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[Urist Imiknorris]

Since there isn't some kind of shrieking hell-vortex in New England

Rural Maine.

[GlyphGryph]

Actually, there is, it's under Providence. I think there might be another one, too, but I forget where - New England has the highest per capita concentration of hell-vortexes though.

[roughedge]

I can<t find the squirelle i love so much in the park I think he<s dead... im really so fuckin sad about this...... ....
Hope your in squirrel heaven with nuts and all !!!

[miauw62]

with nuts and all !!!

Depends.

[Skyrunner]

Spoiler: self-deprecation (click to show/hide)

I think I just learned that I can't go to college in America, and also will have to spend the rest of my high-school life slaving away in schools that don't give a damn for petty things like extracurricular activities, or school violence/bullying ("The video games did it! Honest."), or such useless things like electives ("Go to college and you'll learn them. Now go back and do your math and stuff."), or freedom of clothes (Uniforms all the way, even in all the public schools o-O).
Phys-ed is doing something useless, no real exercise, twice a week.

SAT-equivalent is taken once a year, and if you fail(as in not get straight perfects) you waste another year of your life doing the same stuff again and again. After school ends at 6, go to a private institution and learn moar maths until 10 or 11. Mid-terms and finals are a one-month-long time of stress. Said midterms and finals also decided whether you go to a half decent college later on, or go to a crappy one.

Did I mention every single grade you fight to get in high school is considered by the colleges? :/ If you're not in the top 2%, one had better give up any thought of getting into the top three colleges.

Sigh...

Going to a US college will be pretty much impossible because there are no APs offered, and I would have to pay a lot to go to more private institutions to take courses. My GPA would be in the dust because Korea does everything relatively, meaning the tests are deliberately made hard enough so there are few As, to increase the discernment ability of the tests and sieve the really good from the so-so.

On the other hand, if I go to the "wego" (roughly translating to 'foreign school' which it is not), there will be AP courses, and SAT prep offered at school, but the enrollment fees are a shadow of a college's (I think it was $24000 a year), GPA would be even worse, .... etc

Also, no Spanish courses. 

TLDR: Americans have it so easy!  Everything boils down to money, & how much of it. Korean education is a pressure cooker which impossibly doesn't seem to burst. It is a vicious cycle, positive reinforcement, where the act of trying to keep up makes the process stronger.

(goes into corner)

[Mephansteras]

Spoiler: self-deprecation (click to show/hide)

I think I just learned that I can't go to college in America, and also will have to spend the rest of my high-school life slaving away in schools that don't give a damn for petty things like extracurricular activities, or school violence/bullying ("The video games did it! Honest."), or such useless things like electives ("Go to college and you'll learn them. Now go back and do your math and stuff."), or freedom of clothes (Uniforms all the way, even in all the public schools o-O).
Phys-ed is doing something useless, no real exercise, twice a week.

SAT-equivalent is taken once a year, and if you fail(as in not get straight perfects) you waste another year of your life doing the same stuff again and again. After school ends at 6, go to a private institution and learn moar maths until 10 or 11. Mid-terms and finals are a one-month-long time of stress. Said midterms and finals also decided whether you go to a half decent college later on, or go to a crappy one.

Did I mention every single grade you fight to get in high school is considered by the colleges? :/ If you're not in the top 2%, one had better give up any thought of getting into the top three colleges.

Sigh...

Going to a US college will be pretty much impossible because there are no APs offered, and I would have to pay a lot to go to more private institutions to take courses. My GPA would be in the dust because Korea does everything relatively, meaning the tests are deliberately made hard enough so there are few As, to increase the discernment ability of the tests and sieve the really good from the so-so.

On the other hand, if I go to the "wego" (roughly translating to 'foreign school' which it is not), there will be AP courses, and SAT prep offered at school, but the enrollment fees are a shadow of a college's (I think it was $24000 a year), GPA would be even worse, .... etc

Also, no Spanish courses. 

TLDR: Americans have it so easy!  Everything boils down to money, & how much of it. Korean education is a pressure cooker which impossibly doesn't seem to burst. It is a vicious cycle, positive reinforcement, where the act of trying to keep up makes the process stronger.

(goes into corner)

That sucks, Skyrunner. American education, for all its flaws, is much less brutal than what I hear about a lot of Asian education systems. Pity you won't be able to come over here for college, I imagine you'd enjoy it a lot.

[GlyphGryph]

I... am not sure I understood all that. Why can't you go to college in America? Why does it have to be America and not, say, Australia, or New Zealand (I know quite a few Korean students who went to Auckland University)? Or even Europe or something?

[Dutchling]

Come to the Netherlands . Everyone speaks English anyway and half the studies are giving in English as well.

[Skyrunner]

o-O

Uh... because I probably can't qualify for a good college without APs or other baggage, and ... a bunch of other reasons. Mostly tied with the crappy high schools in Korea. I can't keep my GPA in Korea up while also preparing for American colleges, at least without a boatload of money.

As for Australian colleges, I never inquired of them at all I guess I didn't think of them, being mentally partially American and such. Could you maybe point me to a nice site with information of them?

[GlyphGryph]

I wouldn't rule it out until you've applied. The vast majority of Universities in the US have very low entry requirements and will trample over themselves to get more foreign students (to increase "diversity" and because you usually pay twice the rate of locals )

Also, I must be misunderstanding what you mean by APs, because American APs have no impact on college admissions except at the most prestigious schools, they just mean you get college credit on them when you first start, and even the schools that like them certainly don't see them as a defining factor.

And most of them will also be more than understanding of your grade not translating exactly to American grades... and is University really something you need to 'prepare' for? Most university students I know never did...

Are you sure you really understand how the American system works?

[RedKing]

FWIW, most American schools aren't worth the money you'll pay (except for the prestige factor, which from what I know of Korean and Chinese educational systems, is superior to many domestic institutions).

In China at least, the prestige thing is changing. The top domestic schools like Beida (Peking University) and Qinghua (Tsinghua University) are so incredibly difficult to get into that the students there are of terrifyingly high caliber. The up-and-coming generation is beginning to take a dimmer view of American universities and of the students that choose to go there (with an implicit implication that Chinese that go to US schools "weren't good enough to get into Beida"). There's also a negative view of the considerable portion of US college life that is non-academic. I've had it asked of me why Chinese should go to American schools when all they care about is "sports, sex and drinking". There's a handful of US schools that still rank very highly over there in specific disciplines (like MIT, Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins, etc.) but overall the impetus is returning towards domestic institutions, in no small part because the domestic institutions have rapidly developed in the post-Mao era away from ideologically inclined institutions into pure research and devlopment hubs.

[Skyrunner]

Yes, prestige factor

As for APs, sure they aren't required, but they help in making the impression that 'this student has pushed herself hard and got results'.

[scout890]

goddamnit, me and my brother are locked out of the house, we now have to wait 4-5 hours before our mother shows up.

[RedKing]

goddamnit, me and my brother are locked out of the house, we now have to wait 4-5 hours before our mother shows up.

At least you have Internet? 

[scout890]

I get 2 bars of wifi from the backyard of my house