2009-04-18, 05:10 AM
I currently am attending Colorado School of Mines ... one of only 2 schools in the country to offer my major as an undergraduate engineering degree. Bleh, nobody appreciates geophysics...
My original list was like...A&M, UT, NYU, SCAD, CSM. I went to UNT for junior/senior high school years for a highschool-esque program, got my 60 hours of college credit (even better than AP credit because it is much easier to transfer and no stupid AP tests required). I ended up only applying for UT and CSM.
Just so you know, Texas schools suck because of the whole top 10% thing. My high school was about 200 seniors, and only a handful got into UT because of that lame rule. We aren't ranked so there wasn't a top 10% for us. They had to reject us because of so many stupid incoming freshman are in the top 10% of their hodonky schools. I got accepted to the geology department but wanted to come to CO. =)
As for MIT...a good thing to have if you are considering doing that is to get into research. About 5 people from my school got accept (I think) and they all had extensive research hours, Goldwater scholarships, stuff like that. I dunno how easy it is to get involved in research in normal high schools (since we were on a college campus we had professors in the labs doing stuff), but I know I have had friends join the medical societies at their schools and find "ins" at the local hospitals and such. But really, doesn't matter how much community service, AP credits, SAT scores, whatever--they want you to prove yourself in the real world.
My original list was like...A&M, UT, NYU, SCAD, CSM. I went to UNT for junior/senior high school years for a highschool-esque program, got my 60 hours of college credit (even better than AP credit because it is much easier to transfer and no stupid AP tests required). I ended up only applying for UT and CSM.
Just so you know, Texas schools suck because of the whole top 10% thing. My high school was about 200 seniors, and only a handful got into UT because of that lame rule. We aren't ranked so there wasn't a top 10% for us. They had to reject us because of so many stupid incoming freshman are in the top 10% of their hodonky schools. I got accepted to the geology department but wanted to come to CO. =)
As for MIT...a good thing to have if you are considering doing that is to get into research. About 5 people from my school got accept (I think) and they all had extensive research hours, Goldwater scholarships, stuff like that. I dunno how easy it is to get involved in research in normal high schools (since we were on a college campus we had professors in the labs doing stuff), but I know I have had friends join the medical societies at their schools and find "ins" at the local hospitals and such. But really, doesn't matter how much community service, AP credits, SAT scores, whatever--they want you to prove yourself in the real world.