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Xandu
Feb 19, 2006


It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

logosanatic posted:

His freshman year is low key. No hard classes. They still give him like 30mins of homework that includes coloring something. So if possible id like to have him do some of the busy work of scholarships as soon as possible. Rather than when hes taking a ton of AP classes

So if i have him take the sat sometime this year and he gets his first report card with grades would that be enough to start or will they take it as insult. They want to see several years of grades?

This isn't the right thread for this, but there is absolutely no reason your son has to be studying calculus or taking the SAT as a freshman, unless you think he's a genius who is smart enough to just skip high school altogether. Maybe have him take the PSAT during his sophomore year, but otherwise, I promise you, the best solution is calm down a bit. The kind of colleges that will give him a full ride are going to care far more about how well-rounded and interesting he is than if he bombed the SAT as a freshman (which they will probably see).

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Jazerus
May 24, 2011


logosanatic posted:

His freshman year is low key. No hard classes. They still give him like 30mins of homework that includes coloring something. So if possible id like to have him do some of the busy work of scholarships as soon as possible. Rather than when hes taking a ton of AP classes

So if i have him take the sat sometime this year and he gets his first report card with grades would that be enough to start or will they take it as insult. They want to see several years of grades?

There is no busywork to do. He is not eligible yet. Also, the amount of work necessary to apply to most scholarships is minimal - maybe an essay or something. It is not something that is hard to fit into a senior year schedule.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane
There's a fuckton of scholarships available. I got one that I didn't qualify for (technically), didn't apply for, and didn't need, all because I was literally the closest thing the university had to someone matching the requirements.

I'm now on the board of a foundation that gives away scholarships in fairly large amounts, and for the first years, one of the difficult thing was finding qualified applicants, to the point we had to fund other semi-related projects just to meet the requirement that we give away X% of the money of the foundation every year.

logosanatic
Jan 27, 2015

by FactsAreUseless

Jazerus posted:

There is no busywork to do. He is not eligible yet. Also, the amount of work necessary to apply to most scholarships is minimal - maybe an essay or something. It is not something that is hard to fit into a senior year schedule.

What kind of pretend genius stuff should he be doing to be in position for making a full ride happen? Build a clock and bring it to school in a suitcase? :) People that make it happen what did they do? Probably not wait until junior year of high school. Im assuming preparation and grooming was involved. Is it only atheletes who get full rides?

logosanatic
Jan 27, 2015

by FactsAreUseless

Xandu posted:

This isn't the right thread for this, but there is absolutely no reason your son has to be studying calculus or taking the SAT as a freshman, unless you think he's a genius who is smart enough to just skip high school altogether. Maybe have him take the PSAT during his sophomore year, but otherwise, I promise you, the best solution is calm down a bit. The kind of colleges that will give him a full ride are going to care far more about how well-rounded and interesting he is than if he bombed the SAT as a freshman (which they will probably see).

Hes not a genius. Hes been taught enough to skip highschool but how would that be helpful? I cant afford to send him to college. Hes too young to get a decent job. So he would just sit at home. He will still learn plenty by attending.

He wont bomb the sat he got a 1700 on the practice test which is gonna be in the ballpark of what he would get on the real thing im assuming. 1700 is reasonable. He did bomb the essay though.

*edit was just reading the wiki for the sat. Seems in 2016 they will make the essay optional so it will go back to the old 1600(2x 800 for math and reading) score setup. Which is great because he got 700ish on reading and math and a terrible 300 on essay section


*edit #2. But you do bring up what i was looking for. What colleges give free rides and what makes a student interesting to them?

logosanatic fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Oct 2, 2015

on the left
Nov 2, 2013
I Am A Gigantic Piece Of Shit

Literally poo from a diseased human butt

computer parts posted:

If the goal is a well educated populace, then yes. You have the system in place, now the only thing that has to be done is basic tweaking to it.

Forcing poorly prepared people through college doesn't create an educated populace, it only serves the politicians who are attempting to juice the numbers. You can drag disinterested and poorly prepared students into universities, but you can't make them think. Political pressure will force the universities used as dumping grounds for these people to pass them anyway. In the end, you waste everyone's time and turn the name of a university into a signal that employers should avoid a candidate like the plague , just like people do with University of Phoenix "graduates" right now.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

on the left posted:

Forcing poorly prepared people through college doesn't create an educated populace

Sure it can. And if it doesn't the issue isn't the college, it's the "poorly prepared" part.

blah_blah
Apr 15, 2006

Xandu posted:

This isn't the right thread for this, but there is absolutely no reason your son has to be studying calculus or taking the SAT as a freshman, unless you think he's a genius who is smart enough to just skip high school altogether. Maybe have him take the PSAT during his sophomore year, but otherwise, I promise you, the best solution is calm down a bit. The kind of colleges that will give him a full ride are going to care far more about how well-rounded and interesting he is than if he bombed the SAT as a freshman (which they will probably see).

IMO he is best off making sure that he's not bad at anything (so that he has an excellent GPA) and then becoming very good at something.

logosanatic posted:

I will not be able to afford to pay for my sons college. I would like to help him achieve as close to a full ride through college as possible. Neither my wife nor I finished college so he will be first in our family which should help. Hes white so no help there. He just started his freshman year in high school so we have time to squeeze in some recomended things.

Ive taught him enough math so we are about halfway through calculus now. He does about 2 hrs of study a day depending what were working on. Last year he did java programming. This year I have him doing sat prep book and practice tests. His first practice test was a 1600(tanked on the written part) not sure how much that will improve. He hates to write hes more of a math science kind of kid. He loves to read books but when it comes to writing essays he goes into twitter, text, vine mode. Not saying he writes lol and omg in the essay. But I do feel like him..or his generation has lost some of its written flare. I know I write much worse now than when I was in school. Many bad habits. I will try to get some help tutoring or something for him. Any suggestions?

I imagine he will start at a community college for cost reasons and then transfer into a 4 year. We should be able to get him some community service. We cant do a lot of extra curricular activities because he babysits his sister while wifey and i are at work. But a little bit of basketball should be doable just to get it on the resumee

He will have straight As in high school thats the standard and he will perform there. He will take some AP classes

Is sat better than act for...reasons?

Is there any advice u guys can give about what can help get him as close to a full rode as possible? minus being an athletic superstar because that wont happen

He should figure out what he really likes and become very good at it, and make sure that he's not bad enough at anything (english, foreign language courses, whatever) that it seriously hurts his GPA. Make sure that he has excellent standardized test scores and just enough leadership/athletic/whatever extracurriculars that he superficially looks 'well-rounded' (unless he's genuinely really enthusiastic about one of those, in which case he should go deeper there).

Math? Get into competitive math and start taking advanced math courses (artofproblemsolving.com is a good start there)
Science? Start looking into the big science competitions and the like, look into getting some sort of internship at a local college if possible.
Computer science? Start doing a lot of intro courses/tutorials at Coursera/Codeacademy/whatever. Competitive programming (USACO and the like) is also a good idea.

Where you are/where you want him to go is also relevant here. The above is generic good advice for getting into a top school. But if you have a specific local/state/whatever school in mind they may have some sort of full-ride program with specific criteria and you should optimize around those.

logosanatic
Jan 27, 2015

by FactsAreUseless

blah_blah posted:


He should figure out what he really likes and become very good at it, and make sure that he's not bad enough at anything (english, foreign language courses, whatever) that it seriously hurts his GPA. Make sure that he has excellent standardized test scores and just enough leadership/athletic/whatever extracurriculars that he superficially looks 'well-rounded' (unless he's genuinely really enthusiastic about one of those, in which case he should go deeper there).

Math? Get into competitive math and start taking advanced math courses (artofproblemsolving.com is a good start there)
Science? Start looking into the big science competitions and the like, look into getting some sort of internship at a local college if possible.
Computer science? Start doing a lot of intro courses/tutorials at Coursera/Codeacademy/whatever. Competitive programming (USACO and the like) is also a good idea.

Where you are/where you want him to go is also relevant here. The above is generic good advice for getting into a top school. But if you have a specific local/state/whatever school in mind they may have some sort of full-ride program with specific criteria and you should optimize around those.

Thank you for this response. He likes programming. I will look into those things. He likes basketball but he will just barely be good enough to be on the team. Definitely not team captain or something. Well do some community service.

Ill get him into something that you listed above.

I was also thinking about him starting a phone app programming club. Not sure the feasibility, if it will fail miserably. But sounds like something that could be cool. And since he started it can be captain, president of programming club or whatever it ends up being called. Any ideas about how to make this work? Ill be meeting with the guidance counselor to go into different things this being one of them. But overall is this a completely stupid idea?

Verus
Jun 3, 2011

AUT INVENIAM VIAM AUT FACIAM


I would recommend that you look into colleges that offer full ride/full tuition scholarships to all students who meet certain criteria. Check out the (probably slightly outdated) list in this thread:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html

Note that most of these will require high SAT/ACT scores and a solid GPA (3.5+). A 1700 on the SAT will not be enough. You will need at least 1400-1500 Math+Reading (no one cares about the writing section).



EDIT: It looks like this is a more recent list:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

Verus fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Oct 2, 2015

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Cingulate posted:

Why? Or rather, what do you mean by that?

Everyone should have a realistic opportunity to apply for college and succeed in their studies. That doesn't mean every dumb gently caress will get in, just that your parents' wealth or your skin colour don't predetermine whether you will.

suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Oct 3, 2015

Nissin Cup Nudist
Sep 3, 2011

Sleep with one eye open

We're off to Gritty Gritty land




How does the GRE fit into the testing/college racket?

Less importance because grad school applicants have a resume of cool research behind them or something?

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

DOOP posted:

How does the GRE fit into the testing/college racket?

Less importance because grad school applicants have a resume of cool research behind them or something?

Opinions on it range from "totally useless" to "your second or third most important factor for admission". Either way you probably will have to take it just to say you took it.

CRISPYBABY
Dec 15, 2007

by Reene
I'm just finishing up my masters in Canada and decided not to apply to any PhD schools in the US based on needing to write the math GRE. I guess it's sour grapes a bit and I probably could have done it if I had someone in the US I really wanted to study with, but it's like, oh, cool, I already have a specialization and some research under my belt that's pretty far removed from their favourite testing material. Let's throw that all away and spend two months practising speed solving integrals, that'll be great. And they don't have a testing center in my city.

CRISPYBABY fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Oct 3, 2015

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

DOOP posted:

How does the GRE fit into the testing/college racket?

Less importance because grad school applicants have a resume of cool research behind them or something?

Apply somewhere in a civilised country that doesn't make grad students do even more excruciatingly monotonous exam prep instead.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

blowfish posted:

Everyone should have a realistic opportunity to apply for college and succeed in their studies. ... your parents' wealth or your skin colour don't predetermine whether you will.
These are separate claims. True, the second implies the first, but not vice versa.

Really, everyone?

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Cingulate posted:

These are separate claims. True, the second implies the first, but not vice versa.

Really, everyone?

I'm saying "everyone should have the opportunity to try to get into college (and probably fail) depending on their skill/potential/etc", not "create college places for 100% of the population".

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP
Everyone should get a free lottery ticket.

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


logosanatic posted:

What kind of pretend genius stuff should he be doing to be in position for making a full ride happen? Build a clock and bring it to school in a suitcase? :) People that make it happen what did they do? Probably not wait until junior year of high school. Im assuming preparation and grooming was involved. Is it only atheletes who get full rides?

Nothing, dude, for the most part. You are buying into a myth that is common among people that never went through the scholarship process for themselves - that full scholarships require endless extracurricular nonsense and displays of extraordinary genius, or athletic talent. This simply isn't the case. I did nothing noteworthy to a scholarship committee during high school other than have a high GPA and SAT/ACT scores and received a combination of scholarships that amounted to a full ride on that alone. My statement about the timeframe was personal, not hypothetical - I did not even consider how I was going to pay for college until junior year. If your son scored in the 700s on the math and reading sections of the (P)SAT as a freshman, you literally have nothing to worry about as long as your son maintains a high GPA. He will automatically qualify.

In short; chill.

Effectronica
May 31, 2011
Fallen Rib

Cingulate posted:

These are separate claims. True, the second implies the first, but not vice versa.

Really, everyone?

Why not? Should universities simply be an annex of corporations?

Typo
Aug 19, 2009

Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes

Jazerus posted:

Nothing, dude, for the most part. You are buying into a myth that is common among people that never went through the scholarship process for themselves - that full scholarships require endless extracurricular nonsense and displays of extraordinary genius, or athletic talent. This simply isn't the case. I did nothing noteworthy to a scholarship committee during high school other than have a high GPA and SAT/ACT scores and received a combination of scholarships that amounted to a full ride on that alone. My statement about the timeframe was personal, not hypothetical - I did not even consider how I was going to pay for college until junior year. If your son scored in the 700s on the math and reading sections of the (P)SAT as a freshman, you literally have nothing to worry about as long as your son maintains a high GPA. He will automatically qualify.

In short; chill.

So basically what you are saying is I probably lost shitloads of money back when I was applying to college

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Effectronica posted:

Why not? Should universities simply be an annex of corporations?
What should universities be?

See http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3743911&pagenumber=4&perpage=40#post450858574

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Cingulate posted:

What should universities be?

The academic means to reproduction.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

blowfish posted:

The academic means to reproduction.
I think this may conflict with your earlier answer.

GenderSelectScreen
Mar 7, 2010

I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME
College Slice

Cingulate posted:

What should universities be?

A bitchin' place for parties

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Cingulate posted:

I think this may conflict with your earlier answer.

what do you mean you had no sex in college

NoNotTheMindProbe
Aug 9, 2010
pony porn was here
I'm fairly sure the Ivy League system in the USA is meant to act as a gatekeeper for upward social mobility to ensure no real disruptive elements are able to acquire political and economic power. In that sense the SAT/ACT admission system is working according to design.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

NoNotTheMindProbe posted:

I'm fairly sure the Ivy League system in the USA is meant to act as a gatekeeper for upward social mobility to ensure no real disruptive elements are able to acquire political and economic power. In that sense the SAT/ACT admission system is working according to design.

The Ivy Leagues are about the last people who care about the SAT.

Typo
Aug 19, 2009

Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes

Hitlers Gay Secret posted:

A bitchin' place for parties

This might be unironically pretty true since the true benefits of university is networking with other people who are going to be in your industry

Bruegels Fuckbooks
Sep 14, 2004

Now, listen - I know the two of you are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but you have to understand that as far as Grandpa's concerned, you're both pieces of shit! Yeah. I can prove it mathematically.

computer parts posted:

The Ivy Leagues are about the last people who care about the SAT.

yeah man as long as applicants get mid 700's on both the math and the reading and score like 99% nationally the ivy league schools don't care about the SAT.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:

yeah man as long as applicants get mid 700's on both the math and the reading and score like 99% nationally the ivy league schools don't care about the SAT.

They invented the "do stuff outside of testing so non-Jews people with a more diverse background get in".

The amount of demand they have relative to the seats they have to fill means that your chances are marginally better with literally a perfect SAT score, but not much.

Getting into an Ivy League school is always going to be like winning the lottery (where some people can buy lots of lottery tickets all at once), it's not a typical case you should focus on.

computer parts fucked around with this message at 13:24 on Oct 10, 2015

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Typo posted:

This might be unironically pretty true since the true benefits of university is networking with other people who are going to be in your industry
Somehow, everyone interprets the question "what do you think universities should be?" as "what's your (cynical) take on the actual social function of universities?".

Horseshoe theory
Mar 7, 2005

Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:

yeah man as long as applicants get mid 700's on both the math and the reading and score like 99% nationally the ivy league schools don't care about the SAT.

I don't think George W. Bush did that and he got into Yale just fine (because legacies are a big thing).

Ogmius815
Aug 25, 2005
centrism is a hell of a drug

Legacies only really matter for people with names like "Bush".

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP
Also, as a reminder - the Ivy Leagues as a whole enroll about 60,000 undergraduates (35,000 if you exclude Cornell and UPenn). Assuming they're all 4 year graduates, that means that 15,000 students are admitted every year. By comparison, about 3 million kids will graduate high school.

Current trends have about 40% of 18-24 year olds in college (and trending upwards), so this means at least 1.2 million students will be admitted to college. 15,000 of 1.2 million is about 1.3%. Even if everything is perfectly equal (and this is ignoring international students and the like), it's a very very small portion of seats to be focused on.

Xandu
Feb 19, 2006


It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Ogmius815 posted:

Legacies only really matter for people with names like "Bush".

Or at prep schools, which serve as feeder schools into the ivies.

Ogmius815
Aug 25, 2005
centrism is a hell of a drug

Because of circumstances I won't reveal (someone dedicated enough could already basically figure out who I am based on my post history, but I don't need to make it easier) I know loads of kids who went to Ivy League and other elite colleges (I myself went to a very old Northeastern private university that I nonetheless would never describe as "elite") and, while some of them are quite nice, most of them are horrid little future yuppie ladder climbers who worship wealth and authority. They think they're better than the last batch of horrid ladder-climbing fucks because they think gay people should have the same rights as other people; obviously they should, but that's a pretty low bar for social justice huh? I have very little faith in the young generation, our future leaders will turn out to be the same kind of horribly greedy, bellicose bastards that have been loving up the world for millennia. The only differences will be marginal progress on liberal identity politics issue and there will be trigger warnings everywhere.

Ogmius815 fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Oct 11, 2015

Milk Malk
Sep 17, 2015

Ogmius815 posted:

Because of circumstances I won't reveal (someone dedicated enough could already basically figure out who I am based on my post history, but I don't need to make it easier) I know loads of kids who went to Ivy League and other elite colleges (I myself went to a very old Northeastern private university that I nonetheless would never describe as "elite") and, while some of them are quite nice, most of them are horrid little future yuppie ladder climbers who worship wealth and authority. They think they're better than the last batch of horrid ladder-climbing fucks because they think gay people should have the same rights as other people; obviously they should, but that's a pretty low bar for social justice huh? I have very little faith in the young generation, our future leaders will turn out to be the same kind of horribly greedy, bellicose bastards that have been loving up the world for millennia. The only differences will be marginal progress on liberal identity politics issue and there will be trigger warnings everywhere.
Hmm, yes I agree. Same. Except, I would describe the very old Northeastern private university I went to as "elite." Also, it was Harvard. I went to Harvard. But other than that, totally same experience.

Ogmius815
Aug 25, 2005
centrism is a hell of a drug

Milk Malk posted:

Hmm, yes I agree. Same. Except, I would describe the very old Northeastern private university I went to as "elite." Also, it was Harvard. I went to Harvard. But other than that, totally same experience.

I went to college in Boston. Well, not in Boston, but nearby. No, not Tufts...

Ogmius815 fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Oct 11, 2015

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gameFAQsspinoffETI
Oct 4, 2015

by Lowtax
Does Hampshire college actually give a poo poo about any "admissions criteria" beyond being able to shell out $50,000+/year for tuition? Never met anyone from there that wasn't a snobby drug abuser

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