Let's Talk About College
 

So in this thread, lets talk about colleges and stuff. Today, since I didn;t have a whole lot to do, I pulled out all of the things I have gotten from colleges in the mail and sat down and thought about some things.

I think right now, my top 2 choices would be (my interested are pre medicine and music composition) the University of Miami (the one in Florida) and Florida State University. I want to live in Florida and going to school there would be a great way to get that started. The only downside is that they are far from home, and I am a homebody........

What do you all think about these colleges? Where did you all go to college and what did you major in?????

Much Love,
Ethan

From a football point of view.... NEITHER!! GO S.E.C.!! :wavey:

Seriously.... don't know much about either but good for you for going!
I just graduated with my masters this past spring and it was SO worth it!

All the best.... and avoid credit cards like the plague. :eek:

Ah colleges. Well good luck...! The best advice I can give is as tempting as it is - don't blow your first year completely by doing nothing buy drinking and partying.

I went to New Mexico State University because my mom worked there and as a result I got 50% off my tuition :o And they did have a great journalism program. I graduated just in time, their best prof died the summer I graduated and then their photog prof god sacked for sexual harassment...the department is horrid now...

I had a great time in college and in many ways I miss the freedom of those days - but I would probably have done things different if I could...

I didn't start really caring until my last year - and for that one year I had a 3.75 GPA...

For websites on these schools:

Miami
www.miami.edu

Florida State

www.fsu.edu

Much Love,
Ethan

I go to University of Miami :nod:

What kind of information do you want?

We just fired our head coach, Larry Cocker today. :thumbsup: What a horrible year we had....One of our football players was murdered (He was in one of my classes) and we've lost more games than we have in a long time. Change was long overdue!

You go to Miami? OMG THAT IS AMAZING....... What were your high school grades/activities? I have gotten info saying that they are interested in me but I wonder if i am qualified, and would be accepted.... What is your major???

Much Love,
Ethan

Well, I was always a smart student just very very very very lazy. I had only a 3.2 GPA but I had a 1250 on my SATs. I figured with my sucky GPA I would only have a chance if I applied Early Decision (which means if you are accepted you HAVE to go there).

As far as UM goes...I love it. I'm a senior and hope to graduate May/June. The campus is breathtaking. I absolutely love Miami (though it is not for everyone). Basically Miami is a metropolis compared to Tallahassee and Gainesville (They are basically college towns). UM tuition (I'm warning you now) is VERY expensive. Without any sort of financial aid/scholarships, you are talking about $15,000 a semester, which does not include books and housing.

If you are looking at other Florida schools, UF is FAR btter than FSU (If you have the grades to get into UF).

Any other info? I have to log off at 8:15 to go drinking with my UM buddies :laugh:

Well, we'll definately have to keep in touch about things. My GPA is around yours, maybe a little better. Yeah, I heard about the early decision thing, and then there is another early thing and then just regular application. Didn't know that if you got accepted with the one you HAD to go, but at the moment I think it might be my number one choice. I am wanting to go into Medicine (at the moment anyway) but If I were given the opportunity to turn to collegiate basketball coaching, that would be awesome as well. :nod: What are the girls like at the school??? ha ha, I gotta ask. What are the people like at the school? I am sure I will think of other questions as time goes on, but these are the only ones I can think about at the moment.

Oh yeah, I have gotten some stuff in the mail from Miami. Since I have gotten stuff in the mail from them, would that mean that I have a good shot at getting in????

Much Love,
Ethan

Early Decision and Early Action deadlines were due back in Oct. I'm pretty sure you can only apply for regular decision at this point. My advice is to do really good on the SATs. The girls are fun at Miami, hahaha, especially after they have been drinking at the bars in Coconut Grove. :angel: In general however, since the school is so expensive people tend to be a little snobby. The student parking lot is full of top of the line Mercedes, BMWs, and even more high-end cars.

They always send out mail....targeting people in their "grade range"...It is good that you are getting mail from them though. Keep the grades up and score good on the SAT.

Ooh Snobby people? That is a minus, but I plan on being a doctor, so maybe that comes with the territory, although I definately am not snobby. I won't be applying until next school year, as I am only a junioe right now, but i have taken my PSAT and all of that good stuff. So, are there more blondes or brunettes at Miami. ha ha I gotta know all about the ladies because chances are I will be dating one eventually....... Glad you like it there, and thanks for all the info.:nod:

Much Love,
Ethan

Bwahahahahaha!:sorry: :D :lol: :wavey: :sorry:

+10 ;)

Wait, did I just come out of lurking to be an ass? Eh...

Disregard,

Brad

Great Dark Wing, would you say, all in all, that Miami is worth the money? Is it an exceptional school in your opinion. From what I have seen, it looks great.

Much Love,
Ethan

to get into med, or pre-med no less, don't you have to plan to apply to at least 10 schools? based on your chances of getting in, isn't that the recommendation? maybe it's different in the US. here in canada, you have to have basically been working towards med school for your entire high school career - your activities, sports, community and academic achievements all play a role. you need a GPA of 4.0 pretty much, maybe 3.9. i hate to sound discouraging, but i'm just relaying what i know about it from my friends who have been through it. actually, now that i think about it - my cousin just went through all this in the states. same deal. she applied to at least five schools - but she was ivy league material. she's in yale med now.

oh, and i would bet that choosing a med school based on the ratio of blondes to brunettes may not be the best plan. might not want to mention it at your interviews.

I went to San Francisco State, alma mater of Annette Bening. Majored in Liberal Arts. I did the commuter school thing.

Well right now I'm a freshman at ECSU (Eastern CT State), so I was just in your position not long ago. However, I'm willing to bet you get better grades than I did. :laugh:

In order to really decide where to go, you have to visit the schools yourself. There's no better way to make a decision. Of course, then take into account who will give you the most money. :p :nod:

3.2 is a crappy GPA? :shrug:

for someone looking to get into super competitive schools, yes. unless you're a minority, you shouldn't even bother applying to a brand-name school with a GPA lower than 4.0.

I have gotten stuff in the mail from Miami telling me that I should do myslef a service and look at the school . I am definately doing that. I am NOT choosing the school off of the blond to brunette ration, that was a joke. Miami is a really solid school, and we'll see what happens in the months to come.

Much Love,
Ethan

Ouch. I graduated high school with a 2.0, and I thought that was okay. Course, all the colleges I applied to had open admission policies. But I've always been a total Type B personality. There's not an overachieving bone in my body. :laugh:

My bad. I thought the joke was about GENDER, not hair color.:shrug: :p ;) :D :lol:

haha, i am definitely a type b also. when did you graduate? i graduated in 2002 with a 3.4 and i convinced myself i'd never get into any colleges, so i just applied to one, and now i'm a dropout. :laugh: of course, there are lots of factors at hand in anyone's life. i wonder if the difference in our attitudes can be partially attributed to when we graduated. i think in recent years, people have been reeeally focusing on gpa as opposed to other factors.

I graduated from high school in 1997, so you might be onto something. I didn't graduate from college. :o

me neither. when i go back, i'll still have about 2 years until i finish. my parents are so proud. :laugh:

Well, I was/am a geek. I graduated with honors from high school with a 4.0 GPA. I went to a private college in the hills of West Virginia and graduated there with honors, as well, from the Nursing Program with a Bachelors Degree. Now, I am thinking about going back for my Masters in 2008. To tell the truth, though, I hardly ever studied or did my homework. I got by with my good looks and charm.

i'm a geek with a bad attitude. i love reading & learning, unless you tell me to do it. then i'm all, f*ck you! i'll fail this class if i want to! well, unless it's language-related, then i tend to do well no matter what.

I consider this breed, "dork".

You're a dork. love you.

geek + dork = <3 4eva!

that's my dorky equation. :D

I think at the moment, I might be leaning to FSU..... But my mind could definately change.:nod:

Much Love,
Ethan

hmm, i don't know if this is necessarily true. GPA is important, but it's definitely not the only factor, especially since these days so many kids have private tutours, not just for school but for SATs and ACTs and whatnot. more colleges and universities are realising that applicants have various methods to pump up their grades and test scores. what they're ultimately looking for is someone who can prove their uniqueness in a field where the majority of applicants all look the same.

i can't remember what my GPA was when i was applying, but due to the fact that i was a complete delinquent, i know it wasn't 4.0! :D yet i managed to get into an extremely competitive school and i have to believe that's because i had done so many other things outside of just core academics. this process may have changed a bit since i was an applicant, but i think the basic tenants remain the same.

you should always have your reach schools, your sure bets, and the ones in between. but you sell yourself short if you think you can't achieve something. if you want it bad enough, you can work towards it!

so many of my cousins are going through this now and i tell them all the same thing: work as hard as you can at being the best individual you can be. when it comes time to apply, admissions are looking at the total package, not just part of it.

Well, half the people in my family never even graduated from high school, so basically the first day I set foot on a college campus, I already had them beat in terms of educational pursuits. :laugh:

Me either...and I got by with a's b's and a few c's ...until my senior year of college when I started simply going to class every day - and I still didn't put in massive effort - but I ended up getting all a's and a couple of bs....but too little too late - my cumulative gpa wasn't all high...

BUT not ONE person has ever asked about my gpa post college...:shrug:

High School gpa? I didn't really care - I knew where I'd be going to school and I knew my gpa would be enough to get me in there...my mom was never a grade pusher - as long as I didn't fail she was fine...

^^^Me too. I discovered in 9th grade(I had been probably in the top ten in my class, until then) that I could do NOTHING except party, and run around with my friends, and still get B's. A practice which served me well throughout college.:laugh:

I'd study maybe an hour, the night before the test. B's are fine, as far as I'm concerned!:o

:nod: I wasn't beyond c's either...I just didn't care all that much about grades..:shrug:

Of course sometimes I DO wonder what I could have done had I actually tried, had I applied myself etc...but meh..I've got a great job now and I love what I'm doing...:D

I HAD to apply myself, a couple of times.

Stats, whew, barely made it through. The ONLY class I never skipped.

A Physics class, too. The only D (D+ actually) I ever got.:distress: :distress: :distress:

Oh...see I was laaazy. When I had to apply myself I'd just drop the class or stop going...unless I really liked the class..then it didn't feel like I was having to apply myself...

This was apparent in my Algebra 115 fiasco. I took that damn class three times and stopped going each time...then I switched to a major that didn't require it :lol: Sad...but I'm so damn math stupid...actually maybe not..had I just TRIED and I dunoo...GONE TO CLASS lol...

This was not without consequence...having that on my transcript dragged down my gpa (though after college no one seems to care about that) and to this day I have a recurring dream theme in which I know I"m missing math class and am panicked when I realize I can't graduated without the class - but that I never went to the class...grrr....

The reason I got a BA instead of a BS is that BS required two more math classes. F*ck that!!!!

The recurring nightmare....I have that. I once took a Criminal Justice class, that was SOOOOOO easy(filled with football players......I sat behind one who could barely even print any letters[I kid you not]). Anyway, I'd only show up for the tests, so I only went, like 5 days to it. I still have a dream that I didn't finish it, just because I was never there.:rolleyes: ;)

I hear that!!! :lol: So sad the lengths I went to to avoid Algebra 115...oh and the only class I ever got a "D" in in high school was geometry. I pretty much just freeze when presented with math :distress:

I haven't actually had the theme in my dream in a while..now that I've brought it up it'll probably figure prominently in my dreams tonight. Hope not...but glad to know I'm not the only one with school related dreams....and this is more than two years after finishing school...

I'm great at math, UP TO A POINT!
In high school, I dropped Trig, in my senior year. I took it about 3 days, and was getting lost quickly....my best friend's Dad was the teacher, and HE dropped it! If HE could, then I reasoned that I could, too(I'd already been accepted to IU, so f*ck it).