Stefen, please clarify your current academic status. Have you attended college in your home country or elsewhere? Are you attempting to apply to US colleges for a second bachelor degree?
As per OP up-thread:
but seems to have applied in a previous cycle without success:
Stefen, in re-reading your prior posts above I was alarmed to read:
I donât think thatâs a good plan for anybody. Reinforces what I said in my previous post about taking a step back and re-thinking.
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You keep trying to rationalize why elite private universities that do not meet need for international applicants should not only accept you, but discount their total cost of attendance by more than 50% (closer to 70% in the case of URochester) to enable you to attend.
This is from Rochesterâs financial aid site: âThe University is committed to welcoming international students each year who represent cultural and ethnic diversity from a wide variety of countries. We understand that there are numerous factors that may affect a studentâs ability to pay for their college education. In some cases, the University will work with students and their families to identify available financial resources to make it possible for the student to attend.â
There is literally nothing about that statement that makes me think UR is going to admit you at a financial loss to their institution. And UR is absolutely typical of US universities. The only ones that promise to meet need for internationals are either 1) SUPER-elite need-blind schools where your application will not be competitive and 2) schools that are heavily need-aware for internationals - and either they wonât accept you because of high need, or theyâll assess your need at a level you disagree with, or both.
I havenât responded to this thread for about a month, because it simply isnât going anywhere productive. Youâre engaging volunteer contributors here, and professors at elite institutions, but you arenât constructing a realistic plan⊠and at the risk of being harsh, observing the way youâre approaching this problem is making me increasingly skeptical about your overarching Grand Plan vis-a-vis invented languages, etc. Making dreams into realities requires the ability to take realistic action.
Look at this from the point of view of AOâs. Youâre in you 30âs, and the points in your favor are: #1 a high ACT score and #2 an ambitious dream that risks appearing grandiose and unrealistic. And youâre asking them to invest six figures of their institutional budget into giving you an undergraduate education, when they are simultaneously looking at hundreds if not thousands of applications from international students with stellar high school records and tangible ECâs that substantiate their dreams.
Itâs time to come down to earth. If you want a US undergrad education, great! Apply to schools you can afford; and for that matter, since youâre not getting any younger, apply to schools that accept mid-year applicants, instead of waiting for Fall 2023. Schools that meet these criteria are BYU (a reach but worth a try), Portland State (youâll need grant money but thereâs a specific path thatâs been described to qualify for that), and Truman State (well-regarded and affordable at full pay). There are probably others that have been mentioned as well. Also inquire at Portland State as to whether the international grant mentioned upthread would be available if you started at Portland Community College and then transferred to PSU.
Then, if you want to apply to put in some EA applications at more selective schools for Fall 2023, knock yourself out. Youâll get responses before matriculating at your Spring 2023 options. But I think itâs unlikely that youâll get both an acceptance and the money you need from a school with a big reputation. Such offers are rare for internationals, and I just donât think your application has the level of proven substance that they are looking for to make that investment. Your results from the previous cycle seem to support my impression. But sure, float some more applications once you have a viable plan in place.
But for right now, start working on the apps for the affordable schools. If youâre not willing to start at that level and work your way to the dream, then rethink the dream.
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Also, many financial aid departments will do a âpre-readâ for students whose aid eligibility isnât immediately obvious from the NPC. Requesting those before applying would be worth your time.
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Not to mention that itâs not a doable project, even with a PhD.
To phrase it bluntly, developing a constructed language is a hobby, not an academic pursuit. I mean, conlangs are a useful teaching tool (I use them myself!), and some linguists do serious work on the analysis of conlangs in relation to natural human languages (particularly when the definition of conlangs is broadened to include programming languages), but the development of one as your primary focus? No, youâre not going to find support for that. (And seriously, any discussion of IALs in the modern world tends to look askance at conlangs, at best. Natural human languages turn out to work very well as IALs, so thereâs no need to construct a new one.)
The closest youâre likely to get to what youâre interested in is a program that has faculty working in English for Specific Purposes (or more generally in Language for Specific Purposes, but given Englishâs current status as the worldâs most widely used lingua franca, English is what gets the most attention by far). This is often taught within Applied Linguistics (particularly TESOL/TEFL programs), and can reasonably be thought of as a subfield of Applied Linguistics. It sounds, though, from things that youâve said in this and other threads that that may well not get to the core of what really interests you.
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Thank you for giving me this insight into the process. Does it apply to all colleges? That there are 3 distinct rounds: AO want/not want => FAO calculate => AO final offer. In this model, AO is the one who make all the important decisions, the role of FAO is just like a machine spitting numbers.
Also based on this model, FAO will find in my CSS that my income (even when combined with parents) is way, way below $60k, 45k or whatever threshold they have for no-family-contribution, so theyâll just look at my assets. Since Iâve turned most of my stuff into cash-ready savings, leaving only a house, it will just be the savings that count. If my $107k doesnât satisfy their demand then AO would issue a âsorry, very regret to sayâ, not a âcongratulationsâ but with overwhelming $$. Itâd be a jerk to do the latter. Besides, theyâre not stupid at all. Why raising their precious acceptance rate while lowering their yield all in 1 move? Thatâs why Iâm quite certain that if Iâm admitted, Iâll be able to pay.
Theoretically, a family could sue based on the standing that their kid has been involved with a full-need-meet school, say Oberlin: sent app, got offered and stuff. But since they canât afford the amount in the letter, their kid is ruined because she only applied to Ober, and now sheâd have to spend a year wandering âin the wildâ. The judge will preside over whether the family or the collegeâs interpretation of money is correct, and in 50% of the cases will decide that Ober has to increase FA. How does that sound?
If you look at UAâs COA you can see that it amounts to $51.5k a year. Iâve stated before that I donât have a GPA to show, so according to your link I can hope for the âFoundation of Excellenceâ at best, which is $15k. That leaves 36.5 x 4 = 146k, pretty far over my budget. You know, Iâve done this homework quite diligently when UA was 1st mentioned in aquaptâs #29 post, and itâs simply impossible.
Agree, to an extent: it lacks a âhowâ of studying. Heck, even Tony Stark, in the 1st time appearing on screen, had to be introduced as âcoming from MITâ for the audience to see him in a better light. Now, it may come across you as Iâm just blindly trying to fly near the sun, but no, Iâm very carefully balancing the many criteria which include finance. MIT is in my list even though itâs nigh impossible to get in, and thereâs a chance itâs not affordable - but combined, no matter how small, that chance is still bigger than zero. Compare it to UA: (supposedly) easy admit, 100% chance canât pay. Now throw in a tangible need for reputation due to the nature of my dream, and MIT wins any day of the week. Does it âget to the pointâ in your opinion now?
Thank you for reminding me. Iâve addressed #43 in a nearby post, and sent emails asking unis right after your #34. I think 4 of your suggestions in that post are great choices! BUT, 1 school didnât answer my mail, and the other 3 explicitly told me that they can have no exception to their requirements of a stellar (3.99+ or so) GPA despite 33ACT and likely 15xx SAT. Again, I donât have GPA, and if they had to convert then my average HS score was 8.0/10, roughly equals 3.2 GPA. One also said they canât pre-screen a scholarship application to see if that GPA number can be higher, so⊠no way.
Thanks, I do know that the FA package will most probably have work. No prob. In fact it could be beneficial because the number looks smaller for the school.
It consists of most intl need-blind colleges, some full-need-meet schools, and a few oddballs. 1 in Holland: Utrecht. Yes, 1-2.
I have that feeling too. Now I leaning more toward deleting it from the list. But thereâs 1 important thing left to consider: the possibility of using Colgate as a springboard to transfer to a better school.
For the record, I think the best âfitâ elements for me would be: more students, either by its own body or by consortia with other institutions in a tight-knit area. They should have a âvibeâ of curiosity (about trying completely new things), creativity (not just the arts but also âmechanicalâ stuff), and collaboration. If you guys know schools that are fit, please kindly let me know - I canât visit.
Thank you! I can literally feel your concern for me. Well, Iâm under no illusion about the feasibility of such ambition. Even if I can go to the US, the difficulties that I havenât even mentioned in this thread would still be stacking up, driving the chance of success way down. But, even with that accounted for, the Gain for the world would still be enormous. I use a simple statistic formula:
Gain = (Benefits - Costs) * Possibility
Even when P is 1% or smaller, B still overwhelms C by many orders of magnitude that G could stay in the billions, or trillions. If you want, I will start another thread discussing the benefits of an IAL, so you can see and argue whether it makes sense or not.
In the best case, Iâd spend my prime years precisely working on this project, and it is my lifeâs passion. Those who are âindependently wealthyâ and just dabble in something will never follow it to the end.
Thatâs a weak point. âyouâre not getting any youngerâ could apply to a 16yo. And frankly, do you think AO would look at a 34yo differently from a 35yo? But the main one is: FA is almost non-existent for any schedule other than Fall. However, I still agree with you: many personal things are pointing toward me attending 2023.
I admit that I was (and still am, ugh) a bit rigid in my approach. Both PSU and Truman are below my arbitrary threshold of T300. I use average data from THE, niche, collegefactual and forbes to calculate their ranks, and Truman stands at 383, Portland further.
The rationale behind this preference was mentioned before, but let me try to reiterate. For a dream of this scale, surely Iâll need a lot of resources, connections, collaboration, and (maybe most importantly) a really good reputation to pull off; and it better be big right from the start to take advantage of the snowball effect. Now, to get all those, Iâm taking a huge gamble. Iâm chipping in a bit in the form of app fees & other preparation time/stuff for the chance of a ticket into an institution. Also, winning that ticket is synonymous with saying goodbye to most of my accumulated wealth, whether that ticket says Harvard or Truman. Now, pray tell me, if you were in this position: if you were going to spend virtually all your possession anyway, would you rather settle with a big win or a small win?
People keep talking about some safe choices, but donât seem to notice that no choice is safe for me financially. Also, many warned me about the risk of the full-need-meet schools demanding more than I can pay, but no one seems to know an acquaintance who had to experience that adversity (FYI: when I plugged numbers in NPCs, the majority of times they spitted out 0. Zero dollars) So I propose this: if you can find examples of that in this forum or anywhere, please lead me with links. If you know anybody who graduated Truman or PSU or schools outside T300, then MA & PhD in higher universities and did something significant, please also enlighten me. Iâm stubborn, but Iâm open to evidence.
Thank you, didnât know that. I surely will do.
A PhD means nothing for a project of this size. What it can bring during the process of getting it is more important to me. And itâs a nice decoration.
⊠until now, or some years down the road. But I agree, itâs not just academic.
I concur. Thatâs why I have some⊠supplementary plans to carry out during college to earn me both money and reputation. Outside of the topic, though.
Itâs something that needs to change. Human psychology can be either the easiest or the toughest thing to change.
I disagree. Aside from the points I wrote the last time I addressed your post, on a scale of OK-nicely-very well-great-wonderfully-perfect, there are rungs that are not reached. Why settle with something mediocre? Iâd aim for wonderfully, at least.
Youâre absolutely correct: my interest lies more in theoretical linguistics. I can reasonably guess that youâre biased toward English, which is normal. I have nothing against it - in any case it helped me learn so many things that ultimately lead to my conclusion of a need for IAL. But loving something doesnât necessarily mean equaling it with the best. Some features in English are inferior even when compared with my native tongue.
Iâve been following your various threads and my takeaway is that itâs difficult to accurately chance you for admittance to and FA adequacy from the type of highly ranked meets need schools youâre seeking because youâre a non-traditional international applicant. ALL schools have a budget and youâre asking them to spend $200,000+ on one student, you. Thatâs a huge ask and rarely given, especially to international applicants. Youâre correct that thereâs probably no safe choice for you as far as affordability. Itâs also very possible that the NPC comes out at $0 and no school is willing to fully finance a 4 year education for you.
Once you finalize your school list you need to apply and see how things evolve over the application season. All of your predictions and arguments as to how AOs and FAOs make decisions are meaningless. There is no exact formula and every year tens of thousands of students are perplexed at both their results and their FA packages.
In response to your Oberlin hypothetical regarding a lawsuit for poor FA. Your argument is flawed because no student is guaranteed to be able to attend college and no college guarantees that a student will be able to afford to attend their institution just because they issue an offer of admission. In addition students can apply to as many schools as they want (if they chose to apply to only one and it doesnât work out thatâs on the student not the school).
Lastly is it possible to have a third party vendor such as WES provide a translation/conversion of your HS transcript into the US 4.0 scale? At that point youâd be able to better compare your overall stats as an apples to apples comparison and possibly apply to auto merit schools for a better scholarship.
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It sounds like you have very little understanding of the admission and FA process in the US. Private schools can spend/invest their money how they want to, public schools have a few more rules but most offer far less FA to OOS and international students. Colleges routinely gap admitted students and their is no path to a family suing to get more FA money.
As VPA says, you need to get a handle on this. If this 3.2 is accurate, applying to highly selective schools wastes everyoneâs time. Also, Iâm not sure if anyone has said this but do not take the SATâŠno school will put any credence into SAT/ACT test scores taken by a person in their mid-30s.
I continue to think your best school options are in the EU/UK. I donât see your background being compelling at US residential based four year schools. You are closer in age to many of the incoming studentsâ parents than to the studentsâŠthey will likely not âvibeâ with you and that will be a consideration as the AOs build their class.
Lastly, you seem dismissive of @dfbdfbâs points, which is a mistake. I encourage you to reflect on what they are saying.
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As another source to consider, Truman State places 128th in this fairly conventional national ranking:
No there are not. And especially from international students where the financial aid issue can be very different than for students who are citizens or green card holders.
Itâs not lip service.
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You might look at one of these Work colleges:
Also Deep Springs college in California. It is a 2 year college, but most of their students then go on to top US universities.
OP is an international applicant and will be on a student visa which does not allow employment (with limited exceptions such as on campus jobs).
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Internationals can apply to Deep Springs (and maybe the others?) but I didnât realize there was a limit on age (must be under 23).
This student-wanna-be seems to have an excuse for why he canât go to any number of schools (new one, canât be lower ranked than his arbitrary âT300â. All we can do is keep naming schools, but I donât think anything will be acceptable in the end except a top school that will give him a full ride. This is like me saying Iâm only going to college if it can be Harvard and while there Iâd want to be on the gymnastics team. If thatâs the case, I wouldnât be going to college.
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Stefen, youâve made several statements like these stating the grand scale of your dream and the immense benefits to humanity. So it begs the question: have you sought independent inputs from experts about your vision? Have linguistics experts told you there is a need in the world for what youâre looking to do?
I have no expertise in linguistics but my observation is that asking the world to learn a new language is a very tall order. Learning a new language isnât easy for the overwhelming majority and there has to be strong motivation to do so. Will you be able to articulate these reasons to admissions officers (who are also not going to be linguistic experts)?
Itâs statements like this that give me genuine concern about your plan.
Additionally, when evaluating you for a student visa the consular officer will look at whether you have sufficient finances to support yourself during your time in the U.S. and have resources to return to and work in your home country after your education. If itâs evident that youâll have no money left, that greatly increases the risk (in the officerâs view) that you may stay on in the U.S. to work, which can lead to a visa denial.
I personally know people who were âgappedâ. Sometimes the difference is in their actual ability to pay. Sometimes itâs their willingness to pay (example: they donât want to spend money they had set aside for emergencies)
As I pointed out in my previous post you canât really work on a student visa
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I said auto merit school LIKE an AlabamaâŠ.that there are many. But you have to find them. Schools like Mizzou and Ms State and so many more. Again, you have to find them.
But if you donât have a GPA or if you can get one it equivalates to a 3.2, then why are you talking about a Colgate or higher. Thereâs not zero chance because thereâs never zero chance but whatâs right above zero ?
They are likely not going to risk putting an adult with kids because the bulk of the families are paying $80k a year and they are not spending that for an uncomfortable student experience which is what an adult amongst the student body would cause. At least this is my opinion.
It seems to me a cheaper, lesser public college is your best betâŠ.if you can even get inâŠI guess how your transcript is reviewed.
Btw there are plenty of noteworthy achievements in life from below top 300 and even did not attend college people.
A school like Minot State in North Dakota is cheap and offers some level of linguistics.
I agree with your comment about finding a uni where an adult would âfitâ into the student body. That is more likely found in Europe than in the US top unis the OP seems to seek. I certainly do not see that at an LAC, like Colgate. I suggest ruling all those out.
Edit: @StefenLong OP, have you had any conversations with admissions offices to explain your non-traditional status and determine if they would consider you a fit? I would not go into your very specific career aspirations⊠Iâd initially find out if they would even consider a 30-something student before wasting an application fee. In the US, most non-traditional students over the age of 30 attend community college or online studies. There are absolutely exceptions but that is the norm. Itâs more typical in Europe to have older students on campus as the cost and admission process makes it more accessible.
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This appears to be a willful misreading of my positionâand since it is rather an insult to tell a linguist theyâre biased about language in the way you state, I wish to state explicitly that I am not biased toward (or against, for that matter) English, or any other language.
I stated that English currently acts as an IAL. I hope that you can agree that it isâthat is beyond debate, I think. Your claim that a conlang is necessarily better suited for use as an IAL than a natural human language is, however, not supported in any way by human linguistic behavior.
You have a dream of changing the world. Thatâs fine. However, deciding ahead of time that youâre going to ignore the body of knowledge that already exists on the sociolinguistic choices people make is not a sensible way of going about making those changes. Rather than deciding that you already know more than those who work in the subject, perhaps you can learn about the field and then adjust your preconceptions to work within reality.
Which, of course, is one of the uses of higher education. So itâs good that you want to pursue it. However, with the arbitrary restrictions you have placed on your search, youâre unlikely to be able to do so. In pursuing education, just like working with languages, you need to recognize that there are realities that place limits on what any of us can do.
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So what are your sure thing colleges in YOUR country? You need to have at least one of those on your application list. It doesnât appear that you are considering colleges in your home country, and I would strongly urge you to do so.
In addition, as a 30 something college freshman, I would suggest you look at larger universities where there are also graduate students so that you wonât be the only 30 something at the college.
But reallyâŠyou need a sure thing in your own country. You do.
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Iâve been following this thread and wondering if these comments are real.
Is this poster really this uninformed about how the US colleges and universities work?
Youâre keeping Colgate on your âlistâ so that you can transfer later to a better school later?
Why would you think that you could transfer into a better school? The competitive schools rarely have spots because a current student would have to drop from that school to make a place for a transfer.
Combine that factor with very limited financial aid for (any) transfers, as well as your admission status as an international person, your age and your premise regarding a new language; you are going up the creek without a paddle.
People in the US do not sue colleges because their student didnât get financial aid. No one said the system is supposed to be fair. No one said that everyone who applies to a college will be admitted.
The private colleges arenât obligated to admit anyone. They arenât obligated to provide financial aid.
The public colleges arenât obligated to admit anyone. They, also, are not obligated to provide any financial aid.
Your posts here are really trying to deny what the current posters are telling you about how the American systems of colleges and universities are managed.
You are also trying to rationalize why these colleges will and should admit you with full funding. Sorry, but your combination of factors donât mesh with the American University/College experience and wont support your idealized notion of being an admitted freshman developing a new language.
Europeans speak more languages than most Americans. Start there. If your âideaâ catches on, it would be there and not in the US.
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Yep, and what I was trying to say that in that case, the school will issue a âNoâ instead of âYes, and $$$â. People worry about impossible Yeses, but I can just treat them as Nos.
Iâve looked a bit into that, and it seems IERF is the service most recommended by schools. Iâll send my school report in the intermediate future.
I dispute this. I happened to look at actual graph data of 1 or 2 highly selective schoolsâ admissions. ACT scores as low as 20-25 do get in somewhere 35 is the median. So at least some of them do practice holistic review, and 3.2/4 is way better than 20/36.
Also, why do you think SAT score of 3x people has no credibility? Are they more intelligent with age or something? Unless youâre an AO, itâs impossible to speak for them.
My countryâs IP is blocked, and I canât seem to circumvent it with proxies. Does the list include LAC & unis in the same rank (unlike USN, which separates them)?
That smug attitude is like a meme on CC, huh? My observation is that for most if not all of the cases, only kids who are rich and cocooned can have such attitude. Now, unlike practically every other who applies for college for the goal of getting a nice job at the expense of their parents, I apply to vastly increase the chance of realizing my dream, and a very particular one at that, using my resources. All the regular psyches you usually use to judge kids may not be applicable to me.
Yes, for all the colleges in my list Iâve sent mails to linguistics and IS faculty. I briefly mention the IAL project in the ling mails and do more details in the IS mails. The ling faculty mostly express polite welcome and move into the academic stuff. The IS faculty address the IAL more. None question the benefits, some outline the path I should take to get best result, a few warn about the high difficulty.
True and true. For the 2nd problem, it will need to have some neat features that draw users in, like how iPhone did in the realms of commercial goods.
I did that in the last season, and what a mistake it was. Drawing a grand picture of a better world is tempting for a writer, but it doesnât tell AO anything about me. Also, my skill was like, opposite of âshow, donât tellâ. This year itâll be different.
Wow, I didnât think of that before. I guess in that case, the weight of the college invitation will be considered against the risk? That kinda reinforces my position of aiming for T300 a bit.
Donât worry, itâs some (student) projects that can be done legally, and even preferably on campus.
Mizzouâs COA is $49k and maximum IHS is 10k, thus itâs pretty far out of my reach. MS state is a great FA source! But unfortunately, it doesnât have either Ling or ISAV. Maybe a choice for next year, when Iâm more desperate and look for anything that can facilitate a transfer jump. Minot state is too far down the ranking, but thanks!
Uh⊠I opened this thread just for that. I donât have infinite time and resources, and between sending emails to ling faculty in my list, crafting essays, email exchanges with AO about points of interests in my criteria, pre-reading textbook for the summer course, emails with ISAV faculty, etc. not to mention personal stuff, I canât trawl through all 2000+ colleges.
So far, this thread has helped me get many insights, and many helpful comments have given me precious info, PoV that I didnât know, etc. @DadofJerseygirlâs just above is an example. So if it looks like crowdsourcing, it is 
I agree that I can imagine some AOs thinking that. But looking from a parentâs POV, if an AO called me and said âHey, wassup? Look, weâre going to admit an adult into the school this year. Are you OK with that?â I would say no prob. But again, youâre right, what matters is how the AO thinks.
Sure, thatâs 1 of the questions in my agenda. A few express their concern for âfitâ, the majority says all the textbook stuff of diversity, inclusion, etc. I suspect that internally, at least half of that majority is biased against mature students. But itâs not easy to find out which.
Yep, in an (European) online course, among the 3 model students, one is even older than me! However, to the 1st point: I donât consider myself in the ânormâ realm at all, and am indeed looking for exceptional result.
I didnât intend for it to look so, and Iâm sorry you felt that way. On a related note, everyone on Earth is biased. The problem is they usually donât recognize that, otherwise they would attempt to fix it. That why, in order to avoid this fatal weakness, Iâm adamant that the project must be a collaboration of many talented people. Iâm afraid that just because I have a few ideas for that IAL, Iâd become blindly convinced that itâs the best way for an IAL to work.
I think itâs way within range of debate. The estimates of total people knowing English range from less than 1B to 2B, so Iâll settle with the number 1.5B. Thatâs less than 1/5 of the worldâs population. You said yourself that the UN uses Spanish, Arabic and a plethora of other tongues. If English were truly an acting IAL, they would scrap all that, no?
Thatâs because in social sciences, a humanâs behavior isnât only decided by linguistics need, but a bunch of other factors. The domination, economically, of the US (and UK in the previous centuries) facilitates the current condition. I will not be surprised when Chinese gains importance and popularity in next few decades.
You were arguing using the pragmatic rationale: because most people are doing X, then we should do X. Because English is popular, I should go study Teaching English? I think not: most people doing X doesnât mean X is right, or X is best. The majority Americans are overweight, does that mean overweight is healthy? If the Nazis had joined hands with the Soviets instead of attacking them, the world would be run by fascism by now. Would that make killing Jews morally OK? Before Steve Jobs, nobody believed a need for a âsmart mobile deviceâ. Is it true now? Everyone should have their own compass, thatâs what I believe.
That said, it is his actions that needs to fully heed reality. I need to admit that English is the strongest tongue atm and a viable candidate for IAL (but again, not the acting IAL), and people are resistant to learning new things, and a host of other facts⊠if I want to success. Thatâs why I wholeheartedly agree with your closing comment:
And I promised myself to do my best. If I canât commit my all for it, then itâs not worth to be called a lifelong passion. OTOH, I suspect that even if I were 17 and began at a community college, itâd take hundreds of years before things change. I want to at least see a sign of final success within my lifetime, therefore I must start with a bang.
I think it would not suffice. Letâs put it in this somewhat mathematical way: to success in this endeavor is like to achieve a hypothetical number of 100,000. Due to the mere human constraints that I perceive and that @dfbdfb aptly put above, one canât improve his number/the situation by more than 20% per year, and thatâs the best case scenario. Assuming that a personâs life is 90 years, then I need to begin at ~5 or more, otherwise Iâd have no chance. Getting a college education in the US is like starting at 100; learning here is like, well, 1. Moreover, earning a spot in T300 is like having an initial number of 150-600, giving me much needed room for breathing and bad performance and inevitable falls. Meanwhile, outside T300 is like 20-80 âpointsâ, way over number 5, but requires a perfect, superhuman ability.
Why do I seem to be obsessed about starting the whole thing in the US? There the starting points are biggest. I happened to stumble upon this Veritasiumâs video yesterday, it helps illustrate my point. In this case, luck contains all the infrastructures and superstructures of the US that I wasnât born with. The environment can really affect a person.
Thatâs a good sign, because Iâm an oddball that so much different from all the incoming kids.
I balance many criteria, âbeing a springboardâ is a very minor one. Really, people transfer all the times. And since the 1st year is general learning anyway, nothing is lost in the process. However, Iâm aware that FA for transfer is limited, so this one canât save Colgate.
Youâre quick to jump to wrong conclusions about stuff. In another thread, I asked about a typical number for miscellaneous fees in COA, and you interpreted it as I want colleges to provide me clothes?? In this instance, can you quote more than once when I said something along the line of âcolleges will & should admit you with full fundingâ? Until then, Iâd address this point of your. What Iâm doing is to gather valuable info and update knowledge about US colleges & unis because, well, obviously Iâm not well informed. Otherwise, Iâd not bother opening a thread.
Bold of you to speak for all of the US higher education system. If anything I know about the US, itâs that this country is a land of diversity. Thereâs always a niche for everyone. Your opinion is but a tiny point of data that wonât move the needle a pinch.
Now this is the very 1st constructive notion Iâve seen in your comments. Thank you, I have at least an European option. And if possible, if you chose to comment in the future, please remove the quotation marks around my idea. Itâs a real idea, whether itâs stupid or brilliant can only be proved by time - but itâs not quasi- or pseudo- or anything like that. But maybe itâs just your âvoiceâ that annoys me.