Originally posted by Bags:what year did your sister graduate?
Originally posted by Hoya Paranoia:I agree with Hoya. I was an English major at a small college, and I LOVED it and it has served me very well (the ability to write well has carried me very far).
i fucking loved studying english literature and history, but i'm kicking myself in the ass right now for not taking a couple of basic finance courses.
That said, I wish I'd taken a couple basic finance/econ courses. Keep that in mind, they can always serve you. You may not work in a "corporate" environment, but you'll always deal with money and financial issues no matter where you are.
My sister LOVED Penn and Philly. I personally would have wanted more campus (she was also an English major with a minor in Art History, and she's got a smokin' job in advertising now).
I don't know how Northwestern is situated in terms of its relation to the city around it. As folks have said, all three are great schools, but if my parents were fine with the tuition at all of them, I'd go Ivy League. (If you think you'll live in the midwest, though, Northwestern may serve you best).
Good luck. I know this part is SO stressful, but in the end you can't go wrong.
Chicago, Charlottesville, Philly
Originally posted by SalParadise:1993
what year did your sister graduate?
Originally posted by Bags:No no no. Penn's in fact kind of in the hood. My sister's lived in NYC for 10 years, but it was in west Philly where she was mugged twice, once at gunpoint! [/QB]
Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
Probably the same for UPENN as well.
the area has changed a lot in the past 10 years though. definitely not upper middle class by any stretch yet, but the change is similar to the whole U street phenomenon in dc.
i was in charlottesville a month ago or so for work.
boy is that place full of a buncha hillbilly rednecks!
i saw Northwestern for sure! Chicago, is almost as diverse and culturally stimulating as New york city. its cold. but its such a great town.
i dont know much about the school programs themselves, but between the 3 cities. Chicago should be the far and away clear choice!
boy is that place full of a buncha hillbilly rednecks!
i saw Northwestern for sure! Chicago, is almost as diverse and culturally stimulating as New york city. its cold. but its such a great town.
i dont know much about the school programs themselves, but between the 3 cities. Chicago should be the far and away clear choice!
CHICAGO is the best music scene, i say
lets be honest. uva is going down the drain. as a recent uva alumus, i must say that charlottesville is becoming a huge mess.
when i first arrived, charlottesville was one of the nicest small towns to live in.
but after four years there, crime has been getting worse and worse, from the serial rapist to the homosexual peeping tom to name a few (not to mention the rise in theft amongst students in libraries; i remember when i was able to leave my laptop, calculator, and ipod sitting around while i went to the bathroom).
also, its starting to get a little slummier around campus, especially "the corner". many of these houses and townhouses on 14th/15th st that get rented out many of these college kids (as fratty as they may be) should be condemned. i have no idea how they pass fire inspection or how many of these rental companies get away with what theyre doing. it makes the city and the school look bad. this is only exacerbated by how we are accepting more students than the campus can support, leading to constant construction and thus distorting how beautiful our campus really is.
if you go to uva, probably all the construction will be done by the time you leave. but who knows, we constantly like to build shit.
and most importantly the academics of uva has fallen quite a bit. there have been some notable professors who have retired and who have left. theres been a huge controversy about how we spend our money. clearly, we dont pay our professors much and so many of them leave. and also we're not attracting the best professors and researchers. as a result our reputation suffers; for instance, like in the US Weekly college rankings.
as for the music scene, while its definitely not the best of the three cities, it is acceptable; about 1-2 good shows per month at either starr hill or the satellite ballroom. and if anything finding rides to dc isnt hard at all if theres a show here that youd like to see.
lastly, it does get kind of boring and so you have to get really creative in figuring out different ways to entertain yourself.
and so, if i were you id take the hardest look at northwestern. i dont know much about it, but when i visited penn, i hated the people there so much that i decided to go to uva, which was really nice back then i promise.
when i first arrived, charlottesville was one of the nicest small towns to live in.
but after four years there, crime has been getting worse and worse, from the serial rapist to the homosexual peeping tom to name a few (not to mention the rise in theft amongst students in libraries; i remember when i was able to leave my laptop, calculator, and ipod sitting around while i went to the bathroom).
also, its starting to get a little slummier around campus, especially "the corner". many of these houses and townhouses on 14th/15th st that get rented out many of these college kids (as fratty as they may be) should be condemned. i have no idea how they pass fire inspection or how many of these rental companies get away with what theyre doing. it makes the city and the school look bad. this is only exacerbated by how we are accepting more students than the campus can support, leading to constant construction and thus distorting how beautiful our campus really is.
if you go to uva, probably all the construction will be done by the time you leave. but who knows, we constantly like to build shit.
and most importantly the academics of uva has fallen quite a bit. there have been some notable professors who have retired and who have left. theres been a huge controversy about how we spend our money. clearly, we dont pay our professors much and so many of them leave. and also we're not attracting the best professors and researchers. as a result our reputation suffers; for instance, like in the US Weekly college rankings.
as for the music scene, while its definitely not the best of the three cities, it is acceptable; about 1-2 good shows per month at either starr hill or the satellite ballroom. and if anything finding rides to dc isnt hard at all if theres a show here that youd like to see.
lastly, it does get kind of boring and so you have to get really creative in figuring out different ways to entertain yourself.
and so, if i were you id take the hardest look at northwestern. i dont know much about it, but when i visited penn, i hated the people there so much that i decided to go to uva, which was really nice back then i promise.
I'd take Northwestern in a heartbeat, and Chicago is a great city. On the other hand, since you're asking about the cities in terms of music, Philly is a pretty great base for all kinds of east coast action, as it's relatively close to NYC, DC, etc.
Go to wherever the best opportunities for internships are, which will surely be a bigger city. You'll get hands-on experience and you'll make connections.
I've found over a 15-year professional career that the two most important components of getting a good job are applied experience and your network/connections. Nothing else has ever been very relevant.
I've found over a 15-year professional career that the two most important components of getting a good job are applied experience and your network/connections. Nothing else has ever been very relevant.
which northwestern campus are you gonna be at? the be fair, evanston campus is 20 miles north of downtown chicago, or a couple of rickety EL rides away.
if all things are equal, i would lean toward the school that's furthest away from where you live, but then, that's just me.
if all things are equal, i would lean toward the school that's furthest away from where you live, but then, that's just me.
That's what I was trying to say.
It's like saying George Mason is a DC school.
It's like saying George Mason is a DC school.
Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
which northwestern campus are you gonna be at? the be fair, evanston campus is 20 miles north of downtown chicago, or a couple of rickety EL rides away.
You will also probably find that a lot of people are at UPenn because they didn't get into their first choice. Don't misinterpret that – it's a great school; but I think a lot of people end up there after not getting accepted at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc…
I actually chose my school because of that. When I visited as a prospective student, I asked everyone why they chose that school. Most answers were, "I didn't get in to Harvard, I didn't get in to Yale, I didn't get in to Brown…" And I thought – these are my people!! Smart, but not the hardasses whose one goal of high school was grinding away at everything they do in order to get into Harvard. Okay, it was a generalization, but it served me well. :)
Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
You will also probably find that a lot of people are at UPenn because they didn't get into their first choice. Don't misinterpret that – it's a great school; but I think a lot of people end up there after not getting accepted at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc…
Originally posted by Graace:Just to be a pain…
I'm choosing between three universities in those three places to spend my next for years.
"I'm choosing among three universities…." Of course, they'll teach you that. ;)
You're going to get a good education from any of those places.
Now, which place is going to help you grow as a person? The one that doesn't have you going back home every other weekend to see the boyfriend you left behind or your parents to do your laundry and buy you stuff from Costco.
That means go to Chicago and find out who you really are. And if who you really are is making a decision based on which locale has the best music scene, I suggest you dig a little deeper to find out who you are.
Now, which place is going to help you grow as a person? The one that doesn't have you going back home every other weekend to see the boyfriend you left behind or your parents to do your laundry and buy you stuff from Costco.
That means go to Chicago and find out who you really are. And if who you really are is making a decision based on which locale has the best music scene, I suggest you dig a little deeper to find out who you are.
Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:That's why I'm going to be there if I end up there. . . Terrible thing to say, but it is very true.
You will also probably find that a lot of people are at UPenn because they didn't get into their first choice. Don't misinterpret that – it's a great school; but I think a lot of people end up there after not getting accepted at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc…
Right now I'm leaning towards Penn for a multitude of reasons. . I'm going up to see it on Friday and hopefully I'll like it. . .
Originally posted by Bags:Hahaha, I know, I know.
Originally posted by Graace:Just to be a pain…
I'm choosing between three universities in those three places to spend my next for years.
"I'm choosing among three universities…." Of course, they'll teach you that. ;)
Originally posted by Graace:STAY OVERNIGHT at the schools you're really considering. I would have chosen a different school had I not stayed over and gotten some time to hang out with the students and see what the campus culture was like. And I think I would have been much less happy with my original choice.
I'm going up to see it on Friday and hopefully I'll like it. . .
Graace, a friend with almost college age kids sent me this from the NY Times. Looks like you should be especially proud (and I am especially lucky that I was applying 20 years ago!).
April 4, 2007
A Great Year for Ivy League Colleges, but Not So Good for Applicants to Them
By SAM DILLON
Harvard turned down 1,100 student applicants with perfect 800 scores on the SAT math exam. Yale rejected several applicants with perfect 2400 scores on the three-part SAT, and Princeton turned away thousands of high school applicants with 4.0 grade point averages. Needless to say, high school valedictorians were a dime a dozen.
It was the most selective spring in modern memory at America's elite schools, according to college admissions officers. More applications poured into top schools this admissions cycle than in any previous year on record. Schools have been sending decision letters to student applicants in recent days, and rejection letters have overwhelmingly outnumbered the acceptances.
Stanford received a record 23,956 undergraduate applications for the fall term, accepting 2,456 students, meaning the school took 10.3 percent of applicants.
Harvard College received applications from 22,955 students, another record, and accepted 2,058 of them, for an acceptance rate of 9 percent. The university called that ''the lowest admit rate in Harvard's history.''
Applications to Columbia numbered 18,081, and the college accepted 1,618 of them, for what was certainly one of the lowest acceptance rates this spring at an American university: 8.9 percent.
''There's a sense of collective shock among parents at seeing extraordinarily talented kids getting rejected,'' said Susan Gzesh, whose son Max Rothstein is a senior with an exemplary record at the Laboratory School, a private school associated with the University of Chicago. Max applied to 12 top schools and was accepted outright only by Wesleyan, New York University and the University of Michigan.
''Some of his classmates, with better test scores than his, were rejected at every Ivy League school,'' Ms. Gzesh said.
The brutally low acceptance rates this year were a result of an avalanche of applications to top schools, which college admissions officials attributed to three factors. First, a demographic bulge is working through the nation's population – the children of the baby boomers are graduating from high school in record numbers. The federal Department of Education projects that 3.2 million students will graduate from high school this spring, compared with 3.1 million last year and 2.4 million in 1993. (The statistics project that the number of high school graduates will peak in 2008.) Another factor is that more high school students are enrolling in college immediately after high school. In the 1970s, less than half of all high school graduates went directly to college, compared with more than 60 percent today, said David Hawkins, a director at the National Association of College Admission Counseling.
The third trend driving the frantic competition is that the average college applicant applies to many more colleges than in past decades. In the 1960s, fewer than 2 percent of college freshmen had applied to six or more colleges, whereas in 2006 more than 2 percent reported having applied to 11 or more, according to The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 2006, an annual report on a continuing long-term study published by the University of California, Los Angeles.
''Multiple applications per student,'' Mr. Hawkins said, ''is a factor that exponentially crowds the college admissions environment.''
One reason that students are filing more applications is the increasing use of the Common Application, a form that can be completed and filed via the Internet.
The ferocious competition at the most selective schools has not affected the overall acceptance rate at the rest of the nation's 2,500 four-year colleges and universities, which accept an average of 70 percent of applicants.
''That overall 70 percent acceptance rate hasn't changed since the 1980s,'' Mr. Hawkins said.
But with more and more students filling out ever more applications, schools like the California Institute of Technology received a record number of applications this year – 3,595, or 8 percent more than last year – and admitted 576 students. Among so many talented applicants, a prospective student with perfect SAT scores was not unusual, said Jill Perry, a Caltech spokeswoman.
''The successful students have to have shown some passion for science and technology in high school or their personal life,'' Ms. Perry said. ''That means creating a computer system for your high school, or taking a tractor apart and putting it back together.''
The competition was ferocious not only at the top universities, but at selective small colleges, like Williams, Bowdoin and Amherst, all of which reported record numbers of applications.
Amherst received 6,668 applications and accepted 1,167 students for its class of 2011, compared with the 4,491 applications and 1,030 acceptance letters it sent for the class of 2002 nine years ago, said Paul Statt, an Amherst spokesman.
''Many of us who went to Amherst three decades ago know we couldn't get in now; I know I couldn't,'' said Mr. Statt, who graduated from Amherst in 1978.
April 4, 2007
A Great Year for Ivy League Colleges, but Not So Good for Applicants to Them
By SAM DILLON
Harvard turned down 1,100 student applicants with perfect 800 scores on the SAT math exam. Yale rejected several applicants with perfect 2400 scores on the three-part SAT, and Princeton turned away thousands of high school applicants with 4.0 grade point averages. Needless to say, high school valedictorians were a dime a dozen.
It was the most selective spring in modern memory at America's elite schools, according to college admissions officers. More applications poured into top schools this admissions cycle than in any previous year on record. Schools have been sending decision letters to student applicants in recent days, and rejection letters have overwhelmingly outnumbered the acceptances.
Stanford received a record 23,956 undergraduate applications for the fall term, accepting 2,456 students, meaning the school took 10.3 percent of applicants.
Harvard College received applications from 22,955 students, another record, and accepted 2,058 of them, for an acceptance rate of 9 percent. The university called that ''the lowest admit rate in Harvard's history.''
Applications to Columbia numbered 18,081, and the college accepted 1,618 of them, for what was certainly one of the lowest acceptance rates this spring at an American university: 8.9 percent.
''There's a sense of collective shock among parents at seeing extraordinarily talented kids getting rejected,'' said Susan Gzesh, whose son Max Rothstein is a senior with an exemplary record at the Laboratory School, a private school associated with the University of Chicago. Max applied to 12 top schools and was accepted outright only by Wesleyan, New York University and the University of Michigan.
''Some of his classmates, with better test scores than his, were rejected at every Ivy League school,'' Ms. Gzesh said.
The brutally low acceptance rates this year were a result of an avalanche of applications to top schools, which college admissions officials attributed to three factors. First, a demographic bulge is working through the nation's population – the children of the baby boomers are graduating from high school in record numbers. The federal Department of Education projects that 3.2 million students will graduate from high school this spring, compared with 3.1 million last year and 2.4 million in 1993. (The statistics project that the number of high school graduates will peak in 2008.) Another factor is that more high school students are enrolling in college immediately after high school. In the 1970s, less than half of all high school graduates went directly to college, compared with more than 60 percent today, said David Hawkins, a director at the National Association of College Admission Counseling.
The third trend driving the frantic competition is that the average college applicant applies to many more colleges than in past decades. In the 1960s, fewer than 2 percent of college freshmen had applied to six or more colleges, whereas in 2006 more than 2 percent reported having applied to 11 or more, according to The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 2006, an annual report on a continuing long-term study published by the University of California, Los Angeles.
''Multiple applications per student,'' Mr. Hawkins said, ''is a factor that exponentially crowds the college admissions environment.''
One reason that students are filing more applications is the increasing use of the Common Application, a form that can be completed and filed via the Internet.
The ferocious competition at the most selective schools has not affected the overall acceptance rate at the rest of the nation's 2,500 four-year colleges and universities, which accept an average of 70 percent of applicants.
''That overall 70 percent acceptance rate hasn't changed since the 1980s,'' Mr. Hawkins said.
But with more and more students filling out ever more applications, schools like the California Institute of Technology received a record number of applications this year – 3,595, or 8 percent more than last year – and admitted 576 students. Among so many talented applicants, a prospective student with perfect SAT scores was not unusual, said Jill Perry, a Caltech spokeswoman.
''The successful students have to have shown some passion for science and technology in high school or their personal life,'' Ms. Perry said. ''That means creating a computer system for your high school, or taking a tractor apart and putting it back together.''
The competition was ferocious not only at the top universities, but at selective small colleges, like Williams, Bowdoin and Amherst, all of which reported record numbers of applications.
Amherst received 6,668 applications and accepted 1,167 students for its class of 2011, compared with the 4,491 applications and 1,030 acceptance letters it sent for the class of 2002 nine years ago, said Paul Statt, an Amherst spokesman.
''Many of us who went to Amherst three decades ago know we couldn't get in now; I know I couldn't,'' said Mr. Statt, who graduated from Amherst in 1978.
I wonder how many more kids get perfect 800's on their SAT's after they dumbed them down back in the late 80's/early 90's? And as far as grades go? A "B" is the new "C".
Chicago is my favorite city besides Baltimore.