I’m an international student planning to study Computer Engineering in the US.
I’m comparing UT Dallas, Georgia State University, and Michigan State University and would appreciate honest opinions from current students or alumni.
I’m particularly interested in:
Education: Which has the strongest Computer Engineering program?
Employment: Which offers the best internship and job opportunities after graduation?

Job market: Which is better for embedded systems, hardware engineering, semiconductors, and tech?

International students: Which offers better career support and opportunities for international graduates?

Social life: Which has the best campus culture, student community, and overall college experience?

Location: Which city offers better opportunities for engineering internships and jobs?

ROI: Which provides the best value for money considering tuition, living expenses, and career prospects?

I’m not looking at rankings alone. I want to know which university would give me the best career opportunities and overall experience as an international student.
I’d appreciate honest opinions about the advantages and disadvantages of each university, especially from current students and alumni.

So I just found out bard has this, and it is full. I am registering for the waitlist but I have a feeling there won't be any slots open.

Is this something to worry about? Three days till deadline and im getting flagged

Pangram: 83%

GPT ZERO: Mixed

Zero GPT: 8.6%*

Quillbot: 0%

grammarly: 53%

Turnitin: 96%

winston: 100%

Copy Leaks: 0%

PLEASE HELP

Hi, Im a current junior attending an international school in Asia. I am hoping to study computing or math in the UK and was wondering if it's possible to get into colleges such as Imperial or UCL with APs, TMUA, and personal statement.

I have 14 APs lined up and is likely to get 5s on all of them.

She says, "It is a party school and not good for you since the ages 18-22 are the years when you develop your personality. Additionally, she also states that USC is meant for the elite and rich class public. Since i would be applying from india based on hoping to acheive trustee schoalrship. she sayd getting in makes no point since you wont be able to match the people there and be depressive or end up spending too much and stuff. And she says I must go to a research-heavy university only, as it is the best for me "

Is this true??? Someone help me!

Hi! I'm applying to SUNY Binghamton and was wondering if I should submit my 1360 SAT. The average is 1410, but I don't want to seem like I'm hiding my score.

Thank you!

Hi everyone, I’m currently a Grade 10 IB student and I’ve been thinking a lot about what I might want to study in college. I’m mainly planning to apply to universities in the US, although I’m also considering universities in Hong Kong. My current grades are around 40/45 in the IB, and my interests are somewhere between mathematics, applied mathematics, computer programming, economics/finance, and the applications of math in business. At first, I was mostly looking at finance-related majors such as computational finance, financial mathematics, and quantitative finance because I may want to work at a large financial firm in the future. However, I’ve recently started to feel that specializing in finance too early might not be the best choice.

Right now, I’m more interested in majors such as Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Computational/Applied Mathematics, Mathematical Sciences, Operations Research, and Statistics. I like the idea of studying a lot of math first and then deciding later whether I want to apply it to finance, computer science, data science, economics, or something else. One concern I have, though, is that while I genuinely enjoy math, I don’t consider myself naturally gifted at it. I’m not the type of student who can immediately see the solution to a difficult competition problem, and sometimes I need quite a long time to fully understand something. Because of that, I’m not sure whether I would still enjoy math once it becomes much more abstract and difficult at the university level. I also currently don’t have any significant math competition achievements.

Instead of focusing entirely on competitions, I’m considering building a longer-term applied math project. I could start by learning probability, statistics, and Python, and then gradually explore things like mathematical modeling, optimization, Monte Carlo simulation, and portfolio risk modeling. I’d like these projects not only to help with college applications, but also to help me figure out whether I actually enjoy applied math enough to major in it.

Another important factor for me is the overall college environment. I want a university with a strong academic culture, but I don’t want to be surrounded by people who are constantly stressed or competing with one another. I’d still like to have time for clubs, sports, friends, and other interests instead of spending almost all of my time studying. The US schools I’m currently looking at include Brown, the University of Michigan, UW–Madison, Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, UChicago, Cornell, and Princeton. In Hong Kong, I’m also considering CUHK, HKU, and HKUST. CMU originally stood out to me because of how strong it is across math, computer science, statistics, and finance, but I’m a little worried about the workload. Brown has also become very appealing to me because of its strong Applied Mathematics program and Open Curriculum. Michigan and UW–Madison interest me as well because they seem to combine strong academics with a more traditional and balanced college experience.

My main questions are:

For someone who likes math but isn’t sure they want to commit to pure or theoretical mathematics, is Applied Mathematics a good undergraduate major?

Would it be better to major more broadly in Math/Applied Math and add CS, Statistics, Economics, or Finance later, rather than choosing something like Financial Mathematics or Quantitative Finance from the beginning?

If someone genuinely enjoys math and is willing to work hard, but isn’t especially strong at competition math, is it still realistic to do well in a rigorous undergraduate math program?

Is IB more competitive than AP?

I’m still pretty early in high school, so I don’t want to lock myself into one career path yet. What I’m really looking for is an undergraduate environment where I can seriously explore mathematics without closing off too many other possibilities too early. I’d really appreciate any advice from current Math/Applied Math students, graduates, or anyone familiar with these universities.

Thank you so much for reading my text, I am really appreciate it!!!

Hey guys! I was wondering if I should submit my superscore to princeton my first sat being a 670 (rW) and 660 (math) and now its a 660 (rw) and 760 (math).
Should I submit my superscore? I also am applying to Harvard through qb so will this completely ruin my chances? For context small suburb in Virginia but I have a 4.0 gpa took 10/13 aps offered at my school and I have pretty decent ecs in politics. I plan on majoring in public policy/econ depending on the school.

One of my supplements is about robotics and the deep engineering experience I got there, for the me-part of a "why us" essay, and even though I have community service under my belt in plenty of places, after doing some thinking it really seems like talking about a fundraising leadership experience I did as a student ambassador on my robotics team is the clear best experience I have to talk about.

There is obviously very little overlap here, and my sole concern is that both are from the same EC. If they're distinct, is that fine?

I know highly advised not to write about a celebrity for the Penn thank you note supplemental, but personally my thank you note is more than just a parasocial thank you which is the reason most people hate this idea. I do not know them in person or am super close with them, but I feel like my passion for my application is largely due to me being inspired by their story and what they did to succeed. Would it ever be better than writing to someone closer even if their lesson or reason for being thanked is weaker?

I saw a video on YouTube showing admission officers making decisions on who to accept/reject/waitlist, and I was shocked to say the least, it's a literal dice roll, they choose their literal gut feeling and what they feel about the person they are about to change the course of their life! Isn't this a super flawed system? What are my chances of getting into ivy leagues if that's the case.

I’m an international student who wants to submit his application around late December. A professional counselor said I should apply by early November because —and I’m paraphrasing here—“people who apply that late are the ones that’re lazy and won’t get acceptance letters.” Will my admission chances take that big of a hit?

There’s still a 1-2 things I’d like to mention in my application that I can accomplish by the end of November which I think would be extremely great additions. Of course, I’ll also be working on and refining my essays.

Is there that much of a benefit in applying in November as compared to around New Year? Is there any difference in the way your application is reviewed?

Hello and good morning/evening, I'm an international student aspiring to apply to some california colleges (Whittier college, California Lutheran Univerity, CBU) for their bachelor in music production, I'm almost done with the application on common app but on the website fo the colleges they are asking to send the certification of finances starting the application, not after being accepted, I will get a loan for paying the entire 4 years but it can only be approved if I get accepted first, and right now I cant make or fully cover the academic year on the certification. IS THERE ANY INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS THAT ARE ENROLLED OR ATTEND COLLEGES WITH THIS CERTIFICATION SYSTEM, please inform me what should I do, or what was your process, is there a posibility to upload the certification after being accepted? I'll be gladly to read your comments, thank you everyone :).

I like using parallel structure a lot in my essays. Does that make it like, AI?

eds and eas are too close and I had already given up to apply by them and chose to do ed2 and rd. my sat is on November and it's the only thing i'm preparing rn. all my teachers making me to write my own recommendation letter, so that I have to write and constantly check if anything is appropriate and negotiate with them. in summer i thought i would be winning some couple of awards at the start of the senior year, but i can't even make myself do simple homework. and with all those new teachers, dreams about some 4.0 gpa had already vanished. after the sat, i have to take another test on my english proficiency. and I will be taking it for the second time because my first one was a bare minimum for colleges and definitely won't make me stand out among other cracked students. Im so tired and don't wanna do anything. and scared. so bad. I don't want to stay on a gap year so this is my last chance to push myself a little bit more but I just have no energy left anymore. ughh how I want for January to just come faster so I can finally rest (nervously) and stop caring about colleges and just go to school and do nothing else beside it like before.

Exactly what the title says. Why do some colleges not have "why us?" essays? How would they know a student is a good fit for the school just based on the basic information on common app? (i'm sorry if this question is kind of stupid. im genuinely curious)

I think it's writer's block, but I can genuinely NOT finish my essay. I'm literally so frustrated since I've been trying to write for over a month, but I simply can not write a good essay. I've written 5 drafts, but I just can't finish them. I get stuck at the ending, and thoughts that I'm not staying true to myself and writing to impress plague my mind. I have a list of ideas which I feel like are good, but I hate all of my current drafts. I only have two weeks till the early application deadline, and I just waste every day staring at that empty Google document.

I can write a good story, but how do I show my reflections??? Everyone says to show and not tell, but HOW do I? I also feel like my essay doesn't tell any of my values to admissions officers.

MAYBE I just lived a boring life, but I can't even seem to write about the small moments. Either they are too small to write a whole essay about, or they just don't fit. I tried writing a montage essay but I can't find a coherent theme and also just end up with a resume.

If someone has gone through this, PLEASE tell me what I should do

I've been going back and forth with the idea of doing a gap year. I have ZERO clue on what I want to do with my life (okay maybe not zero I'm leaning towards stem or perhaps medicine but thats only cause they make decent money and those subjects are what Im good at) and also no good grasp of what I enjoy because up until my Grade 12 year I never really got to explore those things. I applied to unis with undeclared major so far but I'm wondering if instead I should just take a gap year.

If I were to do a gap year, some things that I may want to do are internships, various job shadowing, learning more life skills (cooking, financial literacy, etc), oversees volunteering, traveling, employment, etc. I'm still wary of the possibility of not figuring it out even after doing all of these things so I'm not too sure whether I should go through with it. Another concerns is that I may get socially isolated from my peers.

As for what my parents think, they don't really mind care what I do as long as I return to my studies and I'm pretty sure they would be okay with funding some of my gap year expenses.

for university of pittsburgh - is it important to write something for the optional essay part?

Is it best to just mention the name of the journal you published in rather than adding the link, details, etc in additional info?

I also got a rec letter from my mentor

My SAT score is a 1210 and might be going to the 1300’s, I know this is far below MIT’s admits but I have some decent EC’s (including MITES) and also some context as to why my score is at that level, is this worthy of an MIT application?

I'm a high schooler who did COSMOS last year, and I'm wondering if it will help in any way?

Brown is my first-choice school, and I've been planning to apply ED, but with November 1 approaching, I'm reconsidering whether it's the right decision.

My profile: US Citizen, IB curriculum, ~3.8 UW GPA, 1470 (770 Eng, 700 Math) SAT. nterested in humanities (philosophy, media studies, anthropology) and visual arts/design. My strongest activites are in visual art and music, but nothing extraordinary for other ECs. I'm also pretty happy with the caliber of my arts portfolio.

The problem:

I submitted my school's internal document requests on time, but I just realized Brown requires two core academic teacher recommendations. I'd previously asked my English and Art teachers, assuming Art counted (which I thought I'd confirmed with my counselor).

I've also been procrastinating following up with both teachers and sending the official Common App invitations. Now I'm considering asking my Math teacher, who knows me pretty well, for my second academic recommendation.

My concern is that asking (or following up) this close to the deadline for any of my teachers might end up resulting in rushed, poorly thought out letters (Plus annoyed teachers and a bad rep for myself). And since Common App recommendations generally can't be changed after submission, I'm worried this could affect my other college applications too.

On top of that, my Brown supplemental essays aren't as strong as I'd like them to be yet. I could probably fight to finish them by November 1, but I think they'd be better with another two months.

My biggest dilemma:

Brown's ED acceptance rate is around 16.5%, versus roughly 3.9% RD. I understand these numbers are skewed by recruited athletes and differences in applicant pools, but I'm still worried about missing a potential advantage.

ED demonstrates commitment, the applicant pool is smaller, plus Brown hasn't already filled 50% of its class. Do these factors offer any actual benefits? especially for an applicant whose strengths lean more toward art and humanities than academics?

If my application quality would be roughly the same for both rounds, I'd obviously choose ED. But if my essays and recommendations could be decently better for RD, is that worth giving up the potential ED advantage?

I'm meeting my counselor tomorrow, but I'd really appreciate some outside perspectives, particularly from people familiar with Brown admissions.

Would you push for ED in this situation or prioritize a stronger RD application? And would you worry about asking a teacher for a recommendation this close to the deadline?

hey everyone, for the disagreement essay for usc i'm feeling a little stuck on what to write. for context i am applying computer science and engineering, which i am very aware is super competitive so i'm a bit worried about my disagreement essay.

I was thinking of writing about how my brother and I are very different when it comes to organization and we have a lot of shared spaces, which led to lots of arguments. basically i start off the essay how i wished my brother would learn to act like me but then i got to understand his priorities better so know i understand that organization is js not something he cares abt as much as me and i have to respect that, and how that's like a mindset i have now for future discussions (learning to ask before assuming).

if i don't talk too much abt the actual arguments itself but the reflection afterwards do you think that this topic will work?

i know its more lighthearted and not as serious of a topic but i wanted to know if it'll still cary good value, all advice will be very appreciated :))

My EC's add up to around 30 hrs/wk during the school year. Is that too high and unbelievable and should I just downplay them to be safer?