<p>Hi everyone,
I'm currently an exchange student from Italy in the 12th grade of an high school in New England. Since I don't get a real graduation here in America, I'll have to go back to Italy and complete my 13th year of high school there (yes, we have 13th grades) and then I will be finally able to apply to college here. The reason why I want to go to college here in America is because universities here look much more organized than back in my home country, and also because I'm really enjoying my time here as an exchange student. I was oriented on a Philosophy Major because I really like the subject (and it leaves open doors for graduate schools). In Italy I've been studying it for an year and when I'll go back I'll have another here. The only thing I'm afraid of is the quality of philosophy teaching here in America. The fear comes from the fact that in my high school class "Introduction to Philosophy" people just watch Matrix, Seinfeld and Family Guy, while in Italy I've been studying from Talete to Aristotele in my 11th grade. That's the only thing that makes me perplexed.
Another question would be which university has the best Philosophy program. I took SAT the last month and I got a 1890, but I know I could improove it. It would be also good for the university to have some sort of aid for international studies.
Thank you.</p>
<p>Hi. Depending on by how much you will raise your SAT score (among other factors) you should look for Amherst, Dartmouth, Reed, U Vermont, and Wellesley. Also check <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1305000-post2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1305000-post2.html</a>, it contains more colleges and details on their selection. Good luck!</p>
<p>NYU has one of the strongest undergrad philosophy programs in the US, but virtually no aid for international students (unless you can get merit aid, which is difficult). Look out for the 8 schools that give need-based aid to internationals: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, MIT, Williams, Amherst, Middlebury. All of them should have pretty strong philosophy departments, though not all of them would be a good fit (I see MIT getting struck off here) and not all of them may fit your academic profile.</p>
<p>There are other schools that are need-aware for internationals, but do also provide need-based aid for internationals.</p>
<p>I think that if you want to get into a school with a rigorous philosophy program, with aid, that SAT score has got to come up a lot more - probably at least in the 2100 range.</p>
<p>Since you’re worried about course rigor, I’d recommend looking at this book: [Intercollegiate</a> Studies Institute - College Guide - Choosing the Right College 2008-9](<a href=“http://www.isi.org/college_guide/choosing_right_college.html]Intercollegiate”>Home - Intercollegiate Studies Institute). The book has strong biases, but it’s very useful for finding out which schools tend to have more fluff courses and which ones are focused on the core material, among other things.</p>
<p>
I don’t think that’s something you should be concerned about. You have to understand that philosophy is not one of the core subjects in American high schools but rather a fun elective. The class you took does not sound like a class for AP kids (those correspond to the college-bound students in Europe) but rather a class for someone who has a hole in her schedule and does not want to take a real academic class. Philosophy at any half-decent college will be closer to your experience in Italy, I promise!</p>
<p>Yeah thats right but i would never characterize the ideas behind matrix or seinfeld episodes as lacking quality- even when compared to the greek nutters.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that Matrix and Seinfeld lack in philosophical concepts, but I think that a base knoweledge about the basic topics of philosophy is need in order to at least partially understand them. Even in my Italian class we watched Matrix (even tough it was only the red and blue pill part), but I don’t really remember any major philosophical concepts in the sequels, which the philosophy class in the high school that I’m attending now did watch.
Anyway as far as SATs concern, I’m not able to take a course, since I need to get them done in time for when I go back to Italy (the end of June), so I’ll just try having a lot of practice (I didn’t actually study a lot when I took them the first time). For the other requirements, my current GPA here in America is a 4.2 (weighted) with As and A-s and 1 honors and 1 AP course. I don’t know If I would be able to use my Italian grades for the GPA since I’ve realized, attending high school in both countries, that the grading system is very different. Here in America is very standardized, with rubrics and everything, while in Italy is more up to the teachers. Virtually the Italian grading system goes from 1 to 10, similar to the 0-100 of the American system. The difference is that in reality if you attend a normal level type of classes (in Italy is called Liceo Scientifico) it’s extremely rare to get a 10 and an average of 9, or even 8.5 is considered extremely high. Here in America is different: I can get hundreds in Honors or AP classes fairly easily. The final question is: to colleges consider this less standardized grading system when they calculate the GPA?</p>
<p>They do, and your I think your counselor should mention it in the school profile, when sending documents. I am in a situation similar to yours - completed 10 years in my country and 1 in the U.S., and when I came back I got a diploma (we have 11 grades). My home-country school’s counselor wrote me a rec and if she were to put gpa - she would put it for 10 years I was there (problem is, we don’t have GPAs), and your U.S. transcript will show your American GPA specifically. Now if you come back for 13th grade, I guess your counselor would calculate gpa for 1-11th and 13th grades, omitting 12th grade. Don’t worry about it though, colleges can recalculate GPAs themselves, and they will be looking at your grades and courses. Can you get an U.S. high school diploma according to your exchange program’s rules, by the way?</p>
<p>Unfortunately I can’t get a diploma here in the US. It’s weird because a friend of mine in the same program and in the same state was able to graduate, but I asked the school administration of my current high school and they told me it wasn’t possible.
Another thing about Italian schools is that in elementary and middle school we have word grades that are even less standardiZed than the numerical ones. Finally, in my high school back in Italy there’s no such a figure as a student counselour and probably for my college application I would be mostly on my own</p>
<p>Any head school official? For me it was the school principal.</p>
<p>Will your current American high school be able to send in a transcript for you when it is time to apply? Likewise, maybe you can get recommendations from current American teachers that you can take with you. Will the high school keep a file on you that could be sent in?</p>