<p>Really, how is the school?
My father attended in his final years (graduated in 89'). For an undergraduate degree, I plan to apply to this school among other state schools with very satisfactory prices. I plan to enter as Undecided. Eventually, I'll probably will focus on a liberal arts degree. </p>
<p>When I visit the campus in January, any suggestions?
How are the professors? Do Teaching Assistants dominate? If so, is it a huge negative?
Do you recommend the school overall? </p>
<p>Chance me, also, please
Current statistics:</p>
<p>93.6 weighted 96 weighted and growing (I should have taken more AP classes and focused more during my freshman year)</p>
<p>66/576 class rank (growing)
Only 4 AP's (3 of which are in my senior year)
2 College classes (senior year)
Most of all other classes are the standard honor classes </p>
<p>SAT:
63 CR 58 M 64 W
Combined total: 1850
Decent for the school, but the Math is low. I've only taken the SAT twice. I don't think I have time to take it again.</p>
<p>Extracurricular:</p>
<p>9th-12th
Member of competitive dance team (on average has consumed greater than 8 hours a week)</p>
<p>9th-11th
Student choregraphed, award-winning tap dance soloist </p>
<p>I think it’s hard to answer your questions without knowing what department(s) you’ll be taking most of your classes in. For example, the Computer Science department has 0 classes taught by TAs. However, many of the other classes I had were taught by TAs/had TAs doing most of the work. </p>
<p>I assume that this was due to them being large general education classes that students of all majors take. Professors and structure of classes in general differ depending on the department, so it’s hard to give a general answer about quality of professors/what TAs do.</p>
<p>I don’t like classes taught by TAs and they do exist. It seems like the more advanced a class is, the less likely a TA exists/does much work. However, you could probably make it through a 4 year degree, depending on your major, without having any TA taught classes if you pick your classes well.</p>
<p>By the way, if you liked working on your school newspaper/are interested in journalism, the Princeton Review recently ranked our newspaper the 20th best college paper right after Cornell’s.</p>
<p>Sooo going in undecided would most likely lead to Teaching Assistants until I determine my major.</p>
<p>And Journalism sounds really great, it would be an excellent opportunity for me to get involved and that’s an impressive ranking. Thanks for the information.</p>
<ol>
<li>As previously states, TAs depend on the department, class size, and class level. </li>
<li>I’ve haven’t minded my TA classes. If you have decent ones, they are pretty good people who genuinely love their subjects. I’ve used one for recommendations as well. Some classes are purely taught by grad students who have a major interest in the subject (those classes are generally excellent- I’ve taken two like this- and are definitely comparable to regular professor taught classes).</li>
<li>Professors vary by everything, even within the classes they teach… Of the ones I’ve taken, I’ve only had two or three bad experiences, the rest were pretty darn good. </li>
<li>I love Bing.</li>
</ol>
<p>Also good shot for sure.</p>
<p>And as for working on newspapers, you can also work on some of the smaller, opinion oriented magazines as well for more experience.</p>