<p>Test scores are like resumes, they mean very little about the actual person’s skills, but you need good ones just to get past the gate keepers. Turn the game around. Study, pay the bucks for a class a book, whatever and then blaze the test. If the fools judge first on test scores, then have a great test score. As to reachable goals, that’s up to you, I can’t judge. I can only tell you my experience on a set of exams was:</p>
<p>Without studying - All scores in 50% percentile
With studying (Kaplan, way too expensive) - 98% percentile. </p>
<p>The difference made getting into the school of my choice a joke. It was obvious from the college responses that while they do ignore scores when you’re a part of the mix (say 75 - 85%), if you blow the test away, they take their brains out and just stamp you accepted. So use it against them if you can.</p>
<p>My lifestyle point was simple - you’re gonna live there for four years. If you like the place, the people and surroundings then life will be so much easier, and it’s part of the experience. </p>
<p>UVA is a great place, lots of school activities, and a beautiful campus. The place likes politics (near DC). The students are, lets put this nicely, pompous. It’s built into the system. You wear ties to football games for example. The campus is big and wealthy, steeped in Jeffersonian history and damn, damn, damn proud of it. Virginia and the school are politically conservative but allow the liberals to live amongst them. It’s not highly diversified though it says it is.</p>
<p>Lehigh’s campus is small, tight and also beautiful. Old ivy covered stone buildings mixed with modern high tech. It’s built into the side of a mountain and you will get great legs going down from your dorm to classes and back up again. When it gets cold, it’s cold and when it snows, it really snows. The students are competitive (should be capitalized but I don’t want to shout), and it is a school of proud geeks, so not the best for social interaction. It had a reputation as a party school, but it’s nothing like it use to be. Lehigh is not as political as UVA because they all agree with each other. They define conservative (the professor supporting Intelligent Design over evolution at the recent Dover high court case was from Lehigh, a Biology professor if you can believe it). Diversity at Lehigh is easily found because it resides in only one place, a dictionary at the main library. </p>
<p>Both campuses suffer from island syndrome. The upside, just about everything that happens in the area, happens at the campus. The downside, get off the campus and nothing happens. Lehigh is worse in this regard, since the school is nestled in the city of Bethlehem, next to Nazareth, and Jerusalem. While the distant from UVA to the next major city is greater.</p>
<p>So this is why I asked the question about lifestyle. Consider what four years at Boston, New York or LA would be like in comparison. These four years are incredibly formative, so take a moment and think about the type of people you want to be with, what you want to do on weekends. Both the schools I listed are great places, and you will get a fantastic education at either, but what else do you want?</p>
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