@mommdc UNCW isn’t just a branch campus of UNC. It’s a completely separate school, with different school colors and a different mascot. Unlike Pitt-Johnstown to Pitt main, not everyone transfers to UNC after two years. Pitt-Johnstown is in a disgustingly deprived and depressing area; I’d much rather have stayed in NJ to attend Rider. And that’s saying something.
Regarding Temple, the other schools I mentioned by name are not flagships. But Penn State isn’t a flagship??
And thanks, I know I won’t have to apply to any of those schools.
For a student who intends to study civil, electrical, or mechanical engineering, CSULA, CSUN, and CSUSac, among many others, are better than UNC-CH.
Of course, if we use the definition of “branch campus” that you use in #60, there are no four year “branch campuses” in California, since the transfer path is mainly through the community colleges.
@LBad96, ok, you know more about UNC and UNCW than me. Maybe it is a different system.
Not everyone transfers out of UPJ either, they have 4 yr degrees offered there as well. A very good nursing program for example. It offers a service, a commutable school for (mostly area) students to get an affordable degree.
And I find your description of Johnstown offensive. I live in a rural town in PA even smaller than Johnstown and not everyone can live in NJ or NC, can they?
@mommdc I don’t think you are wrong. From the UNC website: “The University of North Carolina is a multi-campus university dedicated to serving our state and its people through world-class teaching, research and scholarship, and outreach and service.” It consists of 16 universities and one HS for gifted kids. UNC-W is one of the 16.
@mommdc Johnstown is a depressed former-steel mill town that was abandoned in the 80s by the government and corporations. It was hit very hard financially/economically and has yet to recover. While I am truly sorry for unintentionally offending you, any praise for the town of Johnstown, PA would be a lie.
I’m sure the students at UPJ are hardworking and humble people, and that there are certainly advantages to completing your degree at Pitt Main. Heck, even those who are finishing their degree at UPJ are hopefully enjoying their time there. But, I honestly felt that all the other choices I had were much better, and I especially would have been a fool to turn down UNCW’s offer.
Is this in reference to the SAT writing score? Given that the College Board is eliminating the writing test, I’m guessing UMass was onto something, no?
@LucieTheLakie that was well before that change was announced. They never really counted it. I would have gotten in if they did. But it doesn’t matter, as I would have picked UNCW anyways.
Many college and universities, not just UMass, had been ignoring the writing score for many years, @LBad96. It was widely derided as a poor measurement of writing skills:
@LucieTheLakie yet that was still my best section. My point is that I wasted an application. As a matter of fact, I should have cut three other schools as well. Not because those schools ignored the writing section, but because I wasted apps on schools I didn’t like/weren’t at all good fits for me.
But you implied they did something nefarious (“I wouldn’t have wasted my time applying to UMass knowing that they blatantly ignore an entire section of the SAT.”) Sounds like that was their policy all along and that you either failed to do your homework or ignored it.
Live and learn, but don’t mischaracterize what actually happened, when the OP ought to be considering the school as an in-state safety.
Penn State with 1 main campus and 19 branch campuses
Pittsburgh with 1 main campus and 3 branch campuses
17 other state and state-related campuses
It looks like the branch campuses are limited 4-year schools that are like expensive versions of community college for students trying to transfer to the main campus. Many of the PA state and state-related schools show up on the “highest student debt” lists due to the relatively poor in-state financial aid.
On the question of “who can write a decent essay in 25 minutes?”, perhaps students should join forums and post frequently.
The writing section is the descendent of an English composition achievement / SAT-II test. Some universities, like the UCs and Harvard, noted that the correlation between the score on that test and college performance was stronger than for SAT-I scores. However, after that test became part of the SAT reasoning, test prep companies started emphasizing how to game the writing section and its grading, probably reducing the value of the writing section as a predictor of college performance.
Many other schools that never used the English composition achievement / SAT-II test just continued to use the other two sections of the SAT reasoning test in order to stay consistent with former practice.
That is a type of gaming of the writing section that the test prep companies discovered and are teaching. Such gaming has probably devalued the writing section compared to when it was a separate Achievement / SAT-II test that test prep companies paid little attention to.
Yes, my friend, whose parents paid over 2K so that she could get “premium” test prep, was literally told to use as many commas as possible, even if it created run on or nonsensical sentences, big words, even if they didn’t quite fit, and fake examples, as long as they could explain them in detail. Their reasoning is that, based on research, the essay readers look for long sentences, “advanced” vocab, and overall length. Accuracy and actual writing quality are thrown out the window.
