in the dorms your first year. I say this despite the fact that the dorm I lived in was an absolutely terrible living space. You couldn’t control the heat in the winter, there was no A/C in any of the rooms, flushing a toilet would result in scalding hot water for anyone showering, most of the RAs and RDs were douche bags, and the rooms were tiny. Despite all that, I still think it’s worth it. A Halo 2 LAN party was always only a knock away, you could find a game of Texas Hold ’Em or pool in the lounge most nights, whathaveyou. In short, there was always something to do. Want to go sledding on the hill after a huge snowstorm, play Frisbee golf, a pickup game of basketball, or touch football, have a drink, or watch the big game on the lounge’s plasma screen? No problem. I wouldn’t recommend living there all four years, but your freshman year? Absolutely.

Other than that? Just put yourself out there. Meet new people; try new things. But be smart about it. The majority of my current job is representing college students. I’m not going to say don’t drink if you’re underage (because you’d just ignore it, anyway), but be safe about it and don’t put yourself in situations where there’s a reasonable chance you’ll run into law enforcement. Always have a designated driver (“first one to puke” is not a good method of picking someone to drive home).
I’ve got more to say, but I’m short on time, so maybe I’ll wrap up later.
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Postby CezeN » Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:47 pm

Make a really broad pool of friends outside your dorm and major
Meh, I pretty much only made friends with those in my dorm, freshman year. It's more convenient that way; they're always in the same building!
LOL is it bad that I haven't done any college interviews? :lol:
I went to a couple of these. They were worthless.
I mean, I need to learn to talk to strangers. And to people I have nothing in common with. That's my biggest flaw right now.
If you like trials-by-fire, go to a university where you know exactly 0 other people that are going to it. That has the potential to turn out very very badly.... but it's what I did, and it worked out well.

(Okay, technically I knew 2 people here, but I didn't know that at the time. And I never saw them.)
Other than going to an interview or the college rep meeting(if they came to your highschool), how exactly did any of you show your colleges that you were interested in them?
...applying to them?
Well, the main college I'm trying go to, WashU, came to my High School, and so any of us interested came to the meeting. There were about four others.
I knew all but one of them, at least slightly.

However, one of them is only applying only as a backup for like one of the top Liberal Arts Colleges. He's like smartest in our class (combined with most extracurrics), so he'll probably get in.
The other recently got in trouble and got sent to jail for trespassing on the school, so even though he's a National Merit Scholar or was, I don't know if he'd still get in.
And the other one is a girl in my AP Chem class I've talked to only once or twice. The last one I barley know at all.
So, it'll pretty much still be trial by fire.

Also, simplying applying to the college doesn't show enough interest to make you noticeable. Since some people aim higher and apply for colleges only as a backup, and they figure that...
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Postby CezeN » Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:56 pm

Okay, gotcha Syphon. Pretty much, you're saying I should try to develop relationships with my teachers and classmates, and to have fun outside of class as well. (But to be smart about it)

I'm hoping you'll still finish your post, incase there's anything important you might have left out.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, here's a legit question:
I took AP UShistory and AP English Composition last year, and managed to get a 3 on the U.S. History AP Test and a 4 on the English one.
Not sure about the 3, but the 4 (I'm pretty sure) is accepted at my main potential University.
And I can redeem it for college credit

however

at the meeting, the rep told me that they like for us and advice us to still take the basics class, in order to meet new people and develop relationship. So, she's advising us not to use our AP credits.

So, I can save thousands of dollars or follow her advice, what do you guys think? What would you guys do?
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Postby Syphon the Sun » Sat Feb 13, 2010 3:04 pm

Do you have enough AP credits to allow you to graduate a year earlier?

If not, you're not really spending more money, as WashU (like most private schools) charges a flat amount for tuition per semester. So you're just spending more time (taking those classes over instead of other classes you might want to take), rather than money. Now, if you go to a school that charges by the credit hour (like most public universities), it might make a difference.

Personally, I'd take the AP credits and spend my extra time taking a few more electives in something that interests me but isn't necessarily super-related to my degree.
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Postby human. » Sun Feb 14, 2010 4:11 am

at the meeting, the rep told me that they like for us and advice us to still take the basics class, in order to meet new people and develop relationship. So, she's advising us not to use our AP credits.

So, I can save thousands of dollars or follow her advice, what do you guys think? What would you guys do?
Are you not going to meet new people and develop relationships in other classes that you have the potential of taking if you use your AP credits? I've been told freshman required classes are generally larger in size, too. So, maybe you'd have a chance of meeting more people, but it seems to me that a smaller class would be more conducive of forming relationships with people. I vote take the AP credit and take a class that you want to take or that will help you. Then you can even meet people with possibly the same interests as you (not that you couldn't before nor that it's bad to meet people with different interests).

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Postby CezeN » Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:20 pm

I think she kinda meant that most of the people I'm going to see or dorm with are going to take the basics.

IDK

However, I like you guy's idea a lot. =D
I'll cash in my credits, and take other classes and meet different people.
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Postby zeroguy » Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:40 pm

Other than going to an interview or the college rep meeting(if they came to your highschool), how exactly did any of you show your colleges that you were interested in them?
...applying to them?
[...]

Also, simplying applying to the college doesn't show enough interest to make you noticeable. Since some people aim higher and apply for colleges only as a backup, and they figure that...
Okay, well, in that case, I didn't do anything else. I didn't really have the impression that making recruiters like/notice you really had any significant effect; unless you get someone really influential... and then that just seems really sketchy.

But not that I would know; maybe it does help.
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Postby Syphon the Sun » Mon Feb 15, 2010 8:41 am

It never hurts to visit the school and meet with the admissions counselor and financial aid people.

I ended up with a few extra thousand dollars because my admissions counselor went to bat for me in front of the Board to get me a scholarship that I didn't exactly qualify for (I exceeded all of the requirements except my high school GPA, which was pretty pathetic to be honest).
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Postby CezeN » Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:30 pm

Other than going to an interview or the college rep meeting(if they came to your highschool), how exactly did any of you show your colleges that you were interested in them?
...applying to them?
[...]

Also, simplying applying to the college doesn't show enough interest to make you noticeable. Since some people aim higher and apply for colleges only as a backup, and they figure that...
Okay, well, in that case, I didn't do anything else. I didn't really have the impression that making recruiters like/notice you really had any significant effect; unless you get someone really influential... and then that just seems really sketchy.

But not that I would know; maybe it does help.
I think it mostly depends on the university.

For example,
https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/col ... oolId=1720
Near the bottom, where it says selection of students, it says that the Level of Applicant's interest is considered.

However, I know some schools (I think mostly state unis) don't really care at all if you're interested or not. Some colleges showered me with "no essay, no fee, personalized applications" and scholarship offers despite the fact I showed no interest at all to them - just because I'm a National Achievement Semifinalist. Meaning, all they looked at was my academic achievement.

But, I think like if it came down to two kids with similar or identical stats, and they were trying to choose between the two, they'd likely pick the one who showed the most interest. In fact, at my college meeting, the rep made a point of taking down the names of the six of us who came - I'm assuming to note that we're showing actual interest in coming.
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Postby CezeN » Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:32 pm

It never hurts to visit the school and meet with the admissions counselor and financial aid people.

I ended up with a few extra thousand dollars because my admissions counselor went to bat for me in front of the Board to get me a scholarship that I didn't exactly qualify for (I exceeded all of the requirements except my high school GPA, which was pretty pathetic to be honest).
Are you just that awesome in real life then? :wink:
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Postby CezeN » Sun Feb 21, 2010 1:25 pm

Update: I still haven't taken my SAT II's, so I don't think there's anychance of me going to Duke.

Though I actually didn't want to.
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