An asian with a 3.65 GPA and a 33 ACT? What do I do?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Btw super scored my act is a 34.
I also have a 780 on Math level II and 770 US history.
Not in top 10% :(</p>

<p>Keep in mind, the only reason my gpa is so low is because I did poorly freshman year:
Freshman:3.0
Sophomore:3.75
Junior:4.0</p>

<p>EC's:
Started an "unofficial non-profit - a card distribution service that sends thousands of cards to those in hospices, hospitals, veterans, Ect.
Debate captain
UNICEF club founder and president
NHS/habitat for humanity/Ect.</p>

<p>Very good class rigor.</p>

<p>I was thinking about applying to northwestern ED, Georgetown, and cornell, but I don't even hit 3.7 so I decided I pretty much have no chance there as a unhooked asian. They are unrealistically high reaches and I don't want to throw away my parents cash.</p>

<p>What do I do?
1. Not interested in OOS publics. Already have Texas a&m and UT
2. If it's OOS, private only. Must have decent ( doesn't have to be amazing ) financial aid.
3. If it's not more prestigious and well known than UT austin my parents will NOT send me there and will NOT pay for it.
4. Not interested in Texas schools besides UT and A&M.</p>

<p>I have my safeties decided. Income is around 80-90k</p>

<p>Options?
How would CMU, USC, and Emory do?</p>

2

<p>This was my old college list, but I’ll probably need to reconstruct it completely:</p>

<p>Northwestern
Emory
Cornell
Carnegie Mellon ( H&SS, IS, Tepper )
Georgetown
Pomona/CMC?
USC
Northeastern
UT - Austin
Purdue
Baylor
A&M</p>

<p>Didn’t expect my gpa to be so low. </p>

<p>Not definitively sure what majors I’m interested in: somewhere along CS/Economics/industrial engineering.</p>

3

<p>You’ve obviously got strong stats that the vast majority of students would be envious of. You appear to be ambitious as well…</p>

<p>Two problems I see: </p>

<p>I would urge you to mind your English grammar. Don’t worry about the color of your skin, instead focus on projecting the content of your character. Your English grammar is one way it will be measured. I know you’ve got it in you.</p>

<p>Also, you haven’t stated what you want to do, which makes giving advice very difficult. Colleges are not trophies, which schools are best for you depends on what you’re trying to achieve.</p>

4

<p>@Deuga7‌
I apologize for my grammar. I’m on my phone so grammar really isn’t at the top of my mind. </p>

<p>Everything you said is correct. I have no clue what I want to do. Looks like I need to do some “soul searching”. I think it would probably be better if I researched on my own rather than lazily depend on others for advice. </p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

5

<ol>
<li><p>Don’t underestimate essays. Remember that most adcoms are liberal arts majors who are more swayed by words than numbers. So given the same characteristics and no hooks, great essays & meh numbers will give you a much better chance than crap essays and near-perfect numbers.</p></li>
<li><p>For what you want to do (seems like either business or CS), UT-Austin is pretty darn good. Certainly within TX, I would say.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Aim higher, sure, but remember that just because a school is a safety doesn’t mean that it’s not as good/valuable as other schools.
For instance, I don’t see Northeastern being better in any way than UT-Austin. Emory definitely has a strong network and brand in Atlanta and the region around there, but UT-Austin is stronger in TX. Elsewhere, I’d regard them as close in what they deliver (don’t bother relying on USNews rankings, which are pretty crap and more easily gamed by private schools). Plus, CS at Emory is really weak compared to UT-Austin (or anyplace that’s good in CS).</p>

<p>USC has a legendary alumni network, but same deal; for CA, they’re more powerful, but overall, I wouldn’t say that USC is a better school than UT-Austin. Do you have a preference to leave TX?</p>

6

<p>Are you an automatic admit for Texas A&M (based on class rank and test scores)? You are not an automatic admit for UT Austin due to being outside the top 10%, so UT Austin should be considered a reach.</p>

<p>If you are not an automatic admit for Texas A&M, what would be your safeties?</p>

7

<p>@ucbalumnus‌
I actually do qualify for auto-admit for A&M. ( Click on #2 - Academic Admits )
<a href=“http://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/admitted”>http://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/admitted&lt;/a&gt;
If you are ranked in the top quarter with an ACT above 30 you are guaranteed admission.
Thankfully I have a safety ^.^. At least some schools want me!</p>

<p>Although I’m not sure if I want to go to A&M, haha. It’s a solid school but I wish it wasn’t so cutthroat conservative.</p>

<p>@PurpleTitan‌ </p>

<p>Thanks for the help! I think you provided a good reason to get rid of northeastern… However, the reason I’m interested in privates like USC and Emory is the smaller class sizes, superior liberal arts education ( I don’t qualify for UT plan II ) , and their location away from Texas ( LA is amazing! ) </p>

<p>I’m honestly not a huge fan of Texas… I don’t enjoy the weather, I’m a little bit too liberal, and I hate the allergies here :frowning: . I also find suburban life ( which is the majority of Texas ) outrageously boring. Just the idea of living in LA, Georgia, or Chicago just sounds far more exciting than living Texas…</p>

<p>Although I may be able to tolerate Austin because Austin is awesome. </p>

<p>Also, I’m an only child with asian parents. They have huge expectations for me. They once called UT a “mediocre school” just because “everyone goes there”. It made me laugh. I know UT is a fabulous school, but It’s hard to persuade asian parents. </p>

<p>My parents idea of a “pretty good” school was Wharton or Stanford. I told them it wasn’t worth it and now I got them down to “OK schools” ( Northwestern/Cornell/G-Town ) XD</p>

<p>Korean folks love to brag about and compare their kids. Unfortunately, asian parents often measure parenting skills by the caliber of their child’s university. Seriously, if you said you went to Harvard, Cornell, or Yale in Korea, people would automatically assume you’re some kind of genius.</p>

<p>Unfortunately Koreans are very closed minded people…</p>

<p>My parents work hard for me and it would be nice to make them proud and give them “bragging material” haha.</p>

<p>That’s not to say I dislike any of the schools. I would love to go to Northwestern regardless of whether or not my parents liked it. </p>

8

<p>USC is a big private. You’ll probably have almost as many big classes there as in the 2 TX flagships, IMO.</p>

<p>That’s kind of funny. My Asian mother wanted me to attend the closest good school (it was in the same metro area) and my Asian dad wanted me to go to the state flagship because it’s great in a major I was considering and the cheapest option.</p>

<p>My uncle told my cousins that they had to limit themselves to UCs because Cal is a fine school and he wasn’t going to pay the extra money for a private that is (in his opinion) only marginally better.</p>

<p>Maybe Chinese are just more pragmatic.</p>

9

<p>USC class sizes are not necessarily small. Check its schedule of classes to see what the actual class sizes are. The same goes for any other school, although not all schools will show class sizes.</p>

<p>It is the case that Emory is relatively limited in CS compared to many other schools, based on course offerings.</p>

<p>For financial aid, run the net price calculator on each school’s web site. Schools which are too expensive and do not have sufficient in-reach merit scholarships can be dropped from your application list.</p>

10

<p>@PurpleTitan‌ </p>

<p>Perhaps, haha. Old korean folks are crazy. Man, I would love to get access to the UC system though. In-state tuition for Berkeley and UCLA would be awesome.</p>

<p>@ucbalumnus‌
I did run the net price calculator and honestly almost all of them were priced only slightly higher than UT. USC and CMU did cost more, but it was nothing too wild and is manageable. </p>

<p>I went through a phase where I was convinced that I was going to major in Economics/Business and I ended up falling in love with Emory. I’m not a 100% sure I won’t major in econ in the future ( almost everyone changes their major ) but I think I would prefer a school that has strengths in both the business and engineering fields. So Emory and Georgetown is out. </p>

<p>I was aware of USC’s slightly larger class sizes (26 average), but it didn’t seem that large compared to a school like UT. My high school class sizes are around the same so I don’t think I’ll have issues.</p>

11

<p>Economics, business, and CS are popular majors these days. At any given school, class sizes in those subjects are likely to be larger than the school average. Check actual class schedules to see if class sizes are listed for those you are interested in.</p>

12

<p>If you don’t know what you want to do, then I believe a big school can be a better option than a small school because they have more schools and majors to choose from. You’re less likely to need to transfer later.</p>

<p>I would try and find the best college you can for the money. When it comes to your parents urge to want to brag, remember who will be paying the student loans when your done. If the premium school you want comes in at $10,000 per year more than a solid alternative and your parents want to pay the extra $10,000 out of pocket to brag, then congratulations. Otherwise, you’re paying an extra $40,000 so your parents can impress people at parties. Not worth it.</p>

13

<p>Can you tell a good story about that EC and how it started and how you developed it and what the feedback has been? I think that an essay like that, combined with your 34 and 780SATII, can go a long ways towards overcoming the bad freshman year. It might even go so far as to pull CMU or Chicago into a reasonable reach and should definitely make USC more of a possibility. One cannot count on how one’s essay will be received, however, so there’s no point in putting a lot of hope into CMU or, say, Chicago for econ.</p>

<p>Schools with a regional or national reputation that fit your profile but that may or may not have industrial engg or that your parents may not think of as prestigious :smiley: : Syracuse, GW, Clemson, Fordham, Tulane, Brandeis, BostonU, RPI, Miami, Lehigh, Drexel, Baylor, Virginia Tech (state school), and Pitt (a semi-state school).</p>

<p>Your ACT is in good shape. Now all you have to do is continue to get great grades this fall and focus on the essays.</p>

14

<p>Don’t go to RPI unless you like spending cash for 2nd/3rd rate schools with nerdy classmates :smiley: </p>

15

<p>@loppol, I’ve seen you write this before. can you not at least tell us why and what experience you have with RPI?</p>

16

<p>@jkeil911‌ : Clemson’s also a state school.</p>

17

<p>@jkeil911 he stated that he didn’t want to throw his parent’s money away. RPI is very expensive, even with FA. He should go somewhere where it is better and cheaper</p>

18

<p>Consider Brigham Young University as a good safety. It has well ranked accountancy major, and it at least has several business related options available, as well as computer science. Tuition is under 5k. Only negative is that it may be a little conservative. Not completely sure, but the name leads me to believe it could be religious. Have a look.</p>

19

<p>Brigham Young is religious (LDS). Student conduct rules would probably not be an issue for a conservative observant LDS member, or someone with similar personal habits, but may be considered restrictive by many others.</p>

<p><a href=“http://saas.byu.edu/catalog/2013-2014ucat/GeneralInfo/HonorCode.php”>http://saas.byu.edu/catalog/2013-2014ucat/GeneralInfo/HonorCode.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Tuition is higher for non-LDS members than for LDS members, but even the non-LDS tuition is quite low.</p>

<p><a href=“http://saas.byu.edu/catalog/2013-2014ucat/FinancialInfo/Tuition.php”>http://saas.byu.edu/catalog/2013-2014ucat/FinancialInfo/Tuition.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

20

<p>@loppol‌, I agree that the residual costs at RPI can be higher than at other schools, but I disagree that they’re not worth the money for a lot of students–if they high high residuals for many students, they aren’t alone among Top 40 engineering programs in this. In visiting the school and talking to RPI students and non-RPI engineers, I think students can still get an excellent education there even if that hasn’t been your experience.</p>