Applying To Colleges

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The UC's are cheap. That's a reason to consider them. A place like UCB or UCLA gives you a pretty damn good deal (though technically, you could say that you've already paid for your tuition at the UCs through tax dollars, whether or not you go).

That being said, college visits are a pretty useless usage of money. Every college presents an inaccurate, sanitized, saccharine-land of wonder tour for you when you visit. Even students. I've never been actually been a college tour myself (too expensive), but having seen people give out college tours, they generally seem pretty unhelpful.

You could always be like me - be a lazy-ass and having visited no colleges ever, only apply to colleges without Common App supplements.

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Well if the people become smarter in the fall...I'll take your word for it! I'm probably going to put off Michigan and UVa until the end and most likely do both...but if I really only have time for one I'll choose then...waaaaay in November/December.

Trying to find knowledge among students at ANY college is a waste of effort. Trust me - there is no college in America where the students have any god damn clue what they're talking about. They're woefully uniformed everywhere. So better to focus on finding places with good departments and professors. Being surrounded with ignorant students is tolerable. But having to deal with a professor like that? That's like snuffing out your last candle of hope.

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Why don't any of you guys have LACs on your lists? Just curious, because to me, they seem really appealing, especially ones like Occidental, Swarthmore, and the Claremonts, because they are within reach of the major cities.

Seconded. And Claremont McKenna is fantastic.

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Apply to all the colleges isn't a bad idea. Think of it like a shotgun - at least one pellet should hit. And I personally don't think colleges are that different from one another.

Of course, in the ye olde days, I prepared to apply to 20+ colleges, but then I got into my early decision school before sending any of them out (excluding one). Oh well.

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The problem is all these schools have supplement essays and questions for just their university.

So be a boss and apply to all the colleges that don't require a supplement.

What was your early decision school?

Um...a place.

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One thing about a larger school that I don't like as much as when I was at a smaller school is that at a smaller school you will know a decent fraction of the people you walk by going to and from places whereas at a huge school, you probably won't know nearly as high a fraction.

What happens at small schools is that you know a good chunk of the people you walk by going to places, but the majority will pretend to not notice you because people from the upper-middle class white suburbs that feed into these schools are often so socially coddled these days, that greeting acquaintances is somehow too daunting.

Yeah, UGA is definitely a party school.  Deal et al have trimmed HOPE down considerably.  90% of my tuition is still covered, but the killer is room and board.  That along with books and "living expenses" comes out to about $11,000/year, which is a lot of money for me.

Ok, maybe that was overly dramatic.  Still, this is where the doors start closing and opportunities start narrowing down.

Pssh. Buying books? Who still does that?

Also, to some extent. As long as you don't get a degree in something totally useless, you'll be fine. My Dad has three degrees and his job literally involves using none of them.

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Have they branded you yet? Or do they only do that in black fraternities?

One time over the summer while I was working for school, they gave people working over the summer free on campus housing, so I lived in an apartment with three other guys I had never met. One of them was an African-American. One night, like a Wednesday or something, I was in my room watching TV on my laptop in bed. When I had come home I saw that my black roommate and his friends were hanging out in the living room, as they were wont to do, so I just went to my room. While watching TV I heard some loud noises in the kitchen and it smelled like they were cooking something, but didn't care to investigate. The next morning I wake up to go to work and walk into the kitchen, and it's a mess, with flour everywhere, metal wires bent into shapes, and the stove elements (I think that's what they're called?) were all taken off. Turned out he and his fraternity buddies had branded themselves that night while I was watching TV in my room.

Good lord, how peverse.

From my experience, the ethnic Greek organizations tend to be the craziest. Especially the Asian ones. Dear God, the Asians ones.

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Hmm, how do I encourage A-Bob to apply to my college without actually revealing where I go...? What a dilemma...

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I actually enjoyed the college admissions process. Mostly because I treated it as a game. Ooh let's fill in the blanks for fun. Ooh, let's see how I can dodge this question. etc. etc.

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The law school application process, on the other hand, is fantastic. Basically all the schools care about is your GPA and your LSAT, the applications are basically all identical, and it's very easy to confidently predict which schools will accept you and which will reject you. Plus studying for the LSAT is fun.

This is true. And yes, the LSAT actually is kind of more interesting than most standardized tests. Logic games can actually be fun. And now that you can take the LSATs multiple times (essentially), it's not as stressful anymore.