Let's Talk About College

[madviking]

One last thing

Apply to a bunch of schools

Don't listen to that nonsense of "1 reach school, 3 main schools, and 2 backups". I suggest you apply to 5+ reach schools, another 5+ on the level, and maybe a backup or two. I applied to 12 schools, my older brother to 22 (he ended up at an Ivy), my sister like 14 or so (she ended up at my school but with the top academic scholarship), and my little brother like 7 (he was very focused so didn't apply Uzi-style and now goes to a top tier school but specifically a program more competitive to get into than any single school).

I disagree. It's hard to be truly interested in more than ten schools, and if you get taken to the woodshed on admissions, you could end up going to some crappy school you have no interest in going, making your college experience pretty crappy.

I'd say only to schools you want to go to. What I say to '12ers is to not apply to a school for the sake of applying there, e.g. don't apply to Ivys because you want to go to one. Let's say that you wanna go to an Ivy. You apply to all eight, but your #1 is Columbia. Sadly, you get rejected from all of them save Dartmouth. Now, you don't need to be an Ivy League to realize that Columbia and Dartmouth are completely different. One is in New York City. The other is in Bumscrew, New Hampshire (no offense to Hanover... it's a great college town, but it is literally in the middle of nowhere).

So apply to JUST Columbia if that is your only school of interest.

In my case, I didn't really wanna go out of state (parents wouldn't have paid more than in-state). Furthermore, the school I wanted to go to had to have a good engineering program. So that kinda left two: UVa and VT.

Spoiler extraneous stuff :

Now, I broke my own rule by applying to VT; I had no interest in going there. My stats weren't exactly enough to guarantee my acceptance into UVa, so applying to VT was a safety move. As much as I didn't want to go to VT, it was better than not going anywhere.

I ended up getting into both, and now go to UVa.

Now, methinks you can be more liberal with applying to college than I was (assuming your financial situation is better than mine), but still, apply only to schools you could see yourself going to. Not to mention, applying to 10+ schools can be a lot of work and a lot of headaches. So be careful where you go.

 

[Hygro]

I've a simple question for you. Why? Applying isn't free.

Because spending an extra 500 dollars is worth getting the best opportunity for the next 80,000-200,000 dollars you will spend in the next few years.

Because even a valedictorian with 750 on every SAT section and a 4.6 GPA with 5s on loads of AP tests and was a solid athlete still only has about a 15% chance of getting into Harvard so she might also consider applying to the other top dozen schools in the country and have an over 90% chance of getting into one of them.

Because the more schools you get into the more you are a free agent and can complete for scholarship money. Also the more chances you have of getting scholarships offered.

 

[Hygro]

I disagree. It's hard to be truly interested in more than ten schools, and if you get taken to the woodshed on admissions, you could end up going to some crappy school you have no interest in going, making your college experience pretty crappy.

I'd say only to schools you want to go to. What I say to '12ers is to not apply to a school for the sake of applying there, e.g. don't apply to Ivys because you want to go to one. Let's say that you wanna go to an Ivy. You apply to all eight, but your #1 is Columbia. Sadly, you get rejected from all of them save Dartmouth. Now, you don't need to be an Ivy League to realize that Columbia and Dartmouth are completely different. One is in New York City. The other is in Bumscrew, New Hampshire (no offense to Hanover... it's a great college town, but it is literally in the middle of nowhere).

So apply to JUST Columbia if that is your only school of interest.

In my case, I didn't really wanna go out of state (parents wouldn't have paid more than in-state). Furthermore, the school I wanted to go to had to have a good engineering program. So that kinda left two: UVa and VT.

Spoiler extraneous stuff :

Now, I broke my own rule by applying to VT; I had no interest in going there. My stats weren't exactly enough to guarantee my acceptance into UVa, so applying to VT was a safety move. As much as I didn't want to go to VT, it was better than not going anywhere.

I ended up getting into both, and now go to UVa.

Now, methinks you can be more liberal with applying to college than I was (assuming your financial situation is better than mine), but still, apply only to schools you could see yourself going to. Not to mention, applying to 10+ schools can be a lot of work and a lot of headaches. So be careful where you go.

First off, Domination is not a standard candidate is a complete wild card to an admissions office. He's a smart and interesting kid with a lot to offer and a terrible GPA. I actually applied to 14 schools not 12 (will edit my other post later) and got into 8 of them. They did not align to how competitive they were to get in because I too was a wild card. I only got into big schools, and randomly almost Pomona (oh so close, forever bothers me).

In fact one my most behind back up school (Occidental College) rejected me.

He shouldn't run the risk of applying to a small number.

Secondly, yes, you are right, only apply to schools you would go to. But sometimes you don't know what you want until you get there. My older brother went to Brown. He went in as a physics major. He was going to be a theoretical physicist. He wanted to go to Caltech or MIT. Thank god he didn't. He found a much greater passion towards a newer major they built, Commerce, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship (COE) which was an econ-sociology-engineering-entrepreneurship-business hybrid that was the jam for him. But going into college he thought a major like that would be boring and stupid.

He applied to Brown because I think my dad suggested it to him. I applied to Berkeley because my mother wouldn't not let me given that I was already applying to other UCs. I'm really glad I went to Berkeley. Older brother is really glad he went to Brown. Had he not been pushed to apply to a bunch of east-coast private schools he probably would have gone one of the UCs, which, if you know him, wouldn't have been the best pick. But he didn't know any better as a teenager.

I think the advice to be more selective and not to just "end up" somewhere is true, which is why you don't apply to a bunch of backups. Only the backups you secretly want to go to. But unless it's graduate school where it's either your favorite pick or bust, apply to anywhere you think you will be challenged and could be happy.

 

[madviking]

First off, Domination is not a standard candidate is a complete wild card to an admissions office. He's a smart and interesting kid with a lot to offer and a terrible GPA.

I can guarantee you he ain't the only one.

Secondly, yes, you are right, only apply to schools you would go to. But sometimes you don't know what you want until you get there. My older brother went to Brown. He went in as a physics major. He was going to be a theoretical physicist. He wanted to go to Caltech or MIT. Thank god he didn't. He found a much greater passion towards a newer major they built, Commerce, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship (COE) which was an econ-sociology-engineering-entrepreneurship-business hybrid that was the jam for him. But going into college he thought a major like that would be boring and stupid.

Alas my advice is moot if you weren't dead-set on a college major like I was.

But what I said about specific programs still applies. You should make sure that the college you're applying has at least a decent program in major X. Some universities may not even have department Y in which major X is in. While this isn't a problem at big, land-grant schools, you should definitely research into the schools you're applying to: College Prowler, friends at the specific college, what random people write on the internet (coughcoughgotouvacoughcough), what have you. What you said about the specific program at Brown is what I'm thinking; think about what you'd do your four years. Think about worse-case scenarios, e.g., you hate the major, you find something new interesting. But the problem with college is that it is pretty chaotic so this isn't as easy as it sounds.

Again, this is moot since I'm an engineer, and that is more problematic than a creative writing/history major.

 

[Archbob]

For Unweighted:

A - 4
B - 3
C -2
D -1
F - You Fail

So I had like a 3.85 unweighted coming out of HS, 4.3 weighted where AP classes had 5's as A's.

You want mostly A's and the rest B's.

First off, Domination is not a standard candidate is a complete wild card to an admissions office. He's a smart and interesting kid with a lot to offer and a terrible GPA.

Admission offices don't care, they get tens of thousands of applications each year. The first thing they consider is GPA and SAT.

 

[Hygro]

Admission offices don't care, they get tens of thousands of applications each year. The first thing they consider is GPA and SAT.

Schools that are both more selective and more confident in their reputation care more about your personal statement than they do about your GPA or SAT. Your SAT classifies you more than your GPA does so that's important too. While admission offices tend to rip through applications, they often do consider every part. If there's any doubt, you can always visit the admissions office to make sure or send one of the officers a personal and thought out, short email to confirm. I actually did that with UCSB and went from having my application nearly unread and in the auto-reject pile to getting into their most competitive program (more competitive than the school I go to). There's a reason people with low GPAs, no legacy, and low test scores occasionally get into top flight schools and it's because their personal statement was excellent, and got read.

 

[Ajidica]

Just entered college, my advice:
1. Always state your intended major on any essay/interview/application/what have you. You WILL change your major at least three times before you settle on it, but putting something down will show you at least have put some thought into it. Unless if you are truely exceptional in either your extracurriculars, grades, essay, or life story, most admission offices will just throw away any application that lists "undecided".
2. AP Classes are nice. They show you are dedicated and if you get a 5 on all of them (like I did) you are almost assured at least some college credits which can give you a cushion if you have alot going on or are going to study abroad.
3. Volunteer. My application was probably unique in that I spend 4 years volunteering extensively at the Historical Society rather then your more common "Church, FMSC, and mandatory school stuff". Plus you might be able to get a nice scholarship out of the deal.
4. Bigger schools, more opportunities. Generaly the larger and more urban a school is, the more opportunities there are to try different things and to talk to professionals. Sometimes a school is far too big (like the University of Minnesota), so choose what you feel comfortable in.
5. Stay organized! Keep a list of what you liked about each school, didn't like, and thought was interesting after you visit it. Set up a calendar with dates things have to be submitted by. My mom kept track of this and it was very, very, useful.
6.Essays are important. Don't blow them off like I did. If I had put more work into it, I probably could have gotten a nicer scholarship.
7. Visit all the schools in the area, even if you aren't serious about them. Visiting them at least gives you practice for how to handle interviews, what to look for, and what to ask without the danger of messing up on a school you might want to go to. Also, just visit the schools. The university I am currently attending, I never even wanted to visit! My mom dragged me here because she wanted me to "know what I was saying no to".
8. Talk to teachers, adults, everyone about what they know of colleges.
9. Don't remain too far in your comfort zone. Going to a massive city college would probably be traumatic for you, given your background in homeschooling but don't select a tiny bible-basher college geared to homeschoolers just because it feels most like what you are used to.

If you have any questions, just ask them.
(Of couse, if you ever do come out to Minnesota to look at college, let me know.)

 

[Hygro]

I think that's really good advice, Ajidica.

Don't ever go "meta". They want you to demonstrate passion and dedication, not pseudo-maturity that you're going to change your major because that's what you hear people do. My example is obvious, but it translates to a lot.

 

[GoodGame]

Questions:

1. Is AP History making me more likely to get a Scholarship? (Presumably yes.) And how much so?

2. To get into a decent college (Not some kind of Ivy League school, but somewhere I can get a decent education) about what kind of grades do I need, at minimum? What about for a scholarship at said colleges?

3. I've been considering perhaps taking an Honors science next year (Definitely NOT an honors Math, Regents is tough enough there) and how much would doing so help me? With my grades as I said above, would it be worth it or good for me to do so?

4. Assuming I'm going to do only the Minimum amount of Math that I have too in college (I'm going to go for a degree in creative writing, history or law) how difficult would college Math be?

5. And with the above, can I at least dabble in all three of those (Presumably, I'd want to minor in creative writing as I don't want to make a career out of it, get a Bachelor's in History, and a Master's in Law, or something along those lines, how this all works is something that I want to know) could I do so in 6-8 years? (Keep in mind I'm probably taking 2 college level histories next year as well.)

6. Any other random information you think I should know?[/B]

Sounds like you identified History as your strength, and I agree that you should complement that with writing skills. I'd keep taking Spanish, as foreign language proficiency will also reflect well on applications.

You probably will need to take to math to a Calculus level I, unless you are going community college, so I recommend you start aiming for that now. It will make it more bearable once you take that in college.

Overall, I'd recommend developing yourself as a well-rounded person (at least decent in all areas, mostly Bs and As and not below a B-minus) with some clear strengths to focus on, for you college applications. That will help you keep your GPA up while burning through your degree's pre-requisites. You might even start talking to a college adviser/counselor at a school you are interested in, now, to find out what your anticipated History degree will force on you in terms of pre-requisites. That should at least be available online for the History department of your school. Then be motivated by your pre-reqs now, to know that you won't just pass out of the stuff in high school and not have to see it again in college. Strive now so college is easier, and easier to get into.

Also start applying early to scholarships, at least preparing for the ones you will try to get. They usually aren't last minute things to apply for, but draw upon your entire high school experience.

Also take a look at how you'll apply for FAFSA and other Federal loans/grants.

 

[Hygro]

I would say take math to pre-calc and call it a game. My childhood best friend turned down Cal to go to UCLA and he stopped at pre-calc. My little brother I think did pre-calc and did stats instead of calc.

 

[Ajidica]

Definately do pre-calc. Some schools, like the UoM Carlson School of Management, require you to take pre-calc and physics in HS.

 

[Syterion]

fastweb.com

Lots of scholarships there. I got one of mine from there.

I must recommend certain things, as I just did this process, and when I did, I devoured all knowledge about it and it worked fairly well.

Take the hardest classes you can. Colleges are in general looking for kids that are more likely to graduate, and AP courses are much more indicative of that than SAT's. Every colleges but the ultra rich ones are struggling more now, so they want matriculated students that will stay in school.

Of course, if you have the ability to get into those ultra rich schools, I highly recommend going. You talk about scholarships a lot, I assume you need some financial help. Top schools have need-blind applications, which means they do not consider your financial need in their decision, and they guarantee enough aid to cover the amount prescribed by your FAFSA. These schools have the resources to cover you at school usually from prestige, which indicates a level of perceived quality (which matters as well as actual quality, which is nigh-impossible to measure anyway).

Now, I don't know where you're from, and that matters. You say you get mostly A's and B's, with a C in math. In most areas of the country, that will not be enough to get into an elite school or a good state school from out of state. This may relegate you to your state school, which you may not want to be at. If you are in a wealthy area with great schools (suburban eastern Mass, suburban southern California, Westchester NY, Fairfax VA), you can get into a nice school with those grades. Otherwise, nationally, you want something else major on your resume besides grades.

College level math doesn't have to be too hard. Your major's math reqs will probably be negligible and a lot of schools have easy math classes that you can take that fulfill the requirement. At my school there was an easy crytography class for liberal arts kids.

A Bachelors and Master's in Law can be done in 8 years if you do everything right. You are going to have to graduate something early, though. Bachelors is 4 years, a JD is 3, and a Masters in Law is 2. You're probably going to want to get in a combined JD LLM program.

Ask me more specific questions if you want. I remember I used to know the percentage needed for a 5 on every AP test I took. I even posted one of my college essays here (people gave great feedback). I was thorough. Ask away.

 

[JollyRoger]

Having worked a job while I was in high school helped me on both admissions and paying.

 

[downtown]

1. Is AP History making me more likely to get a Scholarship? (Presumably yes.) And how much so?

A scholarship? What classes you TAKE doesn't actually have a huge impact on your scholarship situation...what is important is your performance. You should take the most challenging courseload you can that you think you can reasonably complete. If you can get a A in an AP class, or get at least a four on the test, you should take it. If you can pass an AP test, it can only help you. It doesn't help you if you get a D.

2. To get into a decent college (Not some kind of Ivy League school, but somewhere I can get a decent education) about what kind of grades do I need, at minimum? What about for a scholarship at said colleges?

You're going to want to get to 3.5 if you can, although a a GPA in the mid 3s won't kill you if you have a strong other portfolio (and you aren't going for an elite college). You'd be surprised though, you can actually get a decent education at lower-tier public universities that may be flat out open enrollment.

3. I've been considering perhaps taking an Honors science next year (Definitely NOT an honors Math, Regents is tough enough there) and how much would doing so help me? With my grades as I said above, would it be worth it or good for me to do so?

Again, you should take the hardest classes that you would actually do well with. There is no point in taking an exceptionally hard class if you don't have the pre-req knowledge...better to do well in a slightly lower math class. Depending on your major and university, you may not have to take a formal math class again after HS.

4. Assuming I'm going to do only the Minimum amount of Math that I have too in college (I'm going to go for a degree in creative writing, history or law) how difficult would college Math be?

.

I'm not a gifted math student either, and I took a statistics class and a logic class (I was a political science major at Ohio State). I had no AP math credit coming into school, but like Integral said, larger universities often have diverse enough courses that you can satisfy a math requirement without calc. You should take logic anyway...it was one of the most useful classes I took in school.

5. And with the above, can I at least dabble in all three of those (Presumably, I'd want to minor in creative writing as I don't want to make a career out of it, get a Bachelor's in History, and a Master's in Law, or something along those lines, how this all works is something that I want to know) could I do so in 6-8 years? (Keep in mind I'm probably taking 2 college level histories next year as well.

Dabble in what? You can take a lot of different classes in college. What you take in high school, in the long run, really doesn't matter that much. You're prob going to change your major at least once in college, so don't sweat tailoring your HS coursework to it.

Also, what admission offices do and don't do really depends a lot on the school. My sister worked admissions for a pretty competitive private college (Case Western Reserve), and they had a HUGE book on every high school in the state, plus high schools nationwide where they had "pipelines"...so they can judge the relative worth of your GPA and class rank. They also spent a *lot* of time on the personal statements. I think, very generally speaking, Hygro is right in that selective schools have the luxury of paying more attention to the non-number metrics.

I think it is VERY important to make sure you application is strong outside of your GPA/SAT/ACT. I got into some great schools (certainly better than my GPA would have afforded me to) because I was a great musician, and held multiple leadership posts in my community. I actually got into my original college on a music scholarship. Great extras can easily make up for some GPA sins, especially if your crappy grades are in subjects outside of your interest.

My big regret was not applying to more colleges. I only applied to six, and got into all of them, but it would have been nice to have more options. In the end, it turned out fine, because Ohio State was a great fit for me, academically, financially, socially, and family wise, but I think other options would have been good as well.

 

[Hygro]

The above 3 posts are really good.

A really ambitious plan, one that probably won't happen, would be to move, now, to a state with the public school system you want to go to, so as to get better admission chances and lower tuition.

 

[downtown]

I've a simple question for you. Why? Applications aren't free.

Depending on the school, your grades and your geography, you can get those application fees refunded. I didn't pay for a single one of my applications.

As for Hygro's suggestion, it may be too late for that anyway, depending on how a state determines residency (it's sometimes more than a year, so you can't just parachute in your senior year). To be honest though, given what you want to study, there isn't a big difference between the 26th ranked school and the 80th. Almost every state in the US has at least one *good* land grant school.

 

[Antilogic]

I am so mad because I just wrote out a long post and it got lost when I hit the "Go Advanced" button. Should have drafted in Notepad.

In any case, there are a lot of good posts above, so I will probably echo their advice a little bit while recounting my own experience with the college application process, and some do's and don'ts that I learned along the way. I'm assuming people reading this thread for advice are not legacies and so they will have to fight like I did to get into the top schools.

My family was middle-rung as far as wealth goes, and since I was not a star athlete nor a targeted minority, financial help was not seeking me out--I had to go after it. While places like Fastweb were helpful for finding a bunch of potential scholarships, not all of them are going to be good fits for your resume. I tried several essay contests, and managed to win a couple of them (I remember I got some money from my elementary school and some from my Dad's workplace, another tiny one, maybe $3k total). Given the huge number of scholarships out there, I would pick which ones I apply to carefully. If you can't fill out every line on the application (i.e. you are thinking about the Atlanta Braves scholarship but haven't participated in a varsity team sport during high school, or maybe you don't have the right type of community service activities), don't bother applying to it. Instead, use that time to find another scholarship that fits your background. Although the high school's counselors were a good place to start, just about everybody applied to the scholarships they knew about, so you have to do a little digging to find the ones where there will be fewer applicants (and so you have a better chance of rising to the top).

Also, the scholarship search does not stop at the end of high school. I got my biggest scholarship in my Junior year of undergrad, $5k per year until I graduated. It was a technical scholarship, and you could only apply after being in college for at least a full year. This was a great help because my younger brother entered college that year, and so my parents could start taking loans out for him instead of me.

While having a solid GPA and above average SAT/ACT scores, a few AP classes and 4s or 5s on the exams, maybe a SAT II subject test (I never took these because our engineering department didn't care to look at them, but the departments you are applying to might) will get the attention of the school, it's often not enough to close the deal. You need to stand out from the rest of the crowd, and having a well-written personal statement, many extracurricular or community service activities, working over your summers or doing academic activities during that period, etc., can make you stand out. If you are a freshman or sophomore in high school and you are reading this, join any club you might like at your school, and stick with it. That shows dedication and commitment. If you are already a junior, you can still sign up now and have two years. Community service is always a good thing to have on your resume (like the Beta or Key Club), I consider it an unofficial requirement for applying to any top-ranked school.

What is important to remember is that no matter what stereotype of nerd you associate college with, the admissions office is looking for well-balanced people who can handle academics, being an active member of their community, and a new and very distracting social life. You need to show them you have not only the academic skills, but that you can handle the independence that comes along with it.

Finally, a caveat: I'm an engineer, so my experience will likely be much different than if you are applying to medical school, a law degree, or a creative writing major. If anyone has questions for the scientific or engineering degrees, feel free to ask me. Also, I don't know if anyone is considering graduate school here (Masters or PhD), but I could answer questions here as well.

 

[GhostWriter16]

I was half unschooled, half homeschooled for 9th and 10th grade

I finished high school with a degree but I never actually completed high school. I think I had the credits of a sophomore. As a freshman admit I got into the most competitive public school in the world. I was very methodical in my approach and I think I know a couple of things.

Domination3000, your grades are poor, but that won't stop you. AP History is good, an A in it is good, but you need to score high on the test. You said you could do upward algebra 1 in your head. Excellent. I suspect you might have good test taking skills.

Here's what you need to do:
Testing: enroll in a Princeton review SAT prep course. Practice your ass off. I studied 35-40 hours a week for the SAT 1 reasoning test for 2 months following my course, and about the same for the SAT II subject test but for 1 month (I took them a month apart). For the SAT II subject tests, take History and either Literature or Spanish. Buy the princton review literature book, and the both the Princeton Review and the Kaplan history books..

This is a matter of practice
Here's how you study. After school everyday you take half of an SAT test. Use a timer, be strict. Do the practice essay when you do the practice test and use the template provided by the princeton review book. Your intro should read similarly (There are five sentences in the intro, they are applicable to any topic. There are two supporting examples. They do not need to be true, they need to be logical. etc) score yourself brutally.

On Saturday and Sunday do a full test each day.
After you finish each test, immediately score it. Scoring your test and reading why you got your answers wrong is one of the most important parts.

Doing this rose my score from an attrociously low 1580 on my first practice exam to a dramatically improved (but still disappointing for me) score of 2110. I got an 11 on the essay.

When doing the subject tests:
For history: read the princton review book first. It gives you the perspective and the narrative. The Kaplan book gives you the data. Read this book constantly. There's a family photo of me at thanksgiving. I am holding the Kaplan book. I got an 800 on that test.

For literature. The princeton review literature book will teach you everything you need. It's a brutal book. The author is an idiot and gets some of her own questions wrong. When you do the practice tests, if you are like me or my little brother, you will score about 100-200 points lower than when you actually take the test. Something about the book really improves your game. I knew none of the literature I was tested on, and this book saved my butt.

Personal Statement:
The personal statement/essay is huge. Don't kid yourself, this is the most important part of your application. This becomes increasingly true when a school's reputation is secure and they are looking to take risks on potentially extraordinary candidates. In your personal statement you are asked and expected to present your best side. Don't be humble. Don't be obnoxious, of course, but say it all.

You need to identify what makes you unique and what challenges you have overcome. The key word here is "overcome". You were homeschooled and behind. You will catch up working extra hard. This shows your potential. You need to sell yourself as a leader, which means someone who will take initiative and succeed regardless of not only where you go to college, but whether or not you even do.

You want to write about how you are a learned, self-educating person (you could include a reference about reading lots of books, respected newspapers, etc) who will contribute. What are you going to give. Who are you and what do you have to give?

Before you write your essay you need to write a self-brag sheet. Write everything possibly cool about yourself. I wrote a huge one that I referenced for my essay.

Once you write your essay, edit it and re-edit it over and over until you think it's rock solid and true for you. Be smart about every word.

Pick words that engender positive feelings. Express gratitude. Even when talking about negative things think about the connotations of your language and how people emotionally react to those words. This is especially important because you will have your essay skimmed.

Your essay will be read and decided upon in under a minute. Maybe in 15 seconds. But it's the most important thing in your application. That and your scores. Grades matter but they matter the least.




Getting a C- in Calc looks better to a top school than capping out with an A+ in Algebra II. That said it's very important to try for all A's. An A is expected. A "B" is forgivable but dings you, a C is outright harmful. However my little brother got into every school I did and more and had some C's.

Half an SAT every day?

Even if I were going to do that, how the heck would I GET half an SAT test to take everyday?

Outside of Math, my grades really aren't poor. I don't think I have any C's or worse.

 

[Hygro]

You do that for a month. If you take a course it should come with a book with at least 11 practice exams, and you should be able to pull up an extra couple. The month before that you are studying vocab and concepts and just doing drills. Sorry I wrote it a bit wrong.

But seriously doing that will give you a killer score.

 

[GhostWriter16]

The above 3 posts are really good.

A really ambitious plan, one that probably won't happen, would be to move, now, to a state with the public school system you want to go to, so as to get better admission chances and lower tuition.

This one's not actually possible for me