Summer college trip
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Kaine for Senate '18
benconstine
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« Reply #25 on: May 31, 2012, 08:53:45 PM »

Columbia and all the Ivies can suck it Tongue

But yeah, don't forget about the state school.  I can't wait to go to UVA Cheesy
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Psychic Octopus
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« Reply #26 on: June 01, 2012, 12:00:41 AM »

Columbia and all the Ivies can suck it Tongue

But yeah, don't forget about the state school.  I can't wait to go to UVA Cheesy

Oh, I'm applying to UC Berkeley and UC Davis. I think I'd be very happy with the former, and reasonably happy with the latter.

To put things into perspective, my school's valedictorian is going to UC Santa Cruz. Now, while there is one girl going to Cornell, another girl to USC, and a few guys to UCLA and Berkeley, but that's about it. It's not like I have to "prove" anything. I'd say there were a dozen or so Berkeley acceptances this year.
UVA's a great school.
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California8429
A-Bob
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« Reply #27 on: June 10, 2012, 04:09:21 PM »

Updated list

Late June
Princeton
Yale
Brown
Harvard
Tufts + MIT

Early/Mid July
Columbia
Georgetown
George Washington + American
UVA
Richmond
William & Mary
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Kaine for Senate '18
benconstine
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« Reply #28 on: June 10, 2012, 04:09:59 PM »

Feel free to swing by GMU, as well.
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ilikeverin
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« Reply #29 on: June 10, 2012, 04:43:09 PM »

Ahem, why is Maryland not on that list.
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California8429
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« Reply #30 on: June 10, 2012, 06:48:07 PM »

My parents are making me cut my list in half of schools I'm even looking at, let alone visiting, so sorry, Maryland can't make it. My family is literally in an uproar for me considering Richmond and even sending a free SAT report to Michigan State.
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ilikeverin
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« Reply #31 on: June 10, 2012, 08:13:28 PM »
« Edited: June 10, 2012, 08:15:36 PM by ilikeverin »

My parents are making me cut my list in half of schools I'm even looking at, let alone visiting, so sorry, Maryland can't make it. My family is literally in an uproar for me considering Richmond and even sending a free SAT report to Michigan State.

It's certainly sensible for them to want you to cut down on the number of schools you visit, but it's idiotic for them to not want you to consider a lot of schools.  You can reject Maryland and Michigan State, I promise I won't harm you!  But, if they think you're "too good" for either of them... they and I need have a little chat.  Evil

EDIT: Seriously though.  If you need me to pitch the fact that state schools that aren't on the "approved list" (i.e., Michigan, Virginia...) aren't fail to your various relatives, just let me know.  I'm happy to throw around various impressive-sounding test numbers if they need credentials Tongue
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Хahar 🤔
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« Reply #32 on: June 10, 2012, 11:07:41 PM »

What's your GPA? Test scores? It's important not to waste your time looking at a lot of schools you won't get into.
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California8429
A-Bob
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« Reply #33 on: June 10, 2012, 11:17:00 PM »

What's your GPA? Test scores? It's important not to waste your time looking at a lot of schools you won't get into.

4.0 UW, 1/412. I have no idea what it is weighted, somewhere between 4.5 and 4.7, though I am taking the most rigorous courses for my school and am doing online and independent studies to take AP classes that were stacked on top of each other for the same block.

I only have my ACT scores so far
Composite 34
Math 35
English 33
Reading 36
Science 31

Composite 31
Math 34
English 29
Reading 34
Science 28
Essay 10

The 31 was the first ACT I took. I need to still take it one more time due to certain school's admissions policies of refusing to look at scores that do not include the essay. I took the SAT last Saturday, but won't know my scores for 1 or 2 weeks.
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California8429
A-Bob
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« Reply #34 on: June 10, 2012, 11:19:23 PM »

My parents are making me cut my list in half of schools I'm even looking at, let alone visiting, so sorry, Maryland can't make it. My family is literally in an uproar for me considering Richmond and even sending a free SAT report to Michigan State.

It's certainly sensible for them to want you to cut down on the number of schools you visit, but it's idiotic for them to not want you to consider a lot of schools.  You can reject Maryland and Michigan State, I promise I won't harm you!  But, if they think you're "too good" for either of them... they and I need have a little chat.  Evil

EDIT: Seriously though.  If you need me to pitch the fact that state schools that aren't on the "approved list" (i.e., Michigan, Virginia...) aren't fail to your various relatives, just let me know.  I'm happy to throw around various impressive-sounding test numbers if they need credentials Tongue

I without a doubt am going to apply to Michigan Ann Arbor and UVA no matter what they say because they both have great programs. My dad views every single public university as offering the exact same education and is an elitist, yet couldn't actually get into a college his Senior year...
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Psychic Octopus
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« Reply #35 on: June 10, 2012, 11:27:40 PM »
« Edited: June 10, 2012, 11:30:08 PM by NiK »

I'd say that with those numbers, you are in at GWU (probably with scholarship money), American, UVA, W&M, Richmond, and Tufts, as well as competitive for Brown, Columbia, and Georgetown (as in, you'll most likely get into at least one or two, but no guarantees), and have a chance at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, as long as you can stand out from the crowd. I am unsure about MIT, mainly because I know for a fact that's it's very hard to get in without clear dedication to math and science.

That's just my honest appraisal, though.
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ilikeverin
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« Reply #36 on: June 10, 2012, 11:35:43 PM »

What's your GPA? Test scores? It's important not to waste your time looking at a lot of schools you won't get into.

Conversely, it's also important to realize there's no maximum for either that means you oughn't apply to a school.  You're a dime a dozen for the Princetons and Georgetowns of the world, and, yes, even the Virginias and Michigans—both great schools, to be sure, but I'm imploring you to consider the places that elitists don't grudgingly think are acceptable.  That said, fwiw, I think Maryland is actively seeking and pushing to move into that category, so if prestige is a consideration now might be a good time to board the Terrapin Train. 

But schools along the lines of Maryland and Michigan State are actively seeking out students like you, and they're really going to want to make sure you both (1) want to come here (so they provide scholarships and actually talk to you and stuff) and (2) are happy here when you come.  You would certainly get into MSU's Honors College with those stats, for example; and you'd also certainly be invited to the February Alumni Distinguished Scholarship competition that is held every year; and I wouldn't be surprised if you were actually seriously considered for an ADS, depending on extracurriculars, essays, and the like (and of course your score on the test that's administered at the scholarship competition).  I speak in depth about MSU because I know it best (and because they've utterly converted me Wink and because I know our Honors program is a national model), but I'd imagine there are going to be similar programs at schools like us.  Like, oh look, the Honors College and Banneker/Key Scholars at a certain Maryland institution!
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Psychic Octopus
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« Reply #37 on: June 10, 2012, 11:51:52 PM »

Verin, out of curiosity, do you know of any other good honors colleges (besides MSU and Maryland)? I'd be interested to hear if there were any solid programs that were closer to the West Coast/Southwest. I know UT has a nationally-renowned program, but I don't think they accept out-of-staters into it.

And by the way, is it true that it doesn't matter where you go for your undergraduate degree when it comes to law school? I'm just curious, because I've heard conflicting reports. I know that this isn't necessarily your area of expertise, but you seem to know a lot more about the graduate/professional school process than I do.
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Kaine for Senate '18
benconstine
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« Reply #38 on: June 11, 2012, 09:11:16 AM »

UT-Austin accepts out of staters; my friend just got in.
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ilikeverin
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« Reply #39 on: June 11, 2012, 10:13:26 AM »
« Edited: June 11, 2012, 10:35:54 AM by ilikeverin »

Verin, out of curiosity, do you know of any other good honors colleges (besides MSU and Maryland)? I'd be interested to hear if there were any solid programs that were closer to the West Coast/Southwest. I know UT has a nationally-renowned program, but I don't think they accept out-of-staters into it.

Let me check around - offhand, I don't know much about West Coast colleges at all, in large part because I saw almost no differences between the UC schools and was just so confused about how identical they were that I decided not to apply to any of them.  (Looking back, I should've probably given serious consideration to quite a few of them, as there are a lot of good cog sci programs out west.)

Googling random western colleges, it looks like Arizona and Arizona State both have pretty good programs.  It looks like UCLA's main college has a good one too, but their website is confusingly laid out.  I'm not seeing anyone else who lets Honors students waive all course requirements, though... in fact, quite a few seem to randomly attach even more requirements onto the rest of your majors without any compensatory decreasing of other requirements, which seems like the opposite of what is good Tongue

Actually, I shouldn't say I know nothing about Honors programs in the Southwest.  Fresno State sent three of its Honors students to the conference I helped run last year, because their Honors program is this small group of students that they give full rides to and give random money to travel to conferences and to do research and stuff (hence Fresnans randomly flying to Lansing in the middle of April).

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So there might be some differences between law school and grad school on this, but I can tell you for sure for graduate schools (and I have no expectation that law school would be difference) that that's absolutely true.  And that's not just me trying to indoctrinate you; it's really the case.  For grad school, they're much more interested in seeing evidence that you can be an independent researcher and having good letters of recommendation than they are in your school's perceived prestige.  That's particularly true because the notions of perceived prestige often don't match well at all with how good a certain school's programs are in a specific field; the only Ivy League schools with good linguistics programs, for example, are Brown and UPenn, while Harvard and Yale are known for having antiquated, rather poor programs.  Even then, though, Michigan State doesn't have a stellar reputation in linguistics (though the fact that it has a program at all is noteworthy), but my application was still highly competitive because I had been able to make use of our fantastic undergraduate research resources, which, in turn, also gave me good letters of recommendation from profs who actually knew who I was.

I'd imagine it might be a little bit of a different story for law schools, especially because law school prestige tracks perceived prestige fairly well from what I understand, but even then they're going to be more interested in other parts of your application.  Again, unless things are radically different between the processes, reference letters are probably the most important part of your application.  I'm not sure what the law school equivalent of "research experience" is (though as an MSU Undergraduate Research Ambassador I'm required to note that everyone can find research that's relevant to them on campus Wink), but I'm sure there is one.

EDIT: Hey, look, here's a list of lots of places with honors programs.
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California8429
A-Bob
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« Reply #40 on: June 15, 2012, 04:02:45 PM »
« Edited: June 18, 2012, 03:40:57 PM by A-Bob »

Update of what I'm doing so far

Last week of June
Princeton- Meeting with music administrator, tour, info session, possibly one professor if he's in that day
Yale- tour, info session, sitting in on International Ethics class, meeting with at least two professors
Brown- Tour, Info session (apparently every professor is "not able to meet" that day, literally so far 3/3 have said those words, not even I'm gone or teaching a class or doing something)
Harvard- Info session, Tour, sitting in on War Crimes, Genocide, and Justice class, Meeting with at least one professor
Tufts- Tour, info session, 2 professors and administrative person for IR

Early-Mid July
Columbia
Georgetown
George Washington
UVA
Richmond
William & Mary
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