SAT, TOEFL, Universities

Hey there,
I'm an undergraduate now and as such, I am willing to apply for an university as soon as possible. As I don't see myself studying in my hometown I decided to apply at Universities in the US and thought there are quite some people here who could give me some advice about the application process in general.

Here I am, having neither SAT nor TOEFL or ACT or anything. As most universities in the US require only TOEFL and SAT (or ACT, but SAT tests are geographically easier for me to attend) so I am very eager to pass those two tests asap.
Is there anyone here who could provide me some information about the process and grade of difficulty regarding TOEFL? English was my main subject in the past two years and I always got 13-15 points in class exams (that's A+ to A- transcripted to the American grading system), in my final exam, however, I got only 8 points (C). My English-teacher told me it was all about the idiotic grammar- and expression-focused grading the other teachers were practicing, nevertheless I'm a bit insecure now. How hard is that test in reality?
I figured that the University of Chicago was quite a nice place for studies. They are requiring a 26/30 at all parts of the TOEFL test, sounds rather tough to me - but on the other hand, I absolutely don't know on what level I'm writing (and speaking) English.

I'd be very grateful for any help of experienced members concerning

* Good American / Canadian universities
* TOEFL / SAT / ACT tests

And if anyone has Skype and would like to talk, I'd be glad to take this as a free lesson in spoken English

 

I can't speak about the TOEFL test, but if you speak English as well as you wrote this post, you should have no problem.
Anecdote: The engineering departments at my university were about half filled with foreigners who did well enough on TOEFL (I think back then you had to have something like 650 out of 999 points) but still could barely communicate in any sensible way. Compared to that you're already doing great.

 

Toefl is dead easy, if you know how to read and write fluent english youll do fine on it.

 

As Graphique said, if you speak as well as you write you'll have no major problems with the exam. If it is of any use, in terms of difficulty TOEFL is easier than CPE, both are considered as the highest level exams, the difference lying in TOEFL's certificate validation lasting only 2 years.
I took the CPE exam in 2007 and could say the easiest parts were in fact Listening and Speaking, as well as Use of English. The Reading part can be a bit tricky, but Writing was the harsh one, it was the part I practiced the least because it can be very, very boring and time consuming, and you also need to be a bit creative at the time of that part of the test.
Anyway, if the Listening part scares you, the best you can do is watch lots of movies or TV shows in both American and UK English, which I bet you already do so you might just be lacking a bit of confidence until you do a mock exam and see how well you do.
For the spoken part, voice chatting via Skype with board members who are native speakers is a great idea. In my case I was very confident on that part because I had just returned from living in the US for half a year and speaking English on a daily basis.

Hope this helped!

 

I would definitely take a prep class for it. There is a very specific format and syntax for sentence construction in the writing part that you can lose a lot of points on. They also expect you to know some very obscure words in the vocabulary which even I had to look up when I was coaching classes. A prep class will help familiarize you with these requirements and give you a chance to work through some mock exams.

 

Oh of course as Taucias says, you should, not to say you must, take some prep classes as to get used to the format of the exam, once you get used to it it's just a matter of practicing a lot (and remembering by heart lots of phrasal verbs).

 

Honestly, at this point all you need to go to College in the USA is money. They're all hurtin' pretty bad.

 

Like Hawanja said, money is the most important thing when it comes to studying in the US, I was planning to go there but it's far too much (it was U$S 20.000), no university will pay your food. But I haven't lost hope, I'm only 16 years old, so I'll study here and save money to go to the US after receiving my degree in computer engineering here (In 6 years ).

 

Sure, money is the key to anything.


Bad thing is, I don't have enough, lol. I'm not really sure why, but the US universities are taking it from the living. For example, one year (2 semesters) cost around 1400 Euro in Germany w/all costs together (except living ect.). Chicago takes 52,000$... I mean WTF. :noooo:
Anyway, I am definitely going to apply at the financial aid program which seems to be very helpful with cases like mine is hopefully going to be (international appliants who received admission).

Thanks for the preview on TOEFL. As for my level of English, I certainly don't speak as good as I write (lacking especially the fluidity and diversity) but I can understand written texts and spoken language very good (maybe a result of ~5 years of English audio on DVDs). If there is anybody, however, who has Skype and talks a lot, I'd really appreciate to get in contact with him (or her^^ but I doubt that :lol.

@Taucias
Do you mean a prep class for SAT? I am not yet informed as well about this as I am about TOEFL, but I am thinking about online preperation. As for TOEFL you gain access to various excercise materials after registration such as practice sheets with questions from old TOEFL tests and so on. No organized prep. classes though.

 

You're not planning on entering this september are you? Would be rather late I' m afraid.

 

Holy shit...If I were you I'd be staying in Germany...

...then again...University of Chicago is a private and (apparently) really well respected college...both in the United States and worldwide. It's gonna take some serious grades and test scores to get in there.

If you have your heart set on the U.S, I'm gonna recommend expanding your horizons and lowering expectations (haha). It'll save you some money.

I went to Miami of Ohio (www.muohio.edu) and that was a hoot. Really really really nice historic campus in the middle of the countryside. Redbrick buildings and Big green quads and such. The whole campus...espcially the students...has a real preppy feel to it. People are generally nice...but I just didnt click with them well. I was a guy who played video games for fun in a town where most people went drinking for fun.

Also right nearby me is The Ohio State University (www.osu.edu). Has the largest student body of any college in the United States, ridiculously easy to get into. Ranked better than Miami of Ohio (see above) and well respected nationally. Nestled in the heart of FABULOUS Columbus Ohio. Urban campus. Plenty of stuff to do, a huge variety of people. Blur2040 adjacent.

Both will probably cost around 15k less/year than University of Chicago. Maybe more...as Ohio is a pretty cheap place to live.

But those are just colleges that happen to be close to me...I'm sure other can tell you about ones they know more about. Either way...seems like you have a tough decision on your hands. I don't know if I could easily pick a University from thousands of miles away.

 

I meant the TOEFL. I taught for michigan and cambridge exams, but I am guessing the TOEFL one is similar.

You should make sure you practice a lot and do as many mock exams as possible. Get a good prep book from Amazon too.

Good luck!

 

I got Barron's TOEFL prep book a week ago and began practicing. I didn't do too bad in the first model test except for the speaking section, my biggest weakpoint. Looks kinda tough to me... you have to read a 100 word-text in 30s (no problem so far), listen to part of a lecture of the same subject (no big deal) and then you are supposed to reflect on both inputs for 15 seconds and summarize, evaluate and state your own opinion on given topic in good English within 60 seconds? Omg. T_T
My TOEFL test date is on 11th of September at 9am. Those bastards raised the prices on the first of July, it costs a whopping 225$ now. What a scam that is. The very same test was only 140$ 1,5 years ago, then 185$ and now 225$. For what? Are we going have chairs with silk seats?

As for SAT, I am aiming to take the test around October 10th. A preparation book came in the mail today and it has a frightening 930 pages. That's even a 100 pages more than the TOEFL book :O

 

Good luck on your tests!

It really sounds tougher than it is.

Remember: technically you can't "fail" the TOEFL, the results may not be enough for the uni, but there is no fail!

 

I hope so. I am aiming at >100 points, there are plenty of people in the amazon critics of the book I bought who affirm to have got over 100 points using it... 100/120 sounds hard to me though. I had to get 104 minimum to apply on several of the top 50 colleges in the US, some have lower minimum scores.
As for the other material they (i.e. Chicago) want, ... what the hell! I have to ask two of my teachers, science and language, for recommendation texts about my time at school. I had only physics as far as science goes and my result was .... humble. ^^

 

Hell, I would probably have a hard time doing that (native English speaker). If you are really in need of example lectures, try MIT's Open CourseWare website (here). I'm pretty sure that there are some recorded lectures that you could practice with. Whatever you do, just make sure to avoid Youtube for learning English. :lol:

 

Thanks for the link, but there are already plenty of example lectures on my books CD's. What I dislike a bit about this preparation thing though, is that you have "understand" lectures immediately, take notes and instantly be able to paraphrase the given content.
What the fuck... these lectures come from all kinds of subjects. Why does someone who is interested in culture and business (like me) have to be able to repeat the content of a biology lecture with focus on reasons for heart attacks? ^^ I would probably need to read the passage twice even if it was in German to understand it entirely. I mostly just waste a lot of time on the simple understanding of what the hell he's talking about and then I continue doing my actual task. >_<

But in general listening is quite easy for me as I watch a lot of movies / TV shows in English. The hard part is the speaking, fluently, almost unprepared, in good English and about a subject I don't know shit about. :lol:

 

But are they state accredited and recognized by national associations?

 

That's insane. People who pass this test are either lacking a full bag of experience (learning w/ a system, organizing, the stress, the failure, the small steps to success) or they had taken some magic mushroom since they were 8yrs old so they have already enough of that.

To be honest, I don't know if I'd even like to have a diploma right away. I'm so looking forward to university that I'd be frustrated if someone took those years away from me... meeting lots of new people, learning the stuff you're interested in, drugs, alcohol, more learning, partying, literature, more drinking, campus life.. all that.

!