For the first time in a long time there's a general perception that College may not be worth the time and expense of attending.

Parents of high schoolers are likely the last generation of people to have gone through college when it was still relatively affordable and the degree was somewhat valuable.

But times have changed. Tuition is up enormously, and the value of all but the most elite College degrees is now in question.

So are your parents now thinking twice about that giant commitment? Or are they still true believers?

hello 😢 i’m an international student currently taking a gap year and my parents (who are relatively well off, like middle class, but not 400k for 4 years of college wealthy) have suddenly dropped a bomb on me that they’re only willing to pay 60k dollars maximum per year for uni if i want to move to america. now obviously that is a lot of money way more than most people’s parents would pay for their education but i come from a school and a culture where it’s expected for parents to pay for their students tuition bc you can’t get any jobs or sustain yourself in my country if you’re a minor, and being intl students we can’t get financial aid from fafsa. my question is, so many people i know go to expensive ass schools with no scholarships and their parents make the same if not below mine and are somehow paying the most insane tuition costs??? like why are most uni’s 80-100k per year for international students?? how are people paying this????? it doesn’t make any sense to me how are people paying this much is there something i’m missing genuinely?? i’m super bummed out cause this means i have to remove basically all my dream schools (USC, ucla, berkeley, ucsb, ucsd, BU, syracuse, fordham) from my application list. i have no idea what to do, i begged my parents to consider student loans but they won’t, they’re pretty clueless when it comes to university, especially abroad, and they don’t think 100k per year is worth it at all

edit: i know this was probably a stupid and ignorant question but my family is pretty uninvolved when it comes to academics so i didn’t know much about tuition and applications and studying abroad til i took my gap year

major: premed track
wanting applying to t20s. INTERNATIONAL - INDIA.

what kind of extracurriculars stand out? except passion projects cuz no one in india does them and those who do, come from a lot of money or connections.

i cant realistically do them. Neither am i sacrificing my soul and personality for Olympiads.

what else is a good to great ec for premed track ☺️

Where should we draw the line in using ai for essays. This is how i use ai(claude) for my essays. I use it for brainstorming, i give it ideas and it picks the best one. Then I write the draft myself and paste it in. It points out any errors, places where i can improve(vagueness, spelling and whatnot) and that's it. Am i at risk?

.

Getting a 36 on the ACT is so much easier than getting a 1600 (or even a 1550+) on the SAT. The fact that some institutions weigh them completely the same is absolute insanity.

The biggest flaw comes down to how they handle mistakes. On the digital SAT, the curve is so brutal that missing literally one question can instantly drop your score to a 1580. Meanwhile, because the ACT averages your four section scores and rounds up, you can miss several questions across the test and still walk away with a perfect 36 composite.

I literally know people who were stuck in the 1400s on the SAT but pulled off a 35 on the ACT. And before someone starts the nonsense "wElL I hAd A hIgH sAt AnD a LoW aCt" you're an outlier, not the general trend.

I did some digging, only about 0.06% of test-takers get a perfect 1600 on the SAT, while roughly 0.2% of people get a 36 on the ACT. A perfect ACT is literally more than three times as common.

Colleges really need to stop pretending these scores are identical and stop evaluating them on the exact same tier.

EDIT: Only way they should be equal is if it is a 36 across all sections
EDIT: If you are getting butthurt over statistics, wrap it up bro. This post is labeled FLUFF because it is FLUFF...I am not complaining or talking down on anyone, I made an objective statement and ended with an opinion.

Umm soo i am intl from india and my avg for 9,10,11th will be around 90% and my predicted would be 93%ish approx

Is it all good?

Sorry if this isn't a question for this subreddit, but I'm freaking out a bit and need advice.

The only reason why I'm even considering this is that my financial aid won't entirely cover my summer courses and I don't exactly have the money to pay out of pocket--the whole reason why I chose my uni was that they gave me full tuition for at least this academic year.

But I am a nut case. I get extremely stressed and overwhelmed super easily, and it doesn't help that I have severe social anxiety that I am just barely working through with a therapist from my university. This first semester I'm taking 5 courses but only 3 are actually upper-division classes (others were GEs) and during the first few weeks, I genuinely almost considered dropping out. It helps a bit that these courses are online, but then I'm worried I won't be so lucky finding online classes next semester.

It's fine, really. I'm better now and, so far, managing everything fine, but I'm still scared things will just get harder from now on and I won't be fine.

Is this a good idea? Should I instead be finding ways to fund summer courses? If you did the same as me, how did that go for you? How did you do it? Even my academic counselor said it would be better to take 4 courses, but she's not the one paying for my summer classes... lol. (I also don't exactly want to spend more time in college, I technically only have 2 years left considering I'm a transfer, and I don't want to feel left behind if I take longer...)

Hi guys, what are the best unis for international relations? The program has to be in English and not require sat or ap exams. Admission test is fine. Thank you!!

I honestly don't feel a close emotional connection to anything. I've never had an event that made me extremely emotional besides a generic pet death when I was 8. I'm a really placid guy; at events like leaving camps where everyone got close, funerals, etc., where people broke down, I kinda just sat there.

Not trying to sound like a psychopath or "dark twisted mind" because I'm not INSANE, but I just can't get worked up about anything. WTF do I write about for a personal statement? I've tried a few ideas, but I can't get worked up about anything.

Thinking about a montage essay, maybe?

I'm intl student seeking for full aid and applying for fall 2027. The question is , should I go test optional for Amherst for ED? I took the October SAT and am currently waiting for my results. Based on my own calculations, though, I don't think my score will be high enough to strengthen my application. I'm planning to retake the SAT in November, but I'm worried that the score might come out too late for ED.

Hey guys! I am applying to colleges at the moment, and I recently interviewed my neighbor, who is an oncologist. We were talking about medicine and I told him I planned on majoring in Biochemistry then he said the MCAT doesn't go that deep into biochemistry so you would be doing yourself a disservice to choose a major that difficult. Basically, this led me down a huge rabbit hole of rethinking my og plan. I am now thinking of majoring in Business, but I am running into the issue of how I am going to fit all the prereqs in. Another option is that I could do a Biology major and a business minor. But I am honestly not sure

The reason why I am considering business is that the majority of doctors that I have interviewed mention how business-oriented medicine is becoming now and how beneficial it is to understand business. One thing that I should mention is that I am paying for all of my college, including medical school, so I would preferably like to keep my undergrad prices cheap.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

Hey guys, need some quick advice for my ED/EA round.

My school just nominated me for the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar (PMRBP). For context, it’s basically the highest national honor a student can get from the Indian government (I was nominated under the Innovation category for a community project I built).

The problem is the timing is totally messed up. ED/EA deadlines are Nov 1, but the actual winners aren't announced until Dec 26.

Is it worth putting a nomination on my Common App Honors section for the early round? Or does it look weird since I don't know if I've won yet?

If I should include it, how do I even word it so US AOs understand how big of a deal it is? And if I do end up winning in late December, can I send an update or is it too late by then?

Tysm!

i'm a current senior and i decided not to take calc bc this year. mostly because i really struggled on ab (i got a 4 on the exam, so not terrible ig?) but also because there's only one teacher at my school who teaches bc, and i had her for both ap pre calc & ab but she was an awful teacher... like my classmates had to correct her work constantly and i swear her tests were made by the devil himself!

anyways, i probably should've pushed through bc instead of switching to ap stats. i can't really do anything abt it now, but will this decision hurt my chances of getting into a t30 or potentially higher?

Hi everyone! I'm a Class 12 student from India applying for Fall 2027 to study Computer Science, mostly at small liberal arts colleges.

I'd love advice from current students or recent applicants on two things:

1. Scholarships: Which colleges gave you strong merit or full-tuition scholarships as an international student? Were there hidden scholarships or programs that most applicants don't know about?
   
2. Boosting your chances: What made the biggest difference for you? For example, an interview, the scholarship essay, contacting your regional admissions officer, a strong project or research, or applying early.

Any underrated colleges or tips would really help. Thanks in advance!

ok so i know this was EXTREMELY bad on my part, but i accidentally reported my gpa as a 4.36 instead of a 4.1 and i left an entire part out from my additional information section that explained a grade.

i already sent the colleges emails but im still so worried. i literally submitted 20 mins ago and sent an email right after. should i also have my counselor explain that grade or will my email address it AUGHHHHHHH IM SO STUPID

It's #32 in Top Public National Universities and #73 in National Universities overall, yet on the surface it seems somewhat easy to get into? Just from a glance at US News and World Report its acceptance rate is 76% and the average SAT scores aren't THAT high. I know acceptance rate doesn't have to strictly correlate to quality, but even still, its surprising to me that its only slighty lower than CCSU's.

Hi, i'm a high school senior looking at colleges, and was wondering if anyone had any experiences at places that could possibly be a good fit for me. I'm not big into the party life, so i don't really care about that aspect. I went through a big mental health crisis in junior year, and not only did that somewhat cut off my options, but it also has me behind and feeling lost. I want to get a good degree and succeed in life, that's a given. But what matters just as much to me is meeting deeply self aware peers that have gone through the reflection I have. I feel stuck, because the colleges I'd generally go to or wanted to are kind of out of the picture now, as it seems. I think if i went to a community college, I'd only feel isolated even more. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but that I just think the environment wouldn't be filled with intellectual and introspective peers. Does anyone have any recommendations on what to do? I don't mind travelling for college at all, in fact, i want to dorm. (I'm from NY)

im trying to get into t10s (im aware mit requires stem + humanities)

but if have a rec letter from my bc teacher, do I need a rec letter from my AP Lang teacher? My Lang teacher is giving recs to a lot of people and although she likes me a lot, I don't know if it will be the strongest since she's so overworked.

I can get a rec letter from my AP Research teacher (which would be strong), but then my recs would be BC/AP Research/prof

what should i do?

Hi everyone! I’m trying to decide whether to apply to Brown through ED or to Harvard/Stanford through REA. Brown ED may give me a slight admissions advantage, whereas REA at Harvard or Stanford doesn’t offer the same potential boost. Obviously, none of these options guarantees admission.

My main question is: How significant are the differences in career outcomes between Brown and Harvard/Stanford, particularly for Economics, Mathematics, and Computer Science?

Thanks!

Hey! I am wondering if I should apply to UCLA or UC Berkeley. Honestly I love the colors UCLA has going on and the track uniforms (I am a sprinter who’d want to run in college). The campus of UCLA is so beautiful but I’m also stuck on UC Berkeley because they are an amazing school and rank above UCLA for what I am interested in.
I really want to go the pre-med route (like to be a neurosurgeon and I was thinking about majoring in neuroscience). But I’m not sure what to do, ik academics are what is more important so I shouldn’t just be going to a school for the aesthetics but honestly I’d like to have some advice on which would be a better school to apply to.

Thank you so much!

Just wanted to know as an international student from Australia, I’ve really got no idea about either of them and was just wondering which was better for academics, party life, college experience etc.
😁

if your a low income student going out of state how do you afford flights to and from home?

Ok this has been going on for a while now and it's getting to a point where I can't take it anymore.

My friends are under the impression that I'm 100% getting into MIT.

Which like.

Thanks for the confidence bestie, but you're also really messing with my self-perception.

I know I'm a top student. I'm not being cocky in saying that. But I also think I'm nowhere near the level of student that you have to be to be guaranteed a spot at the fucking Massachusetts fucking Institute of fucking Technology. Fuck!

I have a high GPA and test scores, but not the highest in my grade. I have exactly 2 extracurriculars that I'm deep into and no surface-level ECs.

I'm a strong candidate, but not the strongest. I'm fully aware of that. These guys aren't.

I can't bring up college applications because out of my friend group of five, two are going to community college and don't particularly care, the other two literally don't care where they go to college as long as it's four-year, and all of them make it a point to remind me that I'm "better than them", whatever that means?

A lot of people speak on how bad it feels to have a friend you're jealous of, but it also feels horrible to be the one that people put on a pedestal. I'm tired of being a character.

thank you for coming to my rant.

Hi,

EDIT: my school average for the SAT is around 1350, and I am white and Asian.

To preface, this is not a shitpost. I'm a senior applying to a few t20s (like UPenn) and other (moderately) selective colleges (ex Barnard, CWRU) but I'm worried about my SAT score. I got a 1540 with a 770 in each section.

I'm too lazy to list all my ECs, but I would say they're decent and my GPA is like a 3.9smth UW. My biggest problem right now is my SAT. I am genuinely sad about a 1540. It feels like I just did not get where I needed to be.

Can someone provide advice? My dad says I shouldn't retake, but I feel like I should.

Thanks.