accurate ranking of reach, safe, target colleges?

Are you suggesting that your kid might be accepted to a college but you will not let attend due to finances? If yes, I would hope you sit down with him and tell him exactly what the COA amount has to be in order for you to let him attend, otherwise this is a recipe for disaster and the potential for an extremely disappointed kid.

Students who attend a HS that uses Naviance, and are applying to schools where significant numbers of students at their HS have applied to in recent years have a pretty good resource to identify schools as reach, target/match or safety.

Naviance scattergrams.

If the student’s standardized test score/GPA plot lands:
in a field of pure green, then the school is a safety;
in a field of pure red, then the school is such a reach that it is virtually impossible.

Between those two extremes, feel free to assign whatever labels you want depending on your tolerance for risk and need for something approaching certainty.

I would look into the University of Delaware, NC State, and the U of Vermont. I would consider most of these schools, along with the SUNYs, to be “likely” schools for your son. Of course, one must take finances into consideration.

Naviance is an excellent tool, but it’s not perfect. Unless it changed, there are many things that it doesn’t take into account (recruited athletes, etc). For example, our HS (northeast) showed somebody with a 23 on the ACT getting into Rice. We all know that this is not the norm.

Our Naviance plots both the ACT and the SAT…for the same student. A student can be in the green zone with a relatively low SAT for that particular school, when it was really the higher ACT score that helped get him in. Unless Naviance has changed (and maybe it did), one would not know that those 2 very different scores belonged to the same student, and might conclude that somebody was accepted with a low SAT relative to the school. My friend’s son received a 35 on the ACT and a 2000 (old test) on the SAT. Both scores were plotted on our Naviance…he got into Cornell and Berkeley (no hooks). There was no way to match both test scores to show that it was the same kid (again…maybe this has changed).

@lobrim we are from your state and my D just graduated from a school that should be on your son’s reach list, but you/he didn’t put it there. Her gpa and test scores (both ACT and SAT) place her above the 75%…but the school would never be a match …or a safety. It will always be a reach. The same could be said for many of the schools on your list…Duke and Northwestern will also be a big reach, even though on paper it might not look that way. There are simply not enough spots for all of the high stats kids who apply. When we looked at Duke…the acceptance rate was 8%.

Best wishes to your son as he goes through this process!

Naviance is probably not going to be accurate for OP’s son who is applying to CS programs, at least at the schools that require direct admission to the major/program. Add in the lack of detail by admission round, applicant hook(s), and potentially small sample sizes, and one could easily mis-categorize one’s chances of admission for CS.

@lobrim Have you looked at any FL schools? Their OOS tuition is lower than most states and your S might qualify for merit. @rickle1 any suggestions???

The problem I see with your list, is that he could get rejected from 8 or 9 schools. He will probably get into 1 reach and get no merit and maybe see some money from the target/safety- but they are all expensive (except Stony Brook). If you can afford them and he really likes their CS programs, then great. Just make sure he is prepared and truly understands how competitive this is.

I have a hard time saying he will probably get into 1 reach. Maybe he will, and maybe he won’t. Nobody knows.,

Has your son considered any public universities in the MidWest with a strong reputation for computer science like University of Wisconsin - Madison or University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign?

"UT Austin has an overall admit rate of around 40%, and a computer science admit rate of 5%. "

Bzzzt.

UT engineering admit rate is 26%. CS is around 20%. UT receives a combine total of 14000 applications for engineering and CS each year.

To have a 5% CS admit rate, UT would have to get close to 20,000 applications for CS alone.

Now UT Turing has a ~2% admit rate.

“the computer science programs are <20%. Purude and UIUC come to mind, possibly UF too”

CS admit rates:
UF ~30%
Purdue 28%
UIUC 25%

I would be interested in knowing the source(s) for these data points, thanks!

What about ND makes it #1? Would he be interested in any Jesuit schools? Most are mid sized to small, and many would also be matches or even safeties for him. (IDK about CS strengths, you’d have to check this out). I personally consider Holy Cross to be kind of similar to Notre Dame.

I agree that the original list is reach heavy, but whether that is OK or not just depends on expectations. Would he truly be fine with attending his safety (and yes WF is not a safety)? If the list is 90% reach plus one safety and one match…those safety and match schools could feel like disappointments in the end possibly. I think a more balanced list is good for expectations and just the whole mental/emotional side of it when the decisions come in. I also think that an early admit to a rolling admissions school (Pitt?) is a huge stress reliever.

Also, if he is applying anywhere ED or EA, you have more room to play around in the list, and add some more safeties/matches if needed when those results come in.

“I would be interested in knowing the source(s) for these data points, thanks!”

Me too. An AO from UIUC told my daughter about three weeks ago that they had a 12% admit rate to CS last year. I haven’t seen that number published anywhere else, however.

I’ve also heard the 28% about Purdue CS. Supposedly there is a poster hanging with that number in the CS building. That includes all applicants so who knows what it is for OOS applicants. Purdue doesn’t break out CS on their data page.

@Greymeer is an engineering and CS stats “guru.” He/she typically gets stats from the ASEE site. But here I don’t know. But I’d usually trust them.

Agreed! After doing though this last year I realize how naive my family was to the whole process. We watched one of my daughter’s friends, who applied to schools similar to those on your list, ONLY get accepted to one school - his only safety. His family was shocked and disappointed. I truly feel that at the “reach” and “high target” schools it’s somewhat of a crap shoot. An admissions person at Duke said at a presentation we were at that they could easily fill their entire freshman class with kids with perfect SAT/ACT and GPA’s…but they choose not to. He said to think about admissions like drafting a football team. You might be a quarterback, and maybe even a great quarterback, but if the team already has a quarterback, you don’t be offered a spot. They don’t want ALL quarterbacks. So, while your son has very impressive statistics, you just can’t count on admission at many of the schools you’ve listed. I agree that as long as you have a couple of safeties where your son will be happy then it’s fine to apply to as many reach schools as he wants, but I would control your expectations and those of your sons. He might luck out and get lots of acceptances but odds are there will be some surprising “rejections” as well.

Good luck!

A Stanford rep came thru my kid’s HS (local to S) a couple years ago and told parents that they reject 70% of the kid’s with 4.0’s/1,600’s.

@jeneric I don’t know too much about UF OOS Merit. We are in state and S did receive their Presidential Scholarship, Honors College, etc. Not sure the relevancy for an OOS candidate.

However, with or without merit aid, UF is on the low end of college costs. Wasn’t for S, and frankly I’m not a huge fan, but most around here love it and it is highly sought after in state.

Another issue when applying to CS, or any engineering program, is that the ECs that are attractive may be different than those that generally are considered “attractive” in holistic admissions, especially at colleges with direct admissions to engineering or CS.

So participation in, as especially awards in, robotics competitions, national math and STEM competitions, social action related to STEM, etc, are all more indicative of interest and the ability to make it through the heavy duty math that is required for engineering in general, and CS in particular.

Moreover, we don’t know what your kid’s course set looks like. What STEM, and especially math, courses did he take, what level, and what grades did he achieve? Did he also take CS courses? For example, without colleges-level calculus (such as AP Calc BC), he’s unlikely to be considered for a CS program.

Did he take two subject SATs, was one of them math, and how did he do on them?

SAT subject tests are required for Cornell, and “recommended” (meaning required for middle class kids and richer) for Harvard, Duke, and CMU. They would help at some of the other colleges, if your son has high scores on the tests.

All these also determine whether you son has any chance at all at being accepted at any one of the list of extremely competitive CS programs that you provided.

Here is what admissions at SUNY Stony Brook (your safety) write about admissions into their engineering undergraduate:

@Greymeer, I wasn’t referring to computer engineering at UT, I was referring to computer science, an separate major outside the engineering department that enrolls between 300 and 400 students per year. I don’t doubt they receive well over 6000 applicants for that major, per their presentation, but in any event, the point remains that computer science majors are more competitive than most others.

Vanderbilt is the school that seems to be missing from this list - it would be another reach school, but CS is strong there and they have the Spirit of Gold marching band, so it could be a good fit - probably more similar to Notre Dame in size/strengths/vibe/competitiveness than many others on your list.

UMiami is great for music and marching band so maybe worth considering as a safety, but since UMass is probably stronger for CS and likely cheaper (though hard to say with merit aid), it might not be a win.