A request for aid in the evils of college selection

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hey all, </p>

<p>Consider me an average College Confidential student, constantly worrying about where he will go to college, and checking mean admitted SAT scores daily in fear that the rarely updated statistics would suddenly jump to something unattainable. That's right; I'm one of those people. </p>

<p>But, I'm also one of those average CC students who really could use some help picking out colleges. You see, I'm going on the infamous "college road-trip" soon, and one day I'll sit here thinking my college list is way out of my reach, and the other that I'm not challenging myself enough. So, I've come to you, the concerned public (lol), to ask for your opinions. </p>

<p>I plan on going into Engineering, though the field of engineering I intend to explore is likewise something that shuffles back in forth in my mind. However, the three possible Engineering majors I think I'm most interested in are Nuclear, Biomedical, and most importantly, Electrical (I've always loved Electrical....). </p>

<p>So, with all this said (and in a large amount of words [how I dread the impending 500 word limit of the common app!] so sorry!), does my college list look alright for my stats? Does it look solid for an engineering major? And furthermore, does it make sense financially? (We're sorta an upper middle class family.. probably about 100,000 a year, no savings, killer mortgage, and my Sister's in college. We can probably afford 10-15k a year at max, but I still have to sit down with the 'rents about it all...). </p>

<p>The List:
MIT (Super "i'll get in when pigs fly" reach)
Columbia (The pigs might not have to fly, but they're probably not going to be normal, either...)
Duke (High Match/low reach [I love programs like Duke's. I'm into engineering, but I also love the liberal arts...])
Georgia Tech (Matchish)
University of Florida (Safety [I'm instate here...])
Alabama/Auburn? (I scored a PSAT of 212, which is a few points off of Florida's NM cutoff.. but i'm a little bit weary these schools... any opinions?)</p>

<p>The Stats</p>

<p>SAT: Round I: 1970 (CR 660, M 660, W 650) Round II 2240 (CR 740, M 760, W 740) <--I'm very happy and college-minded today, I brought my score up 270! (to other college seekers, please do study for the SAT the first time you take it, and put forth a serious effort. It goes a long way!)
ACT: 30 (not submitting)
Subject Tests: Still yet to take, sadly, but I'll be studying all summer (Physics and Math II)!
GPA: UW. 3.98, W. 4.43 (Two B's in 8th grade Algebra 1 are keeping me from a 4.0; I don't know how many colleges look at that, though)
Race: Mixed (Asian American, Greek, Canadian)</p>

<p>Course load
11th
AP Physics C Mech; Honors Calculus with Precalculus; Honors US History; Honors English III; AP Eng. Lang; Spanish III
12th
AP Physics C E&M; AP Calc BC; AP Chem (I hope..); American Gov/Economics; Spanish IV; Senior Thesis/Philosophy; AP Eng. Lit
(I'm taking the maximum AP courses offered by my school, and then some... I hope...)</p>

<p>EC's.<a href="For%20brevity's%20sake,%20I'll%20only%20include%20the%20big%20ones...%20all%20other%20standard%20clubs%20like%20NHS%20and%20Mu%20Alpha%20Theta%20I%20am%20simply%20a%20member..">/b</a>
· **Vice-President Student Government<a href="12">/b</a>
· **The MATE ROV<a href="Submersible%20remotely%20controlled%20robot">/b</a> Competition (This is a BIG one. I've spent over 700 hours as the lead electrical engineer for our group of 6 independently led high school students. I've built circuits that teachers told me I should buy premade, and I've invested hundreds more hours studying and exploring Electrical Engineering to do so). "
^We've won second and third place at our state competition (second against UNF!), and we will try one last time this year.
· **Volunteering: I volunteer at a local organization for inner city children. I am the one of the managers of the breakfast program, that feeds 400 children every week. I have accumulated over 300 hours volunteering weekly there.
· Cello: I've been playing for over 12 years, and I've been in a bunch of orchestras and won several awards.
· Martial Arts: I'm a black belt and an assistant instructor. When the dojang was in business (grades 7-11), I taught weekly children classes by myself. :D. </p>

<p>Awards:
· <em>insert fancy name here.</em> I'm gunna keep the name of the award off to preserve anonymity, but I won the leadership/citizenship/service award at my school in 11th, which is the highest award given out by my school.
· A myriad of academic "school sponsored" science/english/math awards.
· The MATE ROV Regionals winner: Second place (10), Third (11), First in Poster category (11).
· National Merit Program Recognition, pending further results (PSAT 212; Florida cutoff 2011: 210)</p>

<p>Anyway, thanks for reading such a long post! If you still feel as if you have the energy to provide insight after straining your eyes for so long, I would really appreciate it! College suggestions are always excellent (as well as engineering/college anecdotes; I love anecdotes), as is the sort of feedback that comes from "chance me" type of threads. I thank you greatly for your help, and I am looking forward to seeing what is to be said.</p>

2

<p>Oh, I forgot!</p>

<p>I’m also an avid member of my School’s golf team. I’ve played 4th and 3rd spot in my sophmore and junior years, and I won MIP and the Christian Leadership Award respectively. I don’t’ know how much a difference that’ll make on my app, though. </p>

<p>Furthermore, what about a school like Cornell (perhaps in lieu of Columbia)? Would I be competitive there, or should I keep trying to find more safety schools?</p>

<p>Thanks again for reading, all!</p>

3

<p>SAT: You showed a huge improvement for your second time taking the SATs, and it’s over 2200, so you’re definitely good for your SATs. Hope you get an 800 on Math II and 750+ oh your Physics tests! You should be able to compete with all those other top students then.</p>

<p>GPA: You have a great GPA as well. I didn’t know that eighth grade courses could affect GPA though…or were you taking an Algebra course during high school? Sorry, I’m a bit confused about that. You’re fine though. I’m assuming that your rank is pretty high as well.</p>

<p>Admissions officers might actually find the fact that you’re part Greek is interesting too.</p>

<p>If you’ve taken/will take all the AP courses offered by your school, then great, you’ve completely passed for course rigor! You have a pretty tough course load for senior year as well. Does senioritis not exist at your school…?</p>

<p>Your ECs seem very impressive as well, and you seem quite dedicated to engineering. I think that you definitely have a good chance for the schools you listed. You might even have a good chance for Cornell, where I think expressed interest in your major is very, very important.</p>

<p>I don’t know a thing about engineering schools, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you of anymore schools. You should probably have at least two safeties though, three reaches at most, and the rest should be matches. Assuming that you can afford it, Auburn would be a safety for you.</p>

4

<p>Kagami, </p>

<p>Thanks for your in-depth analysis. I really appreciate your feedback. </p>

<p>I have indeed taken all the AP courses possible-- but I wish I could take more, haha! (If you couldn’t ascertain it from my initial post-- I’m one of those people who likes to bite off more than he can chew, and hope for the best!). And sadly, senioritis is an epidemic. I’m just hoping I’ll be too busy to catch it ;). </p>

<p>Thanks for all your feedback, though, It really is helpful! I think, with your help and the help of others, I’ve narrowed down my list to the following. </p>

<p>Definite schools:
MIT
Cornell
GaTech
UF
Duke
Alabama</p>

<p>Possible/maybe:
Hopkins
CMU</p>

<p>Can anybody else give any more suggestions?.. I guess this is halfway a chance thread, halfway a “help me find a match” thread, and halfway a “I’ll take any advice there is out there” thread. (Guess I’ve got to study my fractions before I take BC calc :P) </p>

<p>Update: I sat down with my parents the other day, and we’ve discovered we can afford our EFC: so full need schools are always fun :D. </p>

<p>Thanks all :)</p>

5

<p>RPI
U of Rochester</p>

<p>You might consider some smaller top ranked engineering schools.</p>

6

<p>Add Case Western and WPI.</p>

7

<p>Hey, I think you are on the right track with your list but I think you definitely should have CMU and JHU on your list. Your only “target reaches” otherwise are Cornell and Duke, and I think you probably want to give yourself as good a shot at a really high level school as possible.</p>

8

<p>Well, my stats and interests are pretty similar to yours, so I’ll share my college list with you:</p>

<p>Oregon State University
University of Washington
University of Michigan
University of Rochester
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
UT Austin
Smith College
University of the Pacific
Harvey Mudd
Washington University
Carnegie Mellon University
University of Southern California
Tufts University
Northwestern University
Rice University
University of Virginia
George Washington University
John Hopkins University
Cornell University
Duke University
Swarthmore College
University of Pennsylvania
UC Berkeley
California Institute of Technology
MIT
Princeton University
Stanford University
Dartmouth
Columbia University
Brown University
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign</p>

<p>Note: I’m not actually applying to all of these. I’m in the process of cutting this list in half.</p>

9

<p>Thanks guys, </p>

<p>I’m definitely going to look more into each of these schools. I greatly appreciate your suggestions. </p>

<p>Anybody else have any comments/concerns/suggestions/statements? </p>

<p>Thanks :)</p>

10

<p>Alabama should be relatively affordable as a safety:</p>

<p>[Scholarships</a> - The College of Engineering - The University of Alabama](<a href=“http://eng.ua.edu/undergraduate/scholarships/]Scholarships”>Scholarships – College of Engineering | The University of Alabama)</p>

<p>Your stats indicate that if you apply properly, you will get a full tuition scholarship +$2,500 per year if you are an engineering major. This will bring the cost of attendance down to about $11,500 per year.</p>

<p>[Estimated</a> Semester Budget](<a href=“http://cost.ua.edu/undergraduate-budget.html]Estimated”>http://cost.ua.edu/undergraduate-budget.html)</p>

<p>With your stated cost constraint, look at how generous the various schools are with need-based aid (for high match / reach schools) and merit-based scholarships (for low match / safety schools).</p>

<p>Stanford is rather generous with need-based aid, if you can get in (it is generally considered a reach school for everyone):</p>

<p><a href=“Financial Aid : Stanford University”>Financial Aid : Stanford University;

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<p>*Alabama should be relatively affordable as a safety:</p>

<p>Scholarships - The College of Engineering - The University of Alabama</p>

<p>Your stats indicate that if you apply properly, you will get a full tuition scholarship +$2,500 per year if you are an engineering major. This will bring the cost of attendance down to about $11,500 per year.</p>

<p>*</p>

<p>Actually, since it looks like this student could be a NMSF/F, Bama would also give him free housing…including their nice honors super-suites. And a laptop and study abroad money and 1,000 per year.</p>

<p>With the 2500 per year from Engineering, and the free tuition, his costs would probably be just books and misc small costs.</p>

12

<p>You’re kidding right? 2200+ on SAT and 3.9+ UW GPA and you act like you’re a C student.</p>

13

<p>Others may have mentioned them, but consider WPI, RPI, and Tufts.</p>

14

<p>You’d be great candidate for R.P.I.</p>