Help for University Selection
After being rejected by Cornell, I'm down to 8 schools to choose from.
Since I'm an international student, it is very hard for me to make a decision. I have narrowed my choices down to 3 schools.
1. University of Virginia
2. Oberlin College
3. University of California Davis
Which is more prestigious/more recognised?
I'm going to study Biological Sciences for undergraduate studies.
Tuition isn't too much of a problem.
Also, how are the cities like? I heard that Charlottesville is beautiful but how about the people there? Do they tend to be more conservative/close minded?
If any of you went there or have any suggestions or know anything about the schools/places, I'd be very, very greatful.
I'm Chinese but I've lived in Italy for all my life. I am fluent in 4 languages so I consider myself quite international.
Also, where do I find more mac users?
Thanks in advance.
Since I'm an international student, it is very hard for me to make a decision. I have narrowed my choices down to 3 schools.
1. University of Virginia
2. Oberlin College
3. University of California Davis
Which is more prestigious/more recognised?
I'm going to study Biological Sciences for undergraduate studies.
Tuition isn't too much of a problem.
Also, how are the cities like? I heard that Charlottesville is beautiful but how about the people there? Do they tend to be more conservative/close minded?
If any of you went there or have any suggestions or know anything about the schools/places, I'd be very, very greatful.
I'm Chinese but I've lived in Italy for all my life. I am fluent in 4 languages so I consider myself quite international.
Also, where do I find more mac users?
Thanks in advance.
Comments
The very cool San Francisco is just down the road a bit and Sacramento is just up the road. San Francisco as you might have heard is very liberal and also very diverse. It has a large chinese population that don't get involved in politics, they are there. It, like the rest of California, also has just about every type of person under the sun. You would likely be able to find someone to practice every single one of those four languages and a few more.
Example this year in my class room the following languages are spoken by the student as home languages. Tagalog, Farsi, Spanish, English and a language from India that I honestly cannot pronounce let alone spell. One classroom.... not atypical at all.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
Well all I know about UC Davis is that it is in Northern Califonia and that it is a U.C. which means it can't stink too bad. You wouldn't get in state tuition the first year, but after that you could claim state residency which would drop your tuition quite a bit.
UC Davis is a fine school, but it does stink...there's a lot of livestock around there and the odor wafts onto certain portions of the campus when the wind is just right.
The very cool San Francisco is just down the road a bit and Sacramento is just up the road. San Francisco as you might have heard is very liberal and also very diverse. It has a large chinese population that don't get involved in politics, they are there. It, like the rest of California, also has just about every type of person under the sun. You would likely be able to find someone to practice every single one of those four languages and a few more.
Are you kidding me? The Chinese population is quite active in San Francisco politics. Two words: Rose Pak
Both Art Agnos and Frank Jordan turned to Chinese voters to help solidify their mayoral campaigns. Agnos in particular befriended all the Chinese doctors in the city to 1) help fund his campaign, and 2) spread the word to all the Chinese patients out there. Even if the elder Chinese people aren't eligible to vote, most of them have children who are. Agnos appointed several Chinese deputy mayors as well.
Originally posted by Eugene
UC Davis is a fine school, but it does stink...there's a lot of livestock around there and the odor wafts onto certain portions of the campus when the wind is just right.
Are you kidding me? The Chinese population is quite active in San Francisco politics. Two words: Rose Pak
Both Art Agnos and Frank Jordan turned to Chinese voters to help solidify their mayoral campaigns. Agnos in particular befriended all the Chinese doctors in the city to 1) help fund his campaign, and 2) spread the word to all the Chinese patients out there. Even if the elder Chinese people aren't eligible to vote, most of them have children who are. Agnos appointed several Chinese deputy mayors as well.
Well I welcome and encourage all political participation. I just meant that the Chinese do not participate in numbers representative of their population. If they did they would be quite the force indeed.
Nick
Are they just a little conservative but are generally open to new ideas? How about prejudice issues? Will I be treated as an outsider or purposely isolated?
I assume most americans are open minded as America is a melting pot.
Thans for the advice, you two.
I wrote a letter to a professor of Biology at UVA and she said its very good for Biology.
Also a question is:
At Davis I applied for Neurobiology which is quite specific at the Undergraduate level. At UVA the only choice was Biological Sciences.
Does this imply anything on the level and comprehensiveness of education?
Thanks guys, I really appreciate your help
UVA is a school which the students are quite proud of. THE university, as they say, or Mr Jefferson's University. Large enough so that I think you'd fit in, even if the overall atmosphere might be more fraternity good-ole-boy.
Oberlin is very well regarded and I doubt you'd have any problems fitting in. However, of the three, it is probably the most isolated due to its size and relatively rural location. Oberlin excels in the humanities and music; but I don't know much about the sciences. Oh, and you can borrow paintings from their museum to hang in your dorm room, I understand.
UCDavis is quite a ways from SF. It's an eco-friendly California type of place. Sure you'll fit in. Of the three choices this would be my last, but then again I think it is strong in the sciences.
But Eugene is right. It does stink of cows. A reason I didn't go there.
Originally posted by stevegongrui
About the people in Virginia,
Are they just a little conservative but are generally open to new ideas? How about prejudice issues? Will I be treated as an outsider or purposely isolated?
I assume most americans are open minded as America is a melting pot.
Thans for the advice, you two.
UVA is a very very good public school and you would get a very good education there.
Charlottesville is in the South. Things are different there in a quiet way. If you want to get an idea what to expect as an Asian, I would suggest you contact UVA's Asian Pacific Islander Alumni network or the Asian Student Union. Both have a presence on the web.
Oberlin is probably the best school of the three. But it is a liberal arts school in a small college town in Ohio. The liberal arts educational experience is not the same as the state school educational experience. So you have some variety there.
I would not make too much of how specific the undergraduate coursework is. If you have specific things you want to do as an undergraduate, that would be something you would pursue with independent study and summer internships. You figure in a program like biology, it will be a while before you will be taking electives anyway, so what difference does it make what your major is in.
btw, I chose not to go to UVA for undergrad or grad school because it had the feel of a frat-boy school and was a little far from civilization. My preferences ymmv
Personally I would select UVA. All three have solid reputations though, at least in general. I can't say that I know much about their respective merits in bio and such.
But it is definitly a first tier school and your fellow students will all be very bright.
As a proffessor of mine said (at UC) desccribing the differences between Columbia, where he taught before, and the UC : "Here, you students either have a good idea and write a bad paper, or write a good paper and have a bad idea . . . there, the students always wrote good paperrs with good ideas."
Davis is in the flat dry hot valley but is two-three hours from San Francisco . . . UC system is good generally and also its cheap
Virginia?!?!? can't say . . .
The school is one of the best UCs out there, especially in agriculture, art, and the sciences. My dad works in the Biology department (Biomathematics, specifically), so if you go there, you'll probably end up meeting him eventually.
As far as tutition goes, it is about average if you're from out of state, which you are. But as trumptman said, you can eventually claim state residency and dramatically lower your tutition.
What is everyone talking about when they say that Davis smells?! Only the area immediately surrounding the cows has a farm odor, the rest of the campus smells perfectly normal. As college campuses go, Davis has a pretty nice one. There is a three mile long arboretum which is very beautiful in the spring. There is a really terrific library, which is fairly new. Hmm... what else can I tell you? Oh, if you're bored, you can rent a movie and take some friends to, say, the chem building after dark. The doors on campus are usually unlocked, and there are screens in lecture halls that are perfect for movies.
The city of Davis is pretty nice in a quaint, quasi-urban-farmtown way. It seems liberal at first, but under the surface it is actually conservative. You kind of have to see it for yourself. The city officals can be pretty weird sometimes (they arrested someone for snoring too loudly in their own home), but it provides entertainment when they get really odd.
Yeah, so I hope this long post helped. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
Originally posted by Eugene
UVA is one of the over-all top public schools in the country, and it's pretty good for the engineering crowd, but I don't know about biology and pre-med curriculae. It's also in *cough* hicksville, so yeah, the people there won't be the cosmopolitan type at all.
Yeah, but UVA is big enough that it's not so much a concern. A lot of people from Northern VA (DC Metro) and DC itself go there.
My other schools are:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of California Santa Cruz and Irvine, University of Southern California and Purdue University.
At the moment I seem to have a slight preference for Virginia as it is rated as top 2 public school, with 92% graduation rate and good reputation.
So if you have more 'insider' information about UVa that would be great. Even the negative aspects would interest me as after all, I might be planning to spend my next 4 years there.
All three schools are pretty good for Biology actually.
How 'technological'is UVa and Charlottesville? I know Davis is very state of the art.
I applied to lots of public schools as they'd be cheaper than private. They are, but it turns out they're still pretty darn expensive. Here are my prices, as I'm non US:
UVa: $30600
Davis: $32000
Oberlin: $36619
So it seems like most of you have given the most positive comments about Oberlin. Are the negative points some of you said really that important?
One other thing: What's the deal about Frats and Sors? Reading the statistics some 30% seem to be involved in it at UVa. I heard that its just a bunch of rich kids doing things together but i don't know anything about them. Is it something to avoid? Does it matter?
Again, thanks for helping.
Originally posted by Scott
UVA is horrible. The people that go to school there are the snobbiest pact of asshole around. If you want to hang out with a bunch of upper middle class assholes from NoVA then go to UVA
Really?!? Are there lots of harsh group divisions and student exclusions?
I thought that because UVa is a public schools, there wouldn't be so many rich and arrogant kids.
Reading about Oberlin, I seem to like to hang out with those kinds of 'wierdos', but as long as not everyone is a southern close minded arrogant snobby...whatever, I'm ok.
Please tell me in what way they're snobby or undesirable. I'm sure not everyone is like that.
Thank you for your contribution.
I applied to lots of public schools as they'd be cheaper than private. They are, but it turns out they're still pretty darn expensive.
The tuition benefits for public schools are generally meant for students from that state, Virginia or California as the case may be. I don't know the specific figures for those schools of course but California's system is greatly weighted towards in-state students unless something has changed in recent years. You would certainly do well to explore what the conditions are for being granted in-state status and whether that would be a viable option for your circumstances. You could be talking about tens of thousands of dollars here over the course of 4 years so residency requirements are definitely worth researching. In general though you must be living in that state 12 months out of the year.
One other thing: What's the deal about Frats and Sors? Reading the statistics some 30% seem to be involved in it at UVa. I heard that its just a bunch of rich kids doing things together but i don't know anything about them. Is it something to avoid? Does it matter?
It's basically just a bunch of kids tribing up with similar cookie cutter style suburban kids to get drunk together. They revel in their new found adult freedoms by get sauced and tossed. A culture of people wishing to live their lives like they were beer commercials. They can easily be ignored or not at most schools depending on your personal preferences.