REA Class of 2018 Applicants' Discussion Thread

<p>I’m probably going to do math wherever I go but math majors are really light in requirements so I’ll probably add something like molecular bio or whatever else I’m interested in.</p>

<p>@matrix
I want to major in human bio w/ a concentration in neuroscience and study with Dr. Robert Sapolksy. Then I want to go in the pre-med track to neuroscience. Hopefully that would be possible.</p>

<p>Reading over the forum, and I’m seeing a lot of APers applying. Anyone here a full-fletched IB student? </p>

<p>Wonder how Stanford regards IB vs AP.</p>

<p>matrixsurgeon
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<p>Someone say gaming? THAT IS THE SONG OF MY PEOPLE.</p>

<p>Anyway, I really still don’t know what I want to do. A minor in art, definitely, since I know that at any college I apply to, I’ll do something with art. My major… well, I’ll figure out soon whether I even need to consider that at Stanford or not. One of the main reasons I applied was for the psych program, but that’s still an iffy major for work.</p>

<p>Well, one of the top students at my school (THE top student, most people consider him) got into Caltech and is waiting on MIT, who’ll probably accept him. The rest of us who are still waiting feel very inadequate.</p>

<p>SuchExcite, I am. And feeling the pain. IB a procrastinator, yo.</p>

<p>I hope they look upon it well, because I did not go through 4 years of this utter h*ll to settle with an in-state school.</p>

<p>Yeah the IB is pretty rough! I’ve been in the IB/ international school system my entire life, and I’m just craving the day I finally graduate and end this terror.</p>

<p>I’m not completely familiar with AP, but I’m pretty sure some classes - like Math HL - is supposedly one of the most challenging math courses you can take in high school. Maybe just depending on the classes you’re taking…? (I hope)</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>This is exactly how I feel.</p>

<p>I have AP in combination with IB, and my experience is that in general, AP is a lot easier than IB. There are some AP classes like AP Physics and Chemistry that are notoriously hard and those are harder than their IB exam equivalents, but most APs I’ve taken, I’ve found relatively easy and I’ve gotten 5’s on the exams. In fact, I took AP World History as an elective in sophomore year and literally slept through most of the year, but I still got a 5 on it. </p>

<p>The AP histories I’ve found to be pretty easy, the sciences except for Environmental are harder. Oh, and the foreign languages are meh. </p>

<p>Unless anyone else has more experience with AP than me and would like to correct me?</p>

<p>I think that the class itself depends on what school you go to, but the AP exams themselves are very easy(they also have amazing curves which is nice). Of all the exams I’ve taken (a ton besides languages and arts and music) I have found English to be the hardest, because I feel that the grading is just so much more subjective and when writing essays you could say something totally over the heads of the readers and lose points because they didn’t catch it. I can’t really compare it to IB but based on my experience I’d be surprised if IB was easier than AP in general.</p>

<p>@matrixsurgeon
I want to do a human biology/biochemistry major with possibly a double major in statistics or political science. Pre-med track as well. I used to want to do nueroscience but after taking the class at uchicago, that is no longer an ambition.</p>

<p>I’ve found English to be the easiest, actually. AP Language especially, the multiple choice I was sure I had a near perfect score (and I /never/ think that), and the essays I completely pulled from thin air because my entire grade didn’t even know what kinds of essays we were supposed to write or how many there were until a few days before the exam. Yeah, we had a very “responsible” teacher and we were too lazy to actually look it up until right before. Most people including me still got 5’s, though.</p>

<p>The one big gap I’ve noticed is between AP and IB history. AP histories have a lot of leeway. IB histories are one of the hardest graded, and Paper 2 is absolute torture on the wrists.</p>

<p>IB physics is easier to pass than AP physics, and for that I am thankful and very glad that I did not take IB chemistry, because that has the lowest pass rate.</p>

<p>IB chem has the lowest pass rate? I took HL chemistry, physics and math. I’m in for a fun final year ;)</p>

<p>Yeah IB history is supposedly one of the hardest to get a 7 in (for those who don’t know, 7 is basically just the highest grade), but so is English. Are the AP language exams based on material studied throughout the duration of the class? Or are they straight-up, completely different topics?</p>

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<p>The AP Language exam is based on different material. The only thing I knew for certain was that there would be an essay on rhetorical analysis, synthesis, and argument (and the argument essay was entirely different from the usual ones that we would practice in class). </p>

<p>I’m not sure about AP Lit. I think one essay might be based off of in class readings, but the rest is all random as well.</p>

<p>These next few days prior to the decision are going to be so long and slow.</p>

<p>last years ap lang mc was like the critical reading section on the sat:
easy to get a perfect score
the essays are annoying to write but honestly with that curve i wrote a whole essay on why north korea was glorious and kim jong il great and still got a 5</p>

<p>Been making electronic music for less than a year, so y’all got me. Anyways, the main thing with EDM producers is that if you look, they’re all astonishingly young (like 25 at most). It’s probably foolish of me to even consider being one of them, seeing as 1) I suck and 2) I’m going to college for a career, but it’s fun to dream sometimes. @hashtagyoloswag I’m up for a collab! In fact, how’s about you produce and I bring in my l33t azn rap skrillz? nosrsly I wrote one of my essays on writing a rap during a tour for my orchestra.</p>

<p>Yeah, more of a game designer myself as well. Even when I was in that “MMOs are my life” phase a few years ago, I spent like maybe 2 hours a day playing, and the rest of the day looking up mechanics and stuff. </p>

<p>I really love my school’s scheduling. There’s 8 periods, 4 for each day, and the maximum amount of classes you can take in a year (ignoring semester long classes) is 6. Meaning that most of the students have a solid 1.5 hours off from school every day, perfect for doing whatever. I have only 5 classes senior year, so. APs are pretty easy too, at least for workload (tests are hardish).</p>

<p>@above
AP Lang was lulzy. I guess we did study argumentative, persuasive, and DBQ-esque essays in class, but really, if you were a solid writer before you took the class, you did well regardless of whether you listened in class. In AP Lit right now, and dear god is the teacher piling on the assignments. The good thing is she’s chill and let’s you redo stuff for extra points and extends deadlines.</p>

<p>^like the compsci exam I had so much free time I rewrote an FRQ answer with variable names to tell a story, not the most efficient method but highly entertaining</p>

<p>Anyone know how being an ISEF Finalist, Siemens Semifinalist, JSHS Finalist, etc. can help with admission?</p>

<p>SuchExcite: Oh man, have fun with that. I only have HL Physics and HL Psych. Just SL Math for me thanks, I like scoring high on my IAs without having to invent a new type of calculus. And my school only lets us take 3 HLs except for rare circumstances for fear that we won’t pass, and HL English was made mandatory so that cut our choices down. </p>

<p>You probably have a better Chem teacher than the one at my school though, because our teacher is part of the reason our Chem pass rates are scary. Hey, at least for Physics, we really only need to get half of the points available to pass! Pass, that is, not a 7.</p>

<p>Like someone else said, AP Lang was basically SAT reading. I sat there for a full 20 minutes after multiple choice without anything to do.</p>