I went to a school called Roxbury Latin in Boston. Admittedly there were only 39 in my graduating class, so it doesn't take that many copies to satisfy the student body!
Also, a good internship will look much better on a college app than a few extra points.
Sadly, nope, unless you're applying to a high-end private school. I know the UC system doesn't care at all about your work experience, and even if you founded a company when you were in HS, that would at best be worth 150-300 SAT points.
Now that I think about it, it's scary that I still remember this.
Completely disagree. I too went through the college admissions process.
Yes, public schools care more about standardized numbers (SAT/GPA), but you don't need a very high SAT score (in strictly relative terms to private schools) to get into a top public school, even the top UCs.
Put it this way: An elite public school might weight SATs 40%, but the median SAT will only be 2000 anyway.
Whereas an elite private might have a median of 2150 with a weighting of 20%.
The fact is that public schools will give more weight to SATs, but the threshold for what above average for admission is already lower.
As someone who's had a reasonable amount of success with the SAT (a 2360 in the October 2009 SAT) and now spends a bit of time tutoring students for the SAT, I'd argue that for you a whole summer is overkill for the SAT.
If you're a fast learner with a knack for pattern recognition, which your internship experience suggests to me that you are, mastering the SAT for you should be as simple as taking the 10 tests in the Official SAT book and going over answers and explanations with someone. That's easily achieved over a few weeks of focused work.
It seems crazy when you consider how much people freak out over it, but I'm confident this works and I encourage you to try it out.
If you have any specific questions about the SAT or the college applications process in general (something I also had a reasonable amount of success with in that I got into all 4 of the Ivies I applied to) feel free to email me.
I'm looking to go to Stanford upon graduating high school (like you also expressed an interest to do), and from what I have heard, they definitely value SAT scores very high, but if there isn't anything besides that (like your development/internship experience), they honestly don't care much about your scores. And also, I'm pretty sure the SAT takes place senior year, unless of course you are going to be using your genius capacities to do it earlier :)
Most people will take their SAT at the beginning of their Junior year. This way they have ample time to retake if they're not happy with their scores.
Stanford, MIT, and the Ivies see the SAT as more of a threshold score. I.E. there's not much difference between a 2300 and a 2400. As long as you have above a certain range, you should be fine. The SAT doesn't make or break people.
Doesn't matter. Having a good to decent SAT score enables one to get into a better college/university. As long as you don't spend more than 1 summer prepping for it, it's worth the time investment.
Run With the Hunted and Love is a Dog from Hell spring to mind, but for me half the fun of reading him is just jumping in randomly. His life was chaos so it's fitting. If you read enough about "Hank" a picture of who he was will start to materialize.
Since he's dead and not able to spend your book sales money on booze and horses, he'd probably be ok with you just reading his stuff online for free[0]. He is also great to listen to, there are a lot of recordings of his readings that you can find in the usual places. The poems are filled with a kind of beautiful carnage which contrasts the even tone of his delivery. Like, "Yeah, that crazy shit happened but so what?"
One of my favorites as a teaser to start with:
Rain
a symphony orchestra.
there is a thunderstorm,
they are playing a Wagner overture
and the people leave their seats under the trees
and run inside to the pavilion
the women giggling, the men pretending calm,
wet cigarettes being thrown away,
Wagner plays on, and then they are all under the
pavilion. the birds even come in from the trees
and enter the pavilion and then it is the Hungarian
Rhapsody #2 by Lizst, and it still rains, but look,
one man sits alone in the rain
listening. the audience notices him. they turn
and look. the orchestra goes about its
business. the man sits in the night in the rain,
listening. there is something wrong with him,
isn't there?
he came to hear the
music.
p.s. I can't speak for the quality of that site, you may have better luck elsewhere. When I looked up Rain all I got was the first line, so it's possible that other poems have errors.
Women was an excellent book. A complicated book that works on many subtle levels. On one level, it is in essence, the T.V. series Californication. On another level, it is the story of a man finding himself through his partners. Ham on Rye was also another excellent story of Bukowski's origins. All of his books were part memoirs, now. Post Office, tracks his early years working in the Post Office. Day in, day out. Checking in, his life being eaten away. The prose isn't great. However, it is rather amusing to read it today. Especially in a city where you hear people working 90 hour weeks; 90 hour weeks in tiny red-bull fueled offices. For what, for someone's glory.
For a hard STEM degree, a 2.1 is considered about what you should get at minimum if you have done enough work, and a first is good. A third most likely not worth having and you will have to explain in interviews why you didn't do any better, most likely. A 2.2 is "okay" but won't help you much in finding work in general. That's how I have come to understand it anyway.
If you went to an 'elite' university a 2:1 would be generally taken to indicate that you worked hard, but you also had a social life as well. A 1st from an elite would not uncommonly come with the assumption that all you did is sit in your room and study for three years and that you might lack some of the softer skills.
All the above is, however, a massive generalisation.
Not really, since it's the most-commonly awarded grade and awarded to a clear majority of students at many schools in many subjects. Usually it means that the student was in at least the top 60% of students (but probably not the top 10%) on their course.
Since our quirky grading system leaves most students' accomplishments indistinguishable, it's the reputation of the university you studied in that matters.
Please do note that I said 'similar term', I didn't say it was a direct equivalent. I was just providing an example that someone from the US might immediately understand.
It's a phrase that someone from the associated region of the world can generally go "Oh, you attended a <terminology> school?" and immediately have certain stereotypes and assumptions (accurate or not) come to mind.
What makes Edinburgh special in that regard? As far as I can gather the admissions standards and support levels aren't in the same league as Oxbridge. League table results are fairly high for most subjects, but not any more so than some other russell group members.
According to various world rankings, it's top 20-40 and 5th or 6th in Britain and Europe.
But it's quite strong for CS/AI, as they have the largest CS department in Europe, producing the largest amount of world-leading research (according to the latest government-organised Research Assessment Exercise).
For undergrads that means there is an unparalleled variety of courses you can take, both in depth and breadth. I remember I had a choice of about 25 courses in my 3rd year and over 50 in my final year. For most British universities, your choice is rather limited - usually between 8-12 courses each year. Another bonus is that you get to work with leading researchers on your final year project. E.g. some of my friends were supervised by Phil Wadler - the guy was one of the principal inventors of Haskell and, with Gilad Bracha and Martin Odersky, designed Java generics and the extensions of the Collections framework.
So, Edinburgh is quite special and CS/AI is a particular focus at the University, so it's a shame not enough people know it.
Edinburgh is definitely not quite Oxbridge level on those factors. But it certainly is higher than the 'Red brick universities'. There are 24 universities in the Russell Group, and none of the red brick universities fall in the top 5 as it is an outdated term. It could be argued that Edinburgh falls in the top 5, which are comparable to the Ivy League.
Erm, no. Red Bricks are ex-polytechnics or newbuild universities, generally specialising in quality degrees like urban forestry and golf course management. Oxford BROOKES is an example of a red brick. But not Oxford.
No. Just no. You are wrong. Red brick universities are not ex-polys. Just read the Wikipedia link in the parent post. I went to University of Sheffield, which is one of the Red Brick Universities and it has always been an Uni. Sheffield Halam, however, is the ex poly.
In common usage the term "red brick university" is at least a little bit disparaging . It tends to be used to emphasise that we are not talking about the entrenched, traditional universities of proven excellence - Oxford and Cambridge. So likening the term to "ivy league" is very confusing. Better to say "red brick university" (UK) = "not ivy league" (USA). Note that I don't buy into this judgmental attitude myself.
It used to be disparaging (compared to Oxbridge) I don't think it has those connotations any more - the few red brick universities in the uk place highly in rankings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellevue_Downtown_Park