Should I retake the ACT?

[Chaos_Sorcerer]

54 minutes ago, wasab said:

Studying aborad is a valuable experience. I am not discouraging you. You do need to do some research into the college you wish to attend though. 

My absolute dream would be Stanford, but that has the most competitive admissions in the world and they also don't have a lot of scholarships for international students.

 

A "realistic" school in the US for me would be UPenn. They have a slightly higher acceptance rate than most of the Ivies, and they also offer need-based scholarships for Canadians and Mexicans. I'm not sure how good they are for my intended major (somewhere in STEM, most likely computer science), though.

 

51 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Just remember that most universities offer quite similar curriculum and its often the teaching that is different. An Ivy League college looks great on your CV, but you won't be any smarter at a different college. Especially in science subjects.

Yeah, I've heard a lot of people say that. But some people also say that the Ivy undergrad experience is generally really good due to how much funding they have. 

 

I'd love to study/live in Europe (I'm taking French mostly because of this), but that's even more far-fetched than the US.

[Guest]

No you’re fine. You can get into about any school you want. 

[wasab]

11 minutes ago, fpo said:

No you’re fine. You can get into about any school you want. 

Not for havard it doesnt. Nearly everyone who applied o havard has 32-36 act and only 5% is accepted.

[wasab]

21 minutes ago, Chaos_Sorcerer said:

My absolute dream would be Stanford, but that has the most competitive admissions in the world and they also don't have a lot of scholarships for international students.

 

A "realistic" school in the US for me would be UPenn. They have a slightly higher acceptance rate than most of the Ivies, and they also offer need-based scholarships for Canadians and Mexicans. I'm not sure how good they are for my intended major (somewhere in STEM, most likely computer science), though.

 

Yeah, I've heard a lot of people say that. But some people also say that the Ivy undergrad experience is generally really good due to how much funding they have. 

 

I'd love to study/live in Europe (I'm taking French mostly because of this), but that's even more far-fetched than the US.

Apply to princepton University. That is as affordable as ivy league can get. 

 

You still need American SAT in addition to your ACT. ACT score you should be okay. SAT need to be 1450 or above (for the new SAT) for you to be competitive. Your high school GPA needs to be around 3.9, higher the better of course. 

 

Oh, try acing the admission interview if it is required. Better make up some impressive story. Building oarticle accerlerator isn't far fectch because one student actually done that to get into Harvard. 

[AnonymousGuy]

2 hours ago, wasab said:

You need to take the American SAT. I never took the ACT. I scored a 1930 something out of 2400. Shitty for prestigious colleges but more than enough for decent state schools which are what I actually aimed for. I live in NYC but I never applied to schools like NYU, Columbia , or whatnots. I applied to SUNY and CUNY schools(which are all public schools if you don't know what they are)

 

Tuition for these public universities is just 8k+ a year.  Tuition for private schools like Colombia  is like 45k a year. Once you get a job in the field, you are gonna be working at the same things, and earning the same amount so why bother going to the more expensive schools? 

This advice is the correct advice.  @OP.  Kids in high school all think that university choice is the biggest deal in the world and your whole life will change based on where you go.  Bullllshitttttt.  Go to the place that offers you the most scholarship money in the city/state you want to be employed in, that has employers visiting in the spring for recruitment.   

 

Also, don't take rejections seriously.  You can have a perfect score on SAT and ACT and still not get accepted into an Ivy League school.  The only sure fire way of getting accepted back in my day was to be a minority.

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, wasab said:

Not for havard it doesnt. Nearly everyone who applied o havard has 32-36 act and only 5% is accepted.

About was the key word. I’m not worried about this individual’s future. 

[Guest]

44 minutes ago, Chaos_Sorcerer said:

 

Yeah, I've heard a lot of people say that. But some people also say that the Ivy undergrad experience is generally really good due to how much funding they have. 

 

It's mainly the lecturers and the work you put in. If you have a lecturer who clearly has little interest in the subject, they won't teach as well as a lecturer who is passionate. As far as laboratories go, and Ivy league might have better labs, but for an undergrad course you won't get to use much of the cooler stuff anyway. Probably the tool I use most is a pipette. 

[wasab]

49 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

It's mainly the lecturers and the work you put in. If you have a lecturer who clearly has little interest in the subject, they won't teach as well as a lecturer who is passionate. As far as laboratories go, and Ivy league might have better labs, but for an undergrad course you won't get to use much of the cooler stuff anyway. Probably the tool I use most is a pipette. 

Huh? I remember mixing acids and burning mineral coumpuound for my freshman chemistry lab and measuring eletrostatic force using some fancy graph machine for my physics lab. 

 

For computer science classes I had been debugging codes on schools Enterprise Red Hat computers and made a game from scratch. 

 

Mecnaical and electrical engineering students get to design robots. 

[Guest]

44 minutes ago, wasab said:

Huh? I remember mixing acids and burning mineral coumpuound for my freshman chemistry lab and measuring eletrostatic force using some fancy graph machine for my physics lab. 

 

For computer science classes I had been debugging codes on schools Enterprise Red Hat computers and made a game from scratch. 

 

Mecnaical and electrical engineering students get to design robots. 

Thats all pretty standard for beginner courses. 

[wasab]

4 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Thats all pretty standard for beginner courses. 

Well, if you are talking about billion dollar labs in which socientists develop nuclear weapons in, you proabbly won't find such even in ivy league campuses. 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, wasab said:

Well, if you are talking about billion dollar labs in which socientists develop nuclear weapons in, you proabbly won't find such even in ivy league campuses. 

Just standard labs to do PCR and analysis etc.

[wasab]

2 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Just standard labs to do PCR and analysis etc.

Well, they aren't ground breaking but students still find them exciting nonetheless, especially robot building and other similar cool projects.  

[Guest]

1 minute ago, wasab said:

Well, they aren't ground breaking but students still find them exciting nonetheless, especially robot building and other similar cool projects.  

Every university has these is what I'm saying. 

[wasab]

19 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Every university has these is what I'm saying. 

Not true. The school I later transfer to doesn't have as fancy facilities or equipments for me to play with. They make up for it in academics and higher varities of classes though. 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, wasab said:

Not true. The school I later transfer to doesn't have as fancy facilities or equipments for me to play with. They make up for it in academics and higher varities of classes though. 

Nothing you said is particularly fancy , maybe talk to your lecturers and see what they can provide. It's probably just a different course. 

[wasab]

10 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Nothing you said is particularly fancy , maybe talk to your lecturers and see what they can provide. It's probably just a different course. 

There is no robotics lab, no Linux super computer, and my biggest disappointment, no 1000 gigabits per second wired fiber optic connections and 500 gigabits per second boosted AC wifi that covers literally every corner of the campus like in my previous school. It isn't about courses. My previous school simply has way more funding. The campus there is literally tripple the size as my current school. 

 

 

[Chaos_Sorcerer]

26 minutes ago, ONOTech said:

Good job!

 

If you got a 33 without prep, you could probably hit a 34-36 with proper studying. The ACT tests knowledge better than the SAT from what I remember. The SAT tests how well you can take a test and your reasoning more than your actual knowledge. 

 

OP, what state are you in? Unless you can get a nice scholarship, financial aid, or you'll receive a lot of financial help from your family, I would recommend going to the best in state school for undergrad, and then an Ivy or top 30 university for grad and above if you'd like to continue your education.

 

Piling yourself in student loans may not sound like a big deal now, but it definitely will be once you leave school. I was stuck between an in state public college and a few higher tier private colleges and stayed in-state and don't regret it one bit. You may not work at Apple or Microsoft right out of college (unless you're blessed to have a REALLY good in state public college program), but your chances of getting a well paying job (especially in STEM) are still in your favor. 

 

Good luck.

Thanks. I'm in Canada, actually. So would you recommend going to a Canadian school for undergrad, then? I do have a few pretty good choices here.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, wasab said:

There is no robotics lab, no Linux super computer, and my biggest disappointment, no 1000 gigabits per second wired fiber optic connections and 500 gigabits per second boosted AC wifi that covers literally every corner of the campus like in my previous school. It isn't about courses. My previous school simply has way more funding. The campus there is literally tripple the size as my current school. 

 

 

You don't really need fast internet or a supercomputer to learn tbh. 

[wasab]

6 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

You don't really need fast internet or a supercomputer to learn tbh. 

You don't need to attend college to learn either so we are just going in circle. Can we just agree on that some schools have fancier lab projects than others? 

[spwath]

33 is really good. But no harm in retaking. My first was a 33, second was 34.

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, wasab said:

You don't need to attend college to learn either so we are just going in circle. Can we just agree on that some schools have fancier lab projects than others? 

You do need to attend college to learn. 

[wasab]

6 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

You do need to attend college to learn. 

No you don't. I self taught myself AP microeconomics back in high school and passed the AP exam. I did need help from my Marcoeconomics teacher to sign me up for the exam though. 

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, wasab said:

No you don't. I self taught myself AP microeconomics back in high school and passed the AP exam. I did need help from my Marcoeconomics teacher to sign me up for the exam though. 

For laboratory work with practical skills you need to go to college (and for certification).