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Final Grades/GPA thread/School/University Discussion

I got into Princeton as an international, and I've never even been to the US before, so I don't really have specific questions to ask as I can't compare New Jersey to any other place in the US lol. Thanks for the heads up about NJ being expensive though; I'm only paying about 30% of Princeton fees but that's still quite a burden, so I guess I'll have to budget if I go. I can't really comment on the location since I'm not very sure where Princeton is yet, though it's nice to hear NYC is close by!

I don't know too many people who got into Princeton, but some alumni who I talked to mentioned that Princeton can be somewhat elitist; do you think that's true?

I agree you can't do much better than Princeton for academics; I'm probably going to major in physics, and Princeton is definitely one of the best places to do that.

Princeton is Ivy League, isn't it? That pretty much guarantees some level of academic elitism.

As it happens, one of the Professors (as in, highest-ranked positions, not all of our teachers are called professors here) at the USyd School of Physics is on the selection committee for Princeton, as I recall. His name is Joss Bland-Hawthorn, and he's an expert in galactic dynamics and dark matter research but his big thing at the moment is a field called astrophotonics, which is the use of photonics techniques to generate low-volume high-efficiency optical filters for radio telescopes and so on, because astronomy these days is not diffraction limited by the size of the dish, but people keep paying millions and millions of dollars to build huge telescopes for marginal gain. He thinks the only way to better astronomy data is with the filtering processes.

One of the other professors told me he's the most sought-after instrumental astronomer in the world.



EDIT: Chaos, that was fucking awesome. I never even thought it could be a April1 joke.
 
I'm a freshman in highschool, so I'm still learning about how it works. >.<
Geometry Honors: B+
English 1: A-
Theology: A
Concert Band: A
Basic Latin: A-
Biology: A-
 
damn jimbo, i was hoping you'd get accepted to an ivy just so i could tell you it was a type one error

now i can't ever use that remark. you're a jerk.
 
You could just be nice and tell him his rejection is a type 2 error, but there's probably an inside joke I'm missing here.
 
At my school, no one got into any Ivy League school.

Including the people who got into Johns Hopkins, Chicago, UC Berkeley, Duke, Rice, and Carnegie Mellon.

Well, there was one guy who got into most of his schools. He's black
 
People at my school got into the following "good" schools:

(School, # of people that got in)

Harvard, 2
Yale, 2
Columbia, 1
Princeton, 1
UPenn, 2
Cornell, 2
Dartmouth, 1
Duke, 2
U of Va, 2
UChicago, 3
Northwestern, 1
UNC Chapel Hill, 1
Georgetown, 1

There are others, but I can't remember off the top of my head.
 
Spanish 2 - A
Honors Coordinated Science - A+
Honors English - A
Honors Global Perspectives - A
Honors Algebra 2 - A
Symphony Orchestra - A

These are my grades so far this semester (I'm in 9th grade). I received similar grades for the first semester, but really screwed up my final exams (almost all B's) and for some of my classes that dropped my grade from an A+ to an A. Might not be a big difference now, but in extremely competitive college applications in the future it could be critical. It doesn't help that I also go to a really competitive academic high school, which is why I'm pushing myself to do other extracurriculars (two sports, orchestra, math competitions, physics) and getting involved in clubs.
 
Spanish 2 - A
Honors Coordinated Science - A+
Honors English - A
Honors Global Perspectives - A
Honors Algebra 2 - A
Symphony Orchestra - A

These are my grades so far this semester (I'm in 9th grade). I received similar grades for the first semester, but really screwed up my final exams (almost all B's) and for some of my classes that dropped my grade from an A+ to an A. Might not be a big difference now, but in extremely competitive college applications in the future it could be critical. It doesn't help that I also go to a really competitive academic high school, which is why I'm pushing myself to do other extracurriculars (two sports, orchestra, math competitions, physics) and getting involved in clubs.

It's grade 9 bro. Chill. What you should be doing in grade 9 isn't about grades, but more about what you want to pursue in your future studies, and more importantly, have fun learning. Grades aren't everything, just remember.
 
It's grade 9 bro. Chill. What you should be doing in grade 9 isn't about grades, but more about what you want to pursue in your future studies, and more importantly, have fun learning. Grades aren't everything, just remember.

not in the states where your 4 year gpa is averaged. three cheers for top 6 courses!
 
well, theres nothing saying that you cant get good grades and enjoy your classes at the same time. dont get me wrong, grades arent everything to me at all; im more concerened about extracurricular stuff like making varsity basketball. right now, i dont know what id like to pursue in college and later. i think ill worry about that junior/senior year.

what ivar says is true though; grades are important even in 9th grade, and take priority whenever your in school (they should, right?) like i said, my school is pretty competitive. i know a few people (9th graders) doubling up in science and all that crap. im playing basketball/volleyball 6th period, which i like better anyways.

right now, schools not that tough anyways. maintaining straight As isnt what id call burning myself; pretty much just do your homework, study a little for quizzes and tests, and dont fall asleep in class. im aware, however, how hard ill have to work in a few years (and maybe a little less time on smogon). next year i plan on just taking the required courses like precalc and cs2 but also hopefully make it into apush. overall i enjoy being in the classes im in and i know by working to get good grades now will help me in the future. sure i take school seriously, but its not like i have excessive stress or anything.
 
Damn English grade dropped 20 points because I forgot to submit my research paper to "turnitin" Now I am stuck with a C.
 
well, theres nothing saying that you cant get good grades and enjoy your classes at the same time. dont get me wrong, grades arent everything to me at all; im more concerened about extracurricular stuff like making varsity basketball. right now, i dont know what id like to pursue in college and later. i think ill worry about that junior/senior year.

what ivar says is true though; grades are important even in 9th grade, and take priority whenever your in school (they should, right?) like i said, my school is pretty competitive. i know a few people (9th graders) doubling up in science and all that crap. im playing basketball/volleyball 6th period, which i like better anyways.

right now, schools not that tough anyways. maintaining straight As isnt what id call burning myself; pretty much just do your homework, study a little for quizzes and tests, and dont fall asleep in class. im aware, however, how hard ill have to work in a few years (and maybe a little less time on smogon). next year i plan on just taking the required courses like precalc and cs2 but also hopefully make it into apush. overall i enjoy being in the classes im in and i know by working to get good grades now will help me in the future. sure i take school seriously, but its not like i have excessive stress or anything.

Meh, I guess I generalized, but I've seen too many gr 9 kids who've taken courses just for the grades and to look good to colleges, and actually forget the intrinsic values of learning.
 
It's grade 9 bro. Chill. What you should be doing in grade 9 isn't about grades, but more about what you want to pursue in your future studies, and more importantly, have fun learning. Grades aren't everything, just remember.

I remember freshman year. Everyone in Latin gave their reason for being in the class "So I can do better on SATs." Seriously? I was the only one taking it for fun. I manage to take all the harder classes because those are the ones that look fun. I like a challenge. And that's what you should be doing. Take classes that you will enjoy. You will do better in those classes and enjoy yourself. I got my only B's in PE and Health because I didn't care about those classes. I played varsity baseball as a freshman. Why do I need PE?

Anyway, I'm starting to look at colleges (I'm a junior right now). Before I had something against the Ivies but I like them now. Top choices right now: Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Brown, Princeton, Dartmouth. Doubt I'll make any of them: my extracurriculars are limited to baseball (which anyone can do) and more private things, like cubing and board games. I don't play an instrument well enough to impress anyone and Pokemon is not something to put on a college application. Damn.
 
Meh, I guess I generalized, but I've seen too many gr 9 kids who've taken courses just for the grades and to look good to colleges, and actually forget the intrinsic values of learning.
Yeah, I keep stressing to friends' little sisters/brothers to take what they're interested in. In BC, grades from 8 - 11 aren't looked at. It's way more important to take electives you're interested in so you can figure out whether you want to go into it in post-secondary and gain some basic skills so you aren't completely lost later.
 
Didn't get the NSF graduate research fellowship. I think I got unlucky; one of the reviewers rated me Excellent (Intellectual Merit)/Good (Broader Impacts) and the other rated me Good (Intellectual Merit)/Fair (Broader Impacts). The latter said I was self-centered and didn't give credit to my co-workers. Most, if not all, of the research I have done has been completely independent work, and I emphasized this because I thought it was a strong point of my application. That's not fair.
 
Failed a lot of quizzes in Pre-Calc but got a B in the end, ended up with a 3.85 GPA for high school, and now I'm in my first year of college with a 3.77. College is sometimes no more difficult than high school. I barely have to study still, even with advanced classes. I can probably graduate from here a year early, which, barring death, I'll do...majoring in a useless humanities field and paying for an "unofficially Ivy League school" with bank loans is a bad idea. I hear that Uncle Sam going to take care of that now, though. Great.

One thing college does teach you how to do is crank out a six or seven page paper in one night. I'd say, learn other, more marketable skills. Academia is a bubble, and Ivar, you're totally right about it being petty.
 
Didn't get the NSF graduate research fellowship. I think I got unlucky; one of the reviewers rated me Excellent (Intellectual Merit)/Good (Broader Impacts) and the other rated me Good (Intellectual Merit)/Fair (Broader Impacts). The latter said I was self-centered and didn't give credit to my co-workers. Most, if not all, of the research I have done has been completely independent work, and I emphasized this because I thought it was a strong point of my application. That's not fair.

From what I've heard from friends in the industry, IT and software is FULL of people who can't code and basically ride the coat-tails of the one guy in the office who can. I'd say given how many of them there are, it wouldn't surprise me if your reviewer was one of these, and doesn't like it when people don't give guys like him credit.

Is there an appeal process?
 
My friend got into Harvard, and waitlisted at Stanford. I'm pretty happy for him, because he sure deserves it.

My other friend got waitlisted at Brown and was really really happy; he's international and didn't have the best extracurriculars. Knowing him, his essays probably came through. His style of writing is almost unmatched.

Probably heading to University of Toronto myself. Hope to see some of you there
 
School is brutal, but manageable. 10th grade grades halfway through semester:

English II: A-
Scripture: A
Honors Geo/ Environmental Science: A-
Geometry: A
AP Spanish IV: A
Western Civ.: A
2-D Art: A

I already know my classes for ext year:
AP Eng III, AP US Hist., AP Spanish V, AP Studio Art, Honors Alg. II, Honors Chem., Religion Classes
 
I have a quick question for the people of smogon, seeing as most of you are fairly smart and have experience with college. I just got my ACT results back and I got a 34, the problem is, I really dropped the ball on my 'best' subject, Math. I got a 32 on the math portion, but I'm pretty sure I can do better. I would like some insight on whether or not I should retake the test. I'm a junior in high school, so I've got plenty of decision time, but obviously the sooner the better so I can retake again if necessary. I'm looking at going to a Big Ten school, most likely University of Michigan but Michigan state and university of Wisconsin are also candidates. Would having a 35 greatly increase my chances of getting in/getting scholarships, or should I just sit tight with my 34?
 
It never hurts to take it a second time (unless you got a 36 the first time). A 34 is very impressive and will most likely get you scholorships, but if you raise your score 1 point, you are even more likely to get scholorships or bigger scholorships. You always want the highest score possible. I'd say take it again, and if you get the same score, don't sweat it, it's still a very solid score that everyone would love. Big 10 schools are awesome, I'm attending U of Minnesota next year.
 
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