<p>@CafeTrebleClef:</p>
<p>you can change/ declare majors at any time before your junior year. and schedule conflicts are more likely to occur on exams only. if you don’t happen to take one class one semester simply take it next semester</p>
<p>Is there a section somewhere on the Common App where I can attach a resume?
Would UMass actually look at the resume?
Or are there actually separate sections on the Common App that asks you to list extracurriculars, awards, work experience, etc.?</p>
<p>You can mail a resume to any college with a cover letter explaining that you’ve applied online but would like this resume considered with your app</p>
<p>@ notrichenough
When I look at the OOS Tuition & Fees amount listed on the UMASS website I should subtract the $2800 if my family has our own insurance to get the real cost of tuition for an OOS student?
In other words $2800 is already added in to the cost and needs to be removed if already insured?
thx</p>
<p>Health insurance is required by law in Massachusetts, so it’s offered by all colleges. If you have health insurance through your parents, you can waive the school-provided insurance.</p>
<p>Most schools have a much smaller, mandatory health services fee that allows you to use the infirmary should you have the flu, need OTC medications, etc.</p>
<p>The Common App should allow you to list significant achievements in each extracurricular activity. When I did it allowed me to say when I was Vice President of Honor Society, etc. So just read carefully and fill everything out. As for being shocked that your guidance counselor thought that UMass wouldn’t want a resume, that’s probably very true. UMass gets thousands upon thousands of applicants a year, they do not have time to be receiving specific resumes from each student. The CommonApp let’s them have everyone have the same files, online, and in order. Sending a resume, will NOT help your chances most likely.
I had about the same high school credentials as you do, in fact, I got into Cornell University, which is an IVY league. I chose to go to UMass for my first year… kicking and screaming. My parents thought it was a great idea despite the fact that I wanted to go down south. The total cost of attendance was around 23900 last year. With a 1 parent income, my mother as a student, and a brother, I only received a 7k grant, along with my J&AA scholarship which gave me a whooping $917. I am sure the price has only gone up. It not cheap, and when the second semester came, they added on absurd fees that were not discussed with me. I also had to fight with them first semester to get my outside loan approved because they FORGOT to calculate in an extra $543 dollars in fees. It was pretty crazy, and I wasn’t the only student leaving FinAid in tears.
As for the classes, they were HUGE. My intro courses had 300-500 student in each. If you are a student that like to have individual attention, I would recommend a smaller state school, that is less expensive (Framingham State University is an AWESOME school). Biology majors are crazy common and you will have lots of competition. I once stood outside of my Biology Professor’s door for 1 hour and 45 Minutes waiting for a turn to go over a test only to have her tell me she ran out of time (understandable) but did not bother to take my name, ask if we could meet another time, etc. She was not personable at all. I emailed her multiple times, went to her office many more times, but still never called me by name, asked how I was doing in class, etc. I was a VERY involved student in high school and this was NOT something that I appreciated or coped with well.
As for the dorms, I really loved Central. I lived in Butterfield, but if you go to orientation they fail to show you where the Freshman live in Central, which is on top of a HUGE hill. Thing OHill but way way worse. On the bright side, I did not gain the Freshman 15. I loved Butterfield, and I actually got a single. Many freshman do not realize that you can apply for a single in Central (And other areas), and actually have a decent shot at getting one, which was really nice (It was an extra 600 a year, but worth it for sure). Except for Northeast most of the dorms are pretty far from class, and you should expect a 15-20min walk depending. LEARN THE BUS SYSTEM (it is a life saver)</p>
<p>Overall my experience at UMass was awful and I chose to Transfer to a school down south where I pay the same amount of money for a smaller and friendly campus. My best friend that I met at UMass wanted to transfer but decided to stick it out so she could travel abroad in order to get away from UMass for a year. Now in her sophomore year, she is starting to like it more and is warming up to it. She is naturally VERY bright though, and can handle such a school. I, on the other hand, had to work my butt off in high school and needed a school that was smaller so that I could get the help I need and create relationships with my professors. UMass has a LOT to offer, but sometimes people are blindsided by that, and it really isn’t the school for everyone.
I just wanted to offer my point of view, because many kids talk UMass up, but there is a negative (as there is at any school). Sometimes it helps to have another perspective. I tried to make the best of my first year and unfortunately my experience wasn’t one I had hoped.
Please still apply, but be very careful in your decision making. I allowed my parents to pick for me and it was NOT a good choice. Look at ALL aspects of the school. And make sure it is one that you can handle, because the size DOES matter and bigger is not always better.
Let me know if you have questions, and I promise you that I wasn’t a hater all along. I did plays at UMass, I worked there, I volunteered, etc. I did TRY to make the best of it. </p>
<p>Good luck in your college application process:)
Best Wishes!</p>
<p>Reading this thread I have noticed a few errors which I’ll try to clear up.
The average class size is 32 people. However since Umass offers over 3000 classes you can decide if you want to be in smaller or bigger classes. (As a junior, 4 out of my 22 classes in my Umass career have been in classes with over 40 people)
A way to do this is the honors college: in order to get invited to the honors college you need to have accomplished 3 things.
- need a 1300+ SAT (M+CR)
2)Have over a 3.9 gpa (weighted) - Be in the top 10% of your class
If you do all of these, you will be invited.
Honors classes are capped off at 24 people so you are guaranteed a small class (my freshman biology class was like this) You can take more than 1 honors class a semester but it is a lot of work and not many students do that unless they are double majoring or need to catch up on honors requirements.
As for living here I would recommend doing a RAP. Here you can live on a floor that’s geared towards a specific interest: a really good way to meet people who have the same interests. This is also how I found my group of best friends. You can also pick a rap that’s located in a specific housing location so you are guaranteed to live there. Housing is guaranteed.
As for the financial issues it is true that Umass has been losing a little bit of money every year. However so is almost every other up and coming school in the nation: it’s because we are building all of these new projects: from remodeling southwest, to building a new interdisciplinary science building to a new honors dorm. These projects are costing money but it will pay off and we have actually been offering more and more money every year in financial aid.
Now I think that Umass is one of the greatest places on earth even though I never expected it to be: it’s where I learned to be independent, I made some awesome friends and it’s proving to be a springboard for my medical career. There are some negatives: its not a school for everyone who really wants to have their hand held: with this many resources there’s a lot of bureaucracy and maneuvering through it is sometimes a challenge. However in this aspect it is a lot like the real world and its teaching me to be proactive.</p>
<p>I think I learned more about UMass than I ever could! Thanks to NickiDion23 and fireandice07!!
The thing is, I’ve always heard bad things about UMass, and I was not (and am probably still) excited about going there.
The thing that still bothers me is the class size. NickiDion23 said that classes could be 400+ - now that is NOT a class I want to attend. fireandice07 said that classes are around 32 - well that’s something I would be looking forward to. BUT fireandice07 also said that those were Honors courses, and I thought you are only able to take 1 or 2 honors courses per semester - if that’s the case, then the rest of my courses would be big, right?
And what would “holding hands” through college mean? I don’t think I’ve ever really relied on school staff people since I started 1st grade until now - but from the way NickiDion23 puts it, it seems like the proffesors are not very good at all, and it seems as though you don’t get the basic attention you need from a teacher - like having questions answered. I never looked for guidance by school people, but there’s a difference between not using guidance when its there for you, and not using guidance because it doesn’t even exist. Which is it? Would I get help if I need it if I’m in the Honors College? But it sounds like NickiDion23 attended Honors College too (I mean, getting in to Cornell University, you must have had an amazing HS record!), but had a completely different experience than fireandice07!!
From the way NickiDion23 describes UMass, I feel like its not the college for me either. But after reading fireandice07’s response, I feel like UMass might be OK afterall. I kind of hope fireandice07’s description is more of what it is today, but if it’s not then I might just drop UMass as an option.</p>
<p>Also, I’ve e-mailed admissions a couple of times, and it seems like they’re not very friendly(?) if that’s the right word to use here. They do not seem very cooperative with my plans, and the replies are rather curt. I say this because when I contacted PennState the tone of the reponse was very different and much more supportive to my plans. Does this reflect UMass’s services/attitude toward stupport/guidance for students?</p>
<p>@fireandice07: I understand we need real-life-experience, and I value that very much - but college is about independence already, and it sounds like at UMass, one needs to be especially responsible and extremely independent. I like independent - but its still college, so I’d like to have some guidance. Could you tell me more about the whole you-must-be-independent thing?</p>
<p>Oh and I’d like to ask a few more questions about doems/distances/ etc. but this reply is getting a bit long, so I’ll ask next time.</p>
<p>
NO, it is not included in the cost.</p>
<p>See this document for a more comprehensive list of all the costs:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.umass.edu/bursar/Full-Time%20Undergraduate%20Fees.pdf[/url]”>http://www.umass.edu/bursar/Full-Time%20Undergraduate%20Fees.pdf</a></p>
<p>Thanks so much for that link to the document! I’ve been trying to find that for quite some time - and I found bits and pieces of it on different sites, but not the total comprehensive list of costs!</p>
<p>Could someone please reply to the question I posted a while ago about UMass guidance/support system’s cooperativeness toward students’ plans?</p>
<p>Also, I’m finishing up my application things and now have these questions:
- it gives you some space to write extracurricular stuff but the “Details” area is much too small and the “Writing” area allows only 1000 characters - could I just not fill in the 10 spaces it gives, and just send a separate resume? Or breiefly write the things in the “Extracuricular” section, then attach the resume in the “Additional Info” section where you can upload a document? Or do resumes have to be sent in separately via e-mail or mail?</p>
<p>2) How important are recommendations? By some misfortune, one of my teachers who was supposed to write my recommendation letter ended up not being able to - and I was only recently notified of that, so I only have 1 teacher and 1 guidance councelor - is that bad? Should I find another person that might be able to write a recommendation letter for me before the EA deadline (Nov. 1)? The fact that makes it worse is that I’m planning to major in the sciences, and the person that ended up not being able to write the recommendation letter for me was the Science teacher. My other teacher is a Foreign Language teacher!</p>
<p>Cafe, you can relax. The only way you won’t be admitted to UMass is if you have some disqualifying history on your record - disciplinary action or something. The person earlier with the amazing stats didn’t get in because 1) There was something truly bad in the record or 2) The person is so overqualified that UMass figured there is no way they would go to UMass anyway, or 3) the “amazing stats” are, shall we say, a little exaggerated.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t sweat the large classes so much. ALL colleges feature large classes for the intro courses freshman year. UMass, like most colleges, also provides discussion sections for these courses that are in the 20 student-size range. My son is a sophomore ECE major and we’ve been very happy with the quality of the math/science/engineering instruction. Really, the experience in the freshman intro courses doesn’t vary that much between major universities. Everyone knows how to teach calc I and physics I by now. A school that is spending resources to have small calc I classes is diverting those resources from somewhere else. Would you rather have them putting the resources into the upper level undergrad classes or calc I?</p>
<p>Personally, I have found UMass very responsive to my requests, but I know experiences differ. As far as academic advising/guidance, it’s been the same experience I’ve found everywhere - the advisers more or less make the right noises and go through the motions, but at the end of the day, you need to be your own advocate. This doesn’t bother me because I don’t trust guidance type people anyway, and prefer researching the options and making decisions with my son on our own.</p>
<p>We went into UMass thinking it was a relatively inexpensive way to get an excellent and well-respected engineering education, and so far it has definitely fulfilled that promise. Plus the food is excellent and he gets to attend D1 basketball/hockey games. He loves it.</p>
<p>
I will second this, I’ve been amazed at the quality of the food.</p>
<p>A lot (but certainly not all) of the UMass staff is rude. </p>
<p>I was not looking for my hand to be held throughout college. I simply have questions and to have a professor unwilling to put any effort to help is just unacceptable. I was the first student in my HS to get into an IVY league in over 35 years, my school ENCOURAGED kids to go to UMass over private schools therefore I never had my hand held. I was merely giving another perspective. I offered positive comments along with my negative. I will admit 2 out of the 11 classes I took at UMass had between 30-50 students. But even my friend who is a sophomore now still has classes that are 400 kids.
I just felt that someone that seems a lot like I was in applying to schools should know these things because if you are not naturally brilliant you will struggle, as I did. I am smart, but not a genius and I had to work VERY hard for my accomplishments in high school. I attended college programs, so I knew that college would be different. I was prepared for college, but not UMass. I am now at UNCG and my grades are wonderful and no one is holding my hand.
I am not telling you not to be excited about UMass, you should be, it could be the perfect school for you! You could very well be naturally bright and have things come easily to you (you seem very smart). I loved some things about it! There is a HUGE library and I loved doing the extracurriculars that I did there (I was even asked back to be a production team member) I just wanted to advise you to be very cautious and select wisely. </p>
<p>As for the resume, I really would suggest not sending one. Just fill out CommonApp. Also, you only need 2 recommendations I would NOT send more. Your guidance counselor should send one too so that would be 3. That is plenty, any more would not help.</p>
<p>The food is excellent!</p>
<p>Do NOT drop UMass as an option! It is a great fall back school that will help you transfer to another school if you decide you don’t want to go there anymore. And for the record, I went to UMass last year, so I was there just recently, my experience is up to date!</p>
<p>Sorry for the extra posts, these thoughts just pop in after I reread things!:)</p>
<p>Well, I’m actually really not worried about getting accepted to UMass, but more about the experience there. I hope the teachers are actually a little friendly… I hope they don’t have that “what do you want? I’m busy - if it’s not urgent, don’t ask - go” attitude too much. FinAid people at least a little cooperative?
The video “tour/intro” of the Honors College at UMass makes it seem like all the teachers are really friendly and students get the attention they need, but I guess not?</p>
<p>NickiDion23 thank you so much for your input!!
I don’t think I am, as you say, “naturally bright”. I’m not a genius eithrt, and I worked WICKED hard to get my grades that I have now. (e.g. sometimes not getting any sleep, most of the time only 4 hours) So I guess now I’m really not excited at all now about UMass. It seems like I’d have the same experience as you. 
I guess the only thing I’m looking forward to is the food.
I do not mean to ask anything private, but did you go to the Honors College? (I’m assuming you did, having been accepted to Cornell ) Was the class experience as bad as normal classes?</p>
<p>I chose not to attend Honors College because I knew I was transferring and didn’t want to stress about it, and I didn’t want to take a spot away from another student. My friends are/were in Honors College and they really don’t enjoy it. They claim the classes aren’t really much different (you only take like 1 a semester and the rest are with everyone else) and you have summer homework and community service to do. I know a lot of kids that drop it because they think it is a waste of their time. BUT it does look REALLY good on a resume, so if it is something you really want to do definitely pursue it. But from my experience a lot of kids don’t seem to get much out of it. Like I said, I didn’t do it, so I don’t know first hand. You may want to ask someone who has done it and either really likes it, or is neutral. </p>
<p>Financial aid is a nightmare. They were so difficult when I needed to work with them, and even my Mom would get frustrated with them (and my Mom is scary haha) I once went because they didn’t approve my private loan and they kept yelling at me that I was wrong when really it was THEM who miscalculated and didn’t inform the loan company of my correct cost of attendance. It took me to start crying before the woman would actually allow me to talk and explain the situation. </p>
<p>The staff is really short, which is understandable in a large school, but my bio professor really didn’t even give me the time of day, nor care to help me and learn my name or who I was, even though she swore she loved to do so. I emailed her a dozen times and went to her office plenty and she really just made me feel incompetent. Many professors rely on their TAs, who are Grad students. The grad students are usually great and helpful! But let’s be serious, they aren’t the ones teaching the lecture. The only professor I felt cared to learn about me and actually had an interest in my values,wanted to help me in class etc. was the dean of my school. He was great, but other than that… I really didn’t enjoy anyone else.</p>
<p>I’m glad I could help you out a bit. I really just feel some kids don’t get the real facts about the school. Like I said, UMass is a great school with plenty to offer- BUT it isn’t the school for everyone. Someone who likes to create relationships with professors and get help along the way when they are confused doesn’t belong at UMass. There is NOTHING wrong with wanting to get to know your professors personally, because that’s how you get letters of recommendation in the future, etc. There is also nothing wrong with getting HELP. It’s not getting your hand held, it’s about LEARNING. That’s what they are there for.</p>
<p>Maybe consider smaller state Universities? Like Framingham, they have great programs and they are less expensive and MUCH much smaller. (and prettier:]) Or look for inexpensive out of state schools. I’m in North Carolina now and I pay as much as I did at UMass.</p>
<p>Either way, you’ll find your perfect school. Maybe it is UMass? You just have to go test it out and don’t just take a tour, but sit in on classes, etc. If you go to UMass and love it, GREAT - If you hate it? Transfer. UMass is a good school, and others will take you from it.
Or, research some more and push UMass back as a safety school. You’ll do great:)</p>
<p>Notrichenough posted this on another board that might help you:</p>
<p>I don’t think it is quite up to the level of many southern colleges. In particular, there are very few perks - you don’t get preferential housing selection or special dorms (although one is in the works), you don’t get preferential course registration, there don’t seem to be special scholarships, etc. And it costs an extra $300/year.</p>
<p>It does get you access to better advising and the honors courses are typically pretty small, and I think many of them sound interesting, although I am a parent, not a student. ComCol has its own dean, which is a huge plus, and their own web site.</p>
<p>In my personal opinion, it is too big - something like 15% of all students are in ComCol. The school obviously disagrees.</p>
<p>There is a thread on it, I think there are people there that could help you:)</p>
<p>Thank you! I found that thread and it was very helpful!</p>
<p>I have another question!!
Up until what date does UMass accept Subject SAT scores for credit?
Is it until the final June test?</p>