u/historicallypink16

Title, + if anybody knows how I can see it too :)

Hi, going into college application season I was pretty naive about the cost of college. The people on here are insane and the cost of top colleges are insane as well. So, I wanna give some advice/tips/what to expect to people if their application is similar to mine (honestly very average compared to the people here💔).

Here’s are my stats for reference, also I am from the US:
Lower class, white female, first gen
4.3 gpa
1280 SAT (670 R/W and 610 Math)
5 on APUSH and AP Lit, 4 on WHAP
Awaiting 2 scores
Book club president
Did a summer program with a student from Stanford my sophomore year
National honor society
Spanish honor society
Moderated for an online group about reading (about 3000 people?)
Was in a few other low impact clubs like young lawyers, mock trial, volunteer clubs
Worked a part time job my junior and senior year
Low impact awards like AP scholar/other college board awards and student of the month twice
Essay about my passion for learning

I applied mostly in state, but a few places in New York! I was hopeful good aid, but even with good aid and scholarships a bunch of the college in NYC were still too expensive. I think Binghamton was $22 k, but unfortunately I still couldn’t afford that.

I got way better offers in state, and I’m going to Penn State (my state college) in the fall!

It ended up being $8359 for the first year.

Started at $36,000 - roughly $10,000 from FASFA, $12,000 from a scholarship directly from the college, $5000 from the FASFA loan, and $1000 from two local scholarships!

If you’re worried about the cost of college, here’s what I’d recommend:

Ask your counselor for the free applications code (I was able to apply to 15 schools for free!)

APPLY LOCALLY AND IN-STATE (have back-ups, ones you’d realistically go to and like if where you wanna go doesn’t work out. For example, I applied to a bunch of random local colleges, when I should’ve narrowed it down to 1-3 that I would’ve actually liked going to!)

Talk with your parents!!! (A lot of rich kids from my school with average stats couldn’t go where they wanted, because they couldn’t get any from FAFSA and couldn’t get scholarship, and WAYYY underestimated the cost of college.)

If you have a major like nursing or education (or another one where your college doesn’t matter much, as long as it’s accredited) I’d def recommend staying local. When you wanna be a teacher, compared to if you’re going for business where you might need more connections, it doesn’t really matter where you wanna go.

Consider community college and your states college, if you really wanna attend top schools but can’t afford it. I’ve also heard you can get way better scholarships through transferring this way!!

Consider if you even need to attend a top school, or if you can try and save money!! For example, I’m going pre-law and my friend is going pre-med (she got into some really good schools like northeastern and Michigan, etc, but ended up going somewhere else to save money). We both realized your grad school is way more important that your undergraduate degree!! Undergrad is a good time to save money.

Try and be realistic about your application. Personally, my gpa is pretty good but only some of my ecs are good. My SAT is mid and I could’ve done more volunteering and get involved in more sports and high impact clubs. I knew I wasnt getting into top 25 or even top 50 schools, and that’s okay. I’m not saying it’s not worth a try, but you can kind of tell when your application has a chance or not.

APPLY TO LOCAL SCHOLARSHIPS. I got $1000 from local scholarships and one of my friends got like $5000 from local ones!! Realistically, we all can’t be Coca Cola scholars.

Okay that’s it, lmk if you have any questions.

Hi, going into college application season I was pretty naive about the cost of college. The people on here are insane and the cost of top colleges are insane as well. So, I wanna give some advice/tips/what to expect to people if their application is similar to mine (honestly very average compared to the people here💔).

Here’s are my stats for reference:
Lower class, white female, first gen
4.3 gpa
1280 SAT (670 R/W and 610 Math)
5 on APUSH and AP Lit, 4 on WHAP
Awaiting 2 scores
Book club president
Did a summer program with a student from Stanford my sophomore year
National honor society
Spanish honor society
Moderated for an online group about reading (about 3000 people?)
Was in a few other low impact clubs like young lawyers, mock trial, volunteer clubs
Worked a part time job my junior and senior year
Low impact awards like AP scholar/other college board awards and student of the month twice
Essay about my passion for learning

I applied mostly in state, but a few places in New York! I was hopeful good aid, but even with good aid and scholarships a bunch of the college in NYC were still too expensive. I think Binghamton was $22 k, but unfortunately I still couldn’t afford that.

I got way better offers in state, and I’m going to Penn State (my state college) in the fall!

It ended up being $8359 for the first year.

Started at $36,000 - roughly $10,000 from FASFA, $12,000 from a scholarship directly from the college, $5000 from the FASFA loan, and $1000 from two local scholarships!

If you’re worried about the cost of college, here’s what I’d recommend:

Ask your counselor for the free applications code (I was able to apply to 15 schools for free!)

APPLY LOCALLY AND IN-STATE (have back-ups, ones you’d realistically go to and like if where you wanna go doesn’t work out. For example, I applied to a bunch of random local colleges, when I should’ve narrowed it down to 1-3 that I would’ve actually liked going to!)

Talk with your parents!!! (A lot of rich kids from my school with average stats couldn’t go where they wanted, because they couldn’t get any from FAFSA and couldn’t get scholarship, and WAYYY underestimated the cost of college.)

If you have a major like nursing or education (or another one where your college doesn’t matter much, as long as it’s accredited) I’d def recommend staying local. When you wanna be a teacher, compared to if you’re going for business where you might need more connections, it doesn’t really matter where you wanna go.

Consider community college and your states college, if you really wanna attend top schools but can’t afford it. I’ve also heard you can get way better scholarships through this way!!

Consider if you even need to attend a top school, or if you can try and save money!! For example, I’m going pre-law and my friend is going pre-med (she got into some really good schools like northeastern and Michigan, etc, but ended up going somewhere else to save money). We both realized your grad school is way more important that your undergraduate degree!! Undergrad is a good time to save money.

Try and be realistic about your application. Personally, my gpa is pretty good but only some of my ecs are good. My SAT is mid and I could’ve done more volunteering and get involved in more sports and high impact clubs. I knew I wasnt getting into top 25 or even top 50 schools, and that’s okay. I’m not saying it’s not worth a try, but you can kind of tell when your application has a chance or not.

APPLY TO LOCAL SCHOLARSHIPS. I got $1000 from local scholarships and one of my friends got like $5000 from local ones!! Realistically, we all can’t be Coca Cola scholars.

Okay that’s it, lmk if you have any questions.

Hi, I scored a 5 on the APUSH exam last year, and I just wanna say 2 things I think might be helpful!!

Try not to worry.. seriously, it does nothing but make your test performance worse. Last minute cramming isn’t gonna help, just relax, try to do something fun!

Don’t get caught up on SAQs if you don’t know them. I got a 5, and I’m pretty sure I did horrible on my SAQs. A lot of people get nervous because you either have an answer or you don’t. Remember, they only make up a small portion of the exam.

Okay that’s it lol. Good luck, and remember a test score doesn’t define you! My AP history teacher literally told our class she got a 2 on the exam in high school lol.

^Title

After I took my AP exam last year, I only really knew Handmaid’s Tale, and was really nervous going into it. However, I got a 5, so it didn’t really matter in the end. But, had I gone back in time I probably would have also prepped Beloved and Hamlet. I truly believe these are like the perfect trio that could match pretty much any prompts.

So, if you could go back in time, would you have done anything differently regarding prepping for q3?

Hi, to graduate I have to do a senior project, and a big part of that is a speech/powerpoint presentation. We have to do it on what career we want to pursue, and I want to be an attorney. My teacher wants us to do a hook or something cool to make people interested. She gave off past examples like someone who wanted to be a nurse anesthetist bring equipment in and showing us a very basic skill, someone who wanted to be a nutritionist showing off unlikely healthy foods and surprisingly unhealthy foods, and a speech therapist making one of their friends chew 3 pieces of gum and read a sentence, then only chew 1 piece of gum and re-read it, showing progress that people can achieve with speech therapy.

These are all sooo cool, and I just feel like I can’t top it! I’m thinking I maybe share an interesting case, fake a crime scene, but honestly I don’t know.. I’m not even sure this subreddit is the right place for this. But how do I come up with a creative hook for a speech??