I’m trying to help my son build a list of schools. We live in Colorado. Here’s some info about him:
Cost: not a problem
GPA 4.0/4.83 (lots of STEM APs), 1530 SAT, 150 hrs community service
Activities: varsity rock climbing, school band alto sax (played an instrument since 1st grade), video games
Poss majors: aerospace eng, mech eng, biomed eng, comp science.
Our current list is this:
Stanford (reach), U of Michigan, U of Illinois, U of Texas (Austin), Cal Poly SLO, UC schools, CU Boulder, Georgia Tech, Purdue, U of Washington (Seattle). We could use more safety schools, esp given that aerospace and comp sci are such a competitive majors. Suggestions much appreciated!
Also - some personality info: easy going, highly motivated, appreciates aesthetics and art, interested in graphic design, introvert who enjoys hanging out with business majors over the science nerds.
Commenting because I have a son with similar stats. Test scores slightly higher. He also plays the sax/clarinet and has quite a bit of leadership/sports/community service plus a regional award. Michigan, Illinois, Texas are all reach/high reach for him and for your son as well - assuming no hooks (first generation student, underrepresented minority, etc.) My guess is UC schools are mostly reaches as well. Purdue is a target probably for aero and reach for CS. GT would be a high reach OOS (we are in state) with an OOS admit rate of 11 percent. Lower for males in engineering and even lower for males in CS. UW is impossible OOS for CS - acceptance rate around 3 percent. Agree you need more safeties and some targets. Is he a junior? Do you know where he falls in his class?
What part of the country does he want to be in? Most familiar with southern schools as my son wants to stay in the south, although applying to Purdue and Illinois. Cast a wide net and be sure you have schools that are safeties (for CS I am not super sure there are many of those) where he wants to go. Also, EA seems to have the best chances. AOs say it doesn’t matter but in this day of increasing applications I think it does unless AOs have yield exactly right. If more commit than they think for EA they accept fewer RD. Just the facts. His application is strong so no detriment to applying early.
@viginiabelle Thanks for the info! He’s a senior and scrambling to get all the EA apps in. They don’t rank at his school which is a college prep charter school just outside Boulder but his counselor said that he has one of the most rigorous schedules of any of the students. He loves Boulder but wants to go further from home.
He can do Arizona - it’s a simple app and a fine program and you have aerospace in Arizona (Raytheon)
The other easies and they have been mentioned and they will be cheap for you - Alabama, UAH (in Huntsville - both are recruited by Huntsville Aerospace companies of which there are many), and Mississippi State also has a fine program.
Your list is heavy - but CU is a fine school and if that’s worst case - but at Arizona ($32K off) so $10K or so a year and Bama and UAH (each under $5K a year) - they are safe, very employable, and inexpensive.
What about San Diego state as a Likely since he has the UC’s and Cal Poly SLO on the list? All Engineering programs are ABET accredited, fun and diverse campus with great weather.
I agree with U. of Alabama - Huntsville (the suggestion and that it’s a safety).
As soon as I was reading your son’s interests with the outdoors, I was thinking about U. of Arkansas which will give generous merit aid to your son and offer all the majors he’s interested in (along with the business school for friends) without much difficulty in terms of switching between majors because of being over capacity.
U. of Arizona has a very well-reputed honors college, outdoors opportunities, would give significant merit aid, and I think would also have sufficient capacity for easily changing majors among those fields (though I’d certainly double-check, here and everywhere).
U. of Minnesota is probably not a safety, but a likely or match. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, and it’s a great location for internships.
U. of Cincinnati would be a safety and there’s a big focus on co-op learning there. I know that GE built its jet engines there for decades (don’t know if they still do as my relative retired from there a while back).
Schools will see roughly where he is in the class due to the school profile which will be submitted with his transcript and/or recommendations. Some schools publish these and others don’t. You can always ask your school counselor for a copy if you are curious. We had to provide it for an alumni interview at UVA and it was very informative! My son goes to a competitive private prep school and they don’t rank either. Colleges will know though.
He is my third college applicant and second engineer. I have been given some advice along the way and learned some things. My best advice to you is to have your son apply to some schools with rolling admission to get an acceptance under his belt, and apply to several safeties (where he is above the 75th percentile in number of APs, GPA and test scores) to have some definite acceptances. His list is really tough and theoretically he could end up with a CU Boulder admit only. That is just disheartening to keep getting rejected, even if the acceptances are not places at the top of your list.
Things get harder every year. If you had told me 5 years ago I would be worried about my kid in the top 10 students in his class with a 34 ACT and at one of the top schools in the state getting into our state engineering school with a 35 percent acceptance rate (Georgia Tech) I would have thought you were crazy! Definitely no guarantees though and we are crossing fingers and toes!
You have the reaches and high reaches covered. How many APs has he taken thus far? How many will he complete? My son will have taken 11 when he graduates which is close to the max for his school. I have a child at Georgia Tech and there are lots of people that come in with 60 hours of credit/associate degrees. AOs do consider what is available to them, but what is rigorous at one school may pale in comparison to others.
No real advice on schools unless he is considering the south (although he could apply to Auburn, Alabama and Clemson in about 15 minutes because essays are not required - and he would go to Alabama for free tuition and Auburn for half tuition), but sure you will get lots of advice here.
Based on how you described your son’s personality, he might like the University of Rochester. He could choose mechanical engineering as a credible substitute for aerospace engineering there. All majors, I believe, are open to all students at UR, which seems like a desirable attribute for a student with several potential interests.
I may consider adding Virginia Tech given his rock climbing hobby. My son applied (big mountain biker) because of all the outdoors opportunities. Plus it is beautiful, although in a tiny town. I wouldn’t “scramble” to apply early to the listed schools unless he is a great writer who can knock out top notch essays quickly. Better to have a few great applications than a lot of mediocre and the schools he is applying to will be looking for great/exceptional. Might narrow the list (Michigan came off for us (although my oldest got in and loved Ann Arbor) because we couldn’t justify price (over 70k at the time full pay)) Same with UVA - over 80k for engineering. I was told VT may be reachy for my kid (crazy based on our experience in 2019) but still might be worth adding. My kid is a great writer so he can knock out these essays with humor and personality pretty quick. Still it is a LOT! The VT ones were quick - 250 words - honors app is based on initial application, and he could recycle essays from other schools with sharp editing and a little research to add specific VT things.