Before anything, thank you all for the aid. I really need some guidanece when it comes to my “college path”, almost all the info that I gathered to date is from random places of the internet. It is really hard coming from a straight forward system as Brazil’s, where there are only 3-5 decent colleges to aim for, combined with having only one set schedule of classes for your major, without the possibility of personalization. I’m trying to learn everything as soon as possible so I can start with a solid idea of what are my optimal paths.
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@Gator88NE
My assumptions are from rankings and from what I’ve gathered in the recent weeks, I remember reading someone talking about UF on a post from another site: “Average university, but respected around here”. I’ve absorbed information from not very reputable sources a lot of times, so my idea of the scene in general is very distorted and erronic
Why UF though? Is UF really my best option? Is it better than UCD or UVA for exemple? How do I go beyond the rankings?
I haven’t started my studies in CC yet, so I’m free to moving, I don’t have credits anywhere.
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@aquapt
I agree 100% with you: my view is not the best one. As I said above, my opinion is based on random posts and rankings, I don’t know how to go beyond that, I couldn’t even find a reliable source that indicated me the best psychology schools. All I could find were people outlining how the UCs are very strong when it comes to psych and a top50 related to degrees.
Having a deep view is really important to me, since I imagine that living in a university where you major is one of the strongest points and where you have research/practice oportunities is key. One of my fears is getting into a uni where I’m limited to the academics and have no way to establish connections.
Brazilian academics in strong private schools are very different: GPA doesn’t matter there, so, depending on the school, the tests will be so hard that the top 5% has a 80/100. That’s not an excuse for my case though: my school had a medium difficulty, and I was at the top 50-55% in the first years with an average of 55/100 in test(I just researched a little bit more, and it seems that 60% in US is considered D, scary stuff). I started working very early to be able to live in the US and, when high school came, I started spending 5-8 hours of my day at my job. It wasn’t because of lack of interest or discipline, but because I needed to do that If I wanted to fullfill my goal.
I don’t really have any affection for NY, I only consider it because of it’s ok ranking and high transfer rate(you can see that my knowledge about the top just isn’t there). The only things that I want are: classes that I can establish connections with the teaches(so I imagine that classes with 500-700 students wouldn’t work, I may be wrong here), no absurd difficulty when it comes to scheduling classes(which may not be as bad for me since I will come for a CC), no desolate places(I’m not saying that I want NY or CA because their demographics are so high, I just don’t want to go the colleges that are located in very small towns with little connections or in the fields), safety (doesn’t need to be the safest place in the world, but not having to worry about getting mugged would be enough) and, most importantly, a very solid psychology program with good connections. Since I do not have the grades and ECs to be picky, I will have to deal with some aspects that I don’t like about certain institutions, but that’s ok.
My goal now is to improve my English(that is terrible, as you can see by my writing), get a 3.8-4.0 GPA in college, hopefully be able to enrich my resume with more credits and harder classes and try to establish a connection with the field in general, so I can grab opportunities. My only worry is that I do not meet expectations and end up not transfering to the colleges that I want to be in(not even safeties), since I have no clue how rigorous the courses are. I’ve lived all my life in a system that 80/100 in a test is top 5%, so I imagine that it is probably all psychological.
Do you have any opinion about UVA? Or better, any idea how to find about UVA’s psych major quality? The guaranteed transfer really attracts me, but I’m worried because I don’t know how they are in the field
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@happymomof1
This link will be very, very usefull. Thank you very much.
Miami Dade College is really close to home, I almost started going there when I moved, but since I’m not sure what uni I’m going to, I decided to take a step back and decided with caution.
Yeah, grad schools seem to really look at your goals and about your work as an individual, it’s very interesting. I guess this is a reason to move to a place with connections, to make sure you have good influences in college.
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Again, thank you very much, I really value the advices <3