Forums | MacLife

Yeah, don't worry.

My SAT scores were not stellar. I wasn't top of the class. I never did any sports or extracurricular activities.

I just played starcraft all throughout high school.

I've always done whatever I pleased, said whatever I wanted, broken as many laws as I felt the need to and it has all turned out alright.

Thankfully one of the things I like to do is appreciated greatly by Universities, so I have always found a place there.

I didn't have any clubs or extra curricular activities, and my GPA was somewhere between 3.3 and 3.5 (can't remember where), and I didn't have any problem getting into the colleges I applied to.

Also, don't worry right now what you want to do with your life.  Just be undeclared for the first year and get your general requirements out of the way to figure out what you want to do.  Nothing says you can't transfer either.  I did after 2 years, it was pretty painless.

Don't think you're locking yourself into The Rest Of Your Life™ at this point in the game.

soulcrusher wrote:

Yeah, don't worry.

My SAT scores were not stellar. I wasn't top of the class. I never did any sports or extracurricular activities.

I just played starcraft all throughout high school.

I've always done whatever I pleased, said whatever I wanted, broken as many laws as I felt the need to and it has all turned out alright.

Thankfully one of the things I like to do is appreciated greatly by Universities, so I have always found a place there.

So if you didn't have good grades, test scores, activities, pay a lot of money, what exactly did you do that is "appreciated greatly"?

Which you demonstrated how, exactly?

Hey, I was good and I didn't go for that obvious joke!

Tallgeese wrote:

Hey, I was good and I didn't go for that obvious joke!

It is good.

You should be fine.   I had a lower GPA due to the fact that I never did homework at all during High School.  My SATs weren't great, but they were above what the average was(my school didn't have the brightest bunch of kids, which is why I didn't do any activities other than BPA.)

As for getting accepted to colleges, I had no problems with that.   The only issues I had was with getting scholarships(more related to my lack of activities than my grades).  Because of this I couldn't go to any school that I actually got accepted to. 

I did get free tuition to any school in Massachusetts though, so I stayed here.

forget about money.

whatever you like you'll do well and if you do it well I am sure somebody will pay you for it.

Fried Chicken wrote:

Well, my life has finally come to the point to where I have to start thinking about colleges.  Joy and rapture.  The thing is, this actually has me worried.  My GPA is not stellar (above 3.0, but not stellar), and neither is my SAT score (1900, 1320 w/writing, but I'm retaking).  The college applications people are asking for various school activities and awards and stuff.  I hate after school clubs, they are pointless and frustrating.  I attended them once or twice, but thought that it was too stupid for me to continue.  I never really played sports either.  I don't have trophies all over the walls of my room, and I haven't won very many (read: any) awards for anything.

It's not like I wasted my life away, I play piano every day for like an hour, I can do pretty much anything any normal human being could want from a computer, I can fix virtually everything, I went to Germany for a semester last year, I'm very conscious of the politics going on in this country, I'm incredibly interested in just about all forms of science, and I do have a job teaching piano.... but that has only been going on since august of this year.  And most of these "traits" don't show up on a college application or résumé.

So indeed, I am a little worried.  I'm applying to UT, Texas A&M University, and wherever else might suit my interests.  I'm even toying with the idea of studying abroad in Germany, but I'm not sure how the "application process" works.

Then comes an equally bothersome dilemma.  I really don't know what I want to study.  I need to balance between 1. what I'm interested in, 2. what kind of job I want 3. how much money I want to make.
My dream job would be as some foreign relations guy to Germany of an American company.  This way I could fly a lot between my 2 favorite countries.  I'm considering going into Engineering, because there seems to be big money to be made there, and then I can also work my way into the management of a company.
Then there's this whole other thing I would like to do, which is become a professor of biology of some sort.  Then I could do research (love it), get a decent income, and not give up on this huge interest in science which I have.
So it boils down to pretty much this.  Do I want my life to go the route of Biology, or Engineering.  I somehow don't like Bioengineering, so that rules out the obvious middle ground.

Damn, I hate this.  I hate having to do college applications, I have having to make life-changing decisions, but most of all I hate having to worry about all this.

Try doing some research into schools that aren't as nationally visible, but are still excellent academic institutions. I would recommend the book 40 Colleges That Change Lives. You'll find someone wonderful academic institutions that pay more attention to who you are as a student and a person than bullsmurf academic credentials. Most of them have very decent financial aide packages as well. I did exactly that, and I couldn't be more happy both academically and socially at my college.

I think I'm a few months late with this suggestion. Oh well. Maybe someone else will fine my divine suggestion useful in the coming years...