<p>I know you guys are probably tired of this, but I would appreciate a ‘chance me’ because I live<br>
too far away to attend any information sessions.</p>
<p>I hope to major in Computer Science</p>
<p>GPA: 3.97 weighted</p>
<p><strong>severe upward trend (I had a 3.5 [middle school] then a 3.6 then a 3.8 then a 4.33 my junior year)</strong></p>
<p>Asian(Indian) from Virginia</p>
<p>SAT: 690 R 680 M 650 W
ACT: 33 E 30 M [32 Composite]</p>
<p>3 year Varsity Football <strong>1st Indian-American to win a Varsity letter for football at my high school</strong></p>
<p>1 Year Track and Field</p>
<p>Math Honor Society (30 service hours)</p>
<p>FBLA (3 years)</p>
<p>Cashier at Wegmans Food Markets (Top 5 in Forbes Best Companies to Work For)</p>
<p>4 on AP Comp Sci, AP World Hist, and AP US Hist
5 on AP Psych</p>
<p>Aced every computer class my high school offers, currently dual-enrolled with local community college to take a Cisco Networking Course</p>
<p>Middle School GPA does not count. OSU does not superscore.
If your High School GPA is 3.9 and you have a 32 ACT I am confident you will be accepted.</p>
<p>TomServo is right–OSU should be your safety school. </p>
<p>Why not go to UVa? It’s ranked the same for computer science but it’s a public Ivy, so a degree from there carries more currency. And you’ll save yourself a ton of money. Though I’m sure that OSU would love to have your OOS tuition.</p>
<p>Sounds like Virginia has a serious grade inflation problem. </p>
<p>But seriously, there are other schools. If you’re going to drop a pile of money, then why not look at a small, private school? Even for engineering and computer science, such schools often have more success sending their graduates to high-ranking graduate programs. <a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/[/url]”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/</a> Oberlin, Carleton, Reed, Swarthmore, and Grinnell far outrank any large state university in production of S/E PhDs. Many of these schools also give generous scholarships, especially to minorities.</p>
<p>Listen to Malia. He had a very bad and traumatic experience at Ohio State and transferred out to somewhere he refuses to divulge. He has subsequently made it his (rather sad) goal in life to ■■■■■ these boards and ensure that nobody, nowhere, EVER decides to attend Ohio State again.</p>
<p>Don’t listen to LennyPepperidge, he’s out-of-touch with the world and takes offense when anyone suggests that OSU is not on par with Harvard. </p>
<p>Choosing to spend out-of-state tuition on large lecture classes and TAs is not a decision to be made lightly. I would suggest that people exhaust ALL options before deciding to spend the kind of money that might better get you access to tenured professors and small seminar classes. I’m sorry if the suggestion offends the butthurt OSU person here, but it’s certainly a valid one–especially in today’s economy.</p>
<p>malia, your advice may be worth consideration, but your posting history reveals a weird grudge against OSU. Seriously, you have nothing better to do?</p>
<p>Listen. it is hard to give or get advice when arguments arise on these boards. I am more than willing to slam OSU if necessary and I am also willing to praise it. Malia, you are really not being helpful to people on the boards. I ask you kindly to find something more productive to do. My son is an OOS Engineering student that received a great scholarship that made it significantly less than the state flagship somebody suggested poster attend. When I tell people how much we are paying, they are shocked!! Not everything is perfect at OSU but it is certainly not all bad.</p>
<p>Nowhere have I stated that I believe Ohio State is Harvard, or Yale, or Stanford, or Chicago. Unlike Malia, however, I did attend an elite university (Chicago), and I am fully aware of where Ohio State will fall short in comparisons with it and similar universities. I’m also aware that there are many areas where the gap between Ohio State and top 20 private universities is nowhere near as large as some would like to believe and certainly not the caricature that Malia56 presents in his sad little trolling.</p>
<p>Here’s my take on my education at Ohio State. I had TAs in some classes but never beyond introductory classes. I also had National Academy of Sciences members teach lower-level classes in both physics and chemistry. My undergraduate advisor (History) was one of the top dozen in his field and editor of one of the top two journals in the field (the other was edited at Oxford). The history department was top 25 nationally, and the overall Russian and East European Studies Center was a long time Title VI comprehensive research center among only a dozen or so nationally including the following: Columbia, Harvard, Michigan, Indiana, Stanford and a joint UCLA-Rand Corp. program.</p>
<p>I had friends and acquaintances who liked to party a little too much on High Street. I also had friends in my direct circle who ended up at Cornell, Stanford, Wall Street and the CIA.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, my Ohio State education enabled me to score a combined 2190 on the GRE, and my Ohio State faculty recommendations allowed me to be accepted into graduate programs at Chicago, Yale, Michigan and Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>I’m willing to criticize many things about Ohio State when the relevant discussions arise. I don’t think it’s perfect, and there will always be areas in which it can improve and move forward–I donate a healthy amount of money ever year to help it do so (and ironically, I don’t give to U of C though I very much enjoyed my experience there). I think it is a an excellent public flagship university with all the benefits as well as some drawbacks inherent in the breed.</p>
<p>“I am fully aware of where Ohio State will fall short in comparisons with it and similar universities.”</p>
<p>Well, then, we’re pretty much in agreement here, LennyPepperidge, so I’m not sure why you’re raging so hard. I’ve always maintained that OSU is a solid option for in-state students, but that it does not mean it’s awesome, or above criticism, or that the academic culture there isn’t problematic. But I have seen you constantly put down and belittle people who question whether or not OSU is right for them. It’s a breathtakingly arrogant attitude–and not untypical of what I encountered at OSU. </p>
<p>It’s not surprising that OSU has many high-ranked graduate programs. I’ve always maintained that it’s a better place for graduate school–it is a major R1, after all. For its undergrads, not so much. The opportunities rarely filter down to them. The OP asked about solid options for an undergraduate education in engineering. I pointed out that elite SLACs have a much better record of sending their graduates to PhD programs. This is true in my own personal experience, but it’s also a fact–not anything you can really argue with. If posting the link makes me a ■■■■■, then so be it. If you’re considering paying $45k a year for anything, then you should at least be aware of what you’re getting into and go into it with your eyes wide open.</p>
<p>But on the whole, I don’t think OSU is a completely bankrupt experience or anything. And if you get a scholarship or minimize your expenses, then it’s probably worth it (though I’d still encourage anyone to still apply to other reach schools to see what kind of assistance you get).</p>