<p>I'm not from Beijing but I go there all the time since I've some relatives there. </p>
<p>Yeah I really hope that I can go back this summer but my mom was complaining about how expensive the flight tickets are.</p>
<p>I went back last summer. They were about 800-900 I think for Air China. It was the cheaper one, the service was kinda bleh~. Got delayed for 3-4 hours both times back and forth.</p>
<p>AA is cheap if you want tickets thisyear.... but the overall price is skyrocketed..</p>
<p>Yeah true, I want to go back sometime in the spring or winter but winter and spring breaks here are just so short.</p>
<p>totally agreed.. i am going back this year..lol... i am so excited...!! all the good food~~~i love china!!!</p>
<p>Same here lol I love shopping in China too, it's cheap and alot of fun =)</p>
<p>This is like my only free summer (summer before 1st year of college)</p>
<p>I will never back to China until I finish my high school.
This summer will be another vacation without vacation, I hate to tell you guys this, my mom doesn't want to visit my relatives in China until I get into a great college, especially ivies, she loves them deeply.</p>
<p>wow, that's crazy.
yeah, my dad was kind of like that before, now he keeps on praising my safety school for its honors programs and cheaper tuitions.
this really takes a lot of pressure off my shoulders...</p>
<p>If my parents could change their opinions, that will be nice. But they encourage me to apply fin. aid so that they won't be so stressful for my tuitions.</p>
<p>yeah I know what you mean Fallinwater, my parents care too much about reputation but even more than money. They didn't let me plan my China trip until I got my MIT acceptance letter. It's gonna be a lot of money and you'll want me to work alot over the summer too.</p>
<p>manchu_princess, can you really get into MIT? That's the only top 10 school with something like 70% graduation rate.</p>
<p>I am sure you won't have any extra time to hold a part time job if you attend MIT. Those people are working to death, you must be tough enough to handle the situation.</p>
<p>i have heard that ppl in MIT tend to live with 4 hour-sleep every day!!~~i would die even if i get in~~</p>
<p>i don't think its worth it if its really that way. health is priceless.</p>
<p>According to my calculation, MIT students should sleep less than 4 hours a day.
20 hrs. for HW and classes, 1 hr. for meals,shower etc., and 1 hr. for something else, so you have 2 hrs. left!
You must be a superman to keep working like this for 4 years!</p>
<p>If you have a score of 2000 SAT I, is it then worth to give a shot to Ivies?
Or is it deadpan? Also i want to notice that I am a Dutch Chinese, and on average there are 2 dutch peopke apply to Ivies each year.</p>
<p>Thank you</p>
<p>The New SAT 2000 roughly equals to 1350 in the old SAT. You certainly have a chance but it will be a reach. </p>
<p>To my opinion, if you can strongy identify individual schools in the Ivy with you interest and passion (i.e. "fit"), you will have a better chance. On the other hand, if you are only applying because they're Ivies, you stand a weaker chance. Even the Ivy League schools are still looking for "fit" students, and the slight edge that they may give to the student they deem as fit can make one stand out among other thousands mundane applicants.</p>
<p>Ivies are not the only American colleges. And IMHO, a lot of them are definitely not the top undergraduate insitutions. Schools like Deep Springs, AWS are all on the same caliber if not better. Check them out as well although their admission standards could be even higher.</p>
<p>"So apparently Caltech is harder to get into than Harvard, hmm..."</p>
<p>It depends on which selectivity ranking you are looking at. The 3 big national selectivity rankings are:</p>
<p>yeah, i see what you are saying.
But after seeing how many qualified applicants washU waitlisted just to boost their yield, i'm losing faith in those college rankings</p>
<p>As you can see, the PR ranking accounts for what you mention:</p>
<p>Here is the Princeton Review Selectivity Criteria (as it relates to THE TOUGHEST SCHOOLS TO GET INTO survey:</p>
<p>Admissions Selectivity Rating
This rating measures how competitive admissions are at the school. This rating is determined by several institutionally-reported factors, including: the class rank, average standardized test scores, and average high school GPA of entering freshmen; the percentage of students who hail from out-of-state; and the percentage of applicants accepted. By incorporating all these factors, our Admissions Selectivity Rating adjusts for "self-selecting" applicant pools. University of Chicago, for example, has a very high rating, even though it admits a surprisingly large proportion of its applicants. Chicago's applicant pool is self-selecting; that is, nearly all the school's applicants are exceptional students. This rating is given on a scale of 60-99. Please note that if a school has an Admissions Selectivity Rating of 60*, it means that the school did not report to us all of the statistics that go into the rating by our deadline.</p>
<p>Wow is MIT really that bad? I heard it depends on what you are majoring in. As of now I'm planning to go but I'm still waiting for my other college decisions. I'm planning to work over the summer and doing paid internships during the school year. I know someone at MIT doing that right now, she seems to be okay. lol I dunno I'll see what it's like when I go to the campus preview weekend after spring break.</p>