<p>Do they believe you have to do sports in college? because I know they officially have the top sports at colleges, were you actually try out, place against competing colleges, etc. Then they have kind of, recreational sports, I guess you could say? Such as just getting together a group of friends, and compete against others kids at that college. A lot less competitive, but sounds more enjoyable, in my opinion. Ah, I know what you mean. I tried to get my dad to see that I just don’t like violin anymore. Then he pulls the whole, ‘some kids would kill for your talent’ card, and kind of guilts me into staying in orchestra. What he doesn’t know, won’t hurt him. If he knew I willingly gave up my ‘concert master’ position for next year…I’d be grounded for life!:D</p>
<p>Well in my family situation we could use any kind of money we can get and UCF does not have a male track team. My dad is always ready with the ‘some kids would kill for your talent’ card, being guilt trapped is not fun. So yeah I either get some amazing financial aid or I have to look more heavily at the schools that I would do track at such as USF.</p>
<p>I also have financial aid problems. The bright side is my parents signed my siblings and I for Florida pre paid before we moved to Illinois, so if I get accepted at ucf, tuition is covered. I always consider myself thankful for that. I couldn’t get a scholarship for anything other then violin, with is a small possibikty.</p>
<p>Unfortunately my parents did not do the Florida pre-paid thing. However, I might be able to steal away my Dad’s GI bill.</p>
<p>It does dissapoint me though that scholarships are hard to come by, strictly if you’re looking for non-!_academic one’s. My ACT score is simply average, and adversity i’ve faced has cause my GPA to drop drastically. Sometimes I feel as though we live in an era that favors the ‘brilliant minded’ and disregards those who haven’t ‘proved’ their intelligence. Sorry, i’m rambling…</p>
<p>Well I think that during our senior year rambling about college stuff is allowed. But I totally agree about the scholarship situation, however, I do not believe that things will change anytime soon. Any scholarships that do not an academic requirement are being plagued with applications with students across the U.S all in the same position as us. Worst comes to worst I will be staring at a pile of loans that won’t look pretty no matter which way you look at it.</p>
<p>Agreed. I’ve already decided to travel to certain places after college, because i’ll already owe a significant amount of money, so why not add to it? Have to experience everything while i’m young, and I still have that option. Many people just move their interests in life to the side, stating they’ll come to it at a more appropriate time…then it tends to lose significance and is put under other things. That’s my outlook, reason why the ‘alchemist’ is a favorite book of mine. Wow,now i’m talking about books, this is getting a tad bit pathetic:)</p>
<p>Well normally when a topic turns to books is pathetic, however, in this case I have read that book and, while not a favorite of mine, I do like it also. But, yeah, I feel the same way, which is why one the requirements of the colleges that I look at is the ability to study abroad. The minute you get a real job,unless you are one of the lucky few, you are locked down into the town that you are working in.</p>
<p>Agreed. I want to explore, and I feel as though you can learn more from that alone then reading from books and such. It’s the experience that you learn from. Study abroad sounds like a great idea…perhaps i’ll look into it.</p>
<p>Just being able to live somewhere else for a semester during college is enough for me. Things seem to get too stagnant when you stay in the same place for 3 or more years. I need change to keep things relatively interesting. Besides that, UCF has an amazing study abroad program.</p>
<p>That’s good to know:) I’d seriously consider. I’m the same. Most people are comforted by repetition and such, but I need change. I ease into it easily, and it keeps life interesting.</p>
<p>I feel the same way that is why almost all of the colleges I am going to apply to are located in an urban area. If l were to be stranded in a place like rural west Texas things would not bode well for the home team.</p>
<p>Oh gosh, you read my mind. First off, I dislike Texas. I need to either be in a fairly large suburb or a city, coming from chicago. I cannot stand small towns, which helped to narrow it down to ucf:)</p>
<p>I grew up in areas like cocoa, FL, Atlanta, GA, and Germany. Every place that I lived has been relatively large except in Germany. However in Germany when I lived in a smallish town we were able to travel to almost everywhere in Europe within a few hours. Living in Texas would be a death sentence. Chicago sounds pretty nice to live in besides for the winters, I heard that they are absolutely brutal up there.</p>
<p>Let’s just put it this way. Usually we have about 3 snowdays a year, on average. But when we do, it’s not remotely fun, because you can’t even spend time with friends, due to not transportation. I hate snow. A small dose is okay, like during christmas break. Then i’m tired of it. Also, chicago gets repetitive, VERY fast lol.</p>
<p>When I lived in Germany we would almost never get anything due to snow. The most we would get is a 2 hour delay for the roads to clear. How much snow was required for you guys to get a snow day? We would gain a foot or two over night and that only warranted the delay. I know that if they get an inch of snow in the desert everything is put on hold for a few days it is kind of funny. From what you said Chicago sounds a lot like L.A. we go there at-least 3 times a month and after the first few visits everything began to get too familiar.</p>
<p>Chicago consist of what you’d expect: tall skyscrapers, musams, resturaunts, navy pier, plays. Then, of course, gang violence, shootings, rapes, murders, etc. Um, well, I remember two years ago we received 3 feet of storm, had an ice storm right before that, and an earthquake overnight, and still had school. It can be unpredictable. I also attend a school district that’s ran by morons. We ran out of paper at school my freshmen year, and when we received money for the schools for more paper, apparently paving a couple roads was more important then the education of future americans. Frankly, Illinois sucks:)</p>
<p>^I just noticed that some of me sentence structure was stupid. Which is pretty ironic, sense I was talking about moron district presidents, when I sound like a moron. I apologize:)</p>
<p>Okay, i’m going to kill the spell check on this phone! I look like even more of an idiot! For the record, I do know the different between sense and since:)</p>
<p>It is okay I have those moments also. I believe that my school district rivals your’s on stupidity. Two years ago the district people decided that it was more important to give every employee a Iphone rather than build a decent science lab, at the moment we have no labs going on for any science class beside the lab we did in physics to calculate momentum and stuff. Also, why did you guys have the misfortune of having mother nature angry at you guys for a week. The only thing we get here are earthquakes and dust storms. To be fair though they do happen quite frequently.</p>