<p>My daughter with the following profile provided me a list of 21 colleges and I would like to find out 6 matches and 3 safeties. Can you help?</p>
<p>Class: 2009
School: Private prep
Rank: Doesn't rank
GPA: 4.2W UC GPA ~ 4.35W
Course Load: One of the toughest at school
APs: 4 in 10th grade all 5; 12 in total by senior year
10th: Chem, Euro history, Calc BC, Comp Science AB
11th: Bio, Physics C, US History, Statistics, English Language
12th: Art History, English Lit
SAT1: 2210 (770M,700CR,740W) 1st try, will retake June to increase CR
SAT2: 770 Math2c, 780 Chem
PSAT: 226(80M,73CR,73W)
Awards:
NMSF, AP Scholars, JETS, Model UN, Speech, Community Service, NHS,
Research (published a paper)</p>
<p>Colleges (EECS) (Reason for choosing)
MIT (Best CS as per school seniors)
Stanford (Her top choice)
Princeton (Her research teacher recommendation)
Harvard (my, her mom's, dream)
Caltech
Yale (it was her dream prior to narrowing the major to EECS)
UCB EECS (Best EECS for Californians)
CMU (Another top ranked EECS from school seniors)
Columbia Fu (Recommended by Dad)
U. Penn (School's Favorite Ivy)
Cornell (Recommended by School College counseling)
Brown (computer science) (Will Apply for PLME)
JHU (Not sure about EECS)
Duke (Not sure about EECS)
Northwestern (Will apply for HPME)
University of Chicago (Computer Science) (Another School College Counseling)
Olin College (Recommended by Dad)
Harvey Mudd (Recommended by Dad)
UCLA (Not sure about EECS)
UCSD (Will apply for direct medicine)
USC (Will apply for direct medicine)</p>
<p>Suggests other good colleges if you have some in mind.</p>
<p>Stanford is mostly graduate students. I would place Cornell at the top of the list for overall college experience combined with great electrical and computer engineering. Her college counselor is correct.</p>
<p>You might consider adding Rice and Michigan to the list. Maybe Illinois.</p>
<p>If she is interested in engineering, she should drop Harvard, Yale, Brown, Chicago.</p>
<p>CMU is a good easy match/high safety for her. UCSD would also be a good safety, I’m not sure about UCLA’s EECS but its an easy match for her as well. A lot of these other colleges could be too, I’m just less familiar with them.</p>
<p>Your daughter’s record is outstanding and well-rounded. I would say she would be a match for Cornell. You should be very proud. Computer Science at Cornell is also very strong, by the way. If she is considering medicine as an ultimate goal, Cornell is building a new bio building and has had a recent influx of money into their life sciences programs.</p>
<p>That is a good list. What happened to Caltech? If you are from CA then Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech would be good options. Berkeley would be low tuition.</p>
<p>Have to disagree that Columbia Fu would be a match for anyone, simply because of the low admissions rate. And UC admissions can be very quirky, so I would call all three UC’s matches. Agree with USC as a safety- she would receive 1/2 tuition there, and probably be considered for the full tuition Trustee’s Scholarship [ just be sure her application is submitted by Dec 1, to be eligible for scholarship consideration]
Suggest you might want to add back in U of Chicago as a match/ safety.</p>
<p>menloparkmom: That is scary if UCSD is not a safety. According to the information UCSD is very number driven and with GPA > 4.0 and SAT1 > 2200 there should not be any problem getting in.
Also what might be an issue with UCLA. UCB EECS sometime gets impacted and that is why it is a match and not a safety.
Columbia Fu might be Reach/Match than a match though just because of the selectivity.</p>
<p>collegehelp: Caltech we think need 800 on Math in either SAT1 or SAT Math IIC and since presently she has 770 on both, we have taken it off. If on her retest SAT1 she gets a 800, she might think of apply Caltech.</p>
<p>Also how many schools she should apply to; the list already have 10 and if ‘menloparkmom’ is correct then she will need at least 1 or 2 safeties.</p>
<p>Arpmom- These days with the huge # of applicants for the UC’s there is no “guarantee” of acceptance. Yes she should get in, but there have been some headscratching " HUH?" rejections recently. I think you should error on the side of caution and add another true safety, besides USC. In addition I would suggest she apply early to some colleges. If she decides to try EA, then she should apply early to MIT, & Chicago and any other colleges on her list that allow EA applications. That way, come mid Dec, she may be able eliminate colleges if MIT comes through. FYI, She can apply to USC by the Dec 1 deadline if she decides to apply to Stanford SCEA, because it is required for scholarship consideration, and that is allowable under Stanford’s SCEA guidleines.
There is no nicer Xmas present than having an acceptance in hand before DEC 20!</p>
<p>However, you might want to consider factors other than prestige. U Chicago has a very different feel from these schools. So does Brown. So does Rice. So does Harvey Mudd. All four are great schools. UCLA also has prestige and might be a preferred location. For info on the engineering dept there see the Flopsy thread at the UCLA forum. Cornell and CalTech are great schools, but for computer science, I think MIT, Stanford, and CMU have a slight edge. This extends somewhat to computer engineering. This list is only based on NoCal perceptions. Austin and Boston will have different top choices.</p>
<p>ArpMom2009: Caltech definitely does not require an 800 on at least one math SAT for admission. 770s in both will not be seen as much different than 800s in both. I think your daughter has a pretty good chance at admission, particularly if she’s published a paper and done math past calculus (it looks like she took calculus in 10th grade but you didn’t indicate anything else), so don’t let that be the reason you don’t apply.</p>
<p>If your daughter doesn’t mind tiny schools enough to apply to Caltech, I’m seconding Olin as a good idea to look into, particularly if she’s sure she wants to do engineering instead of science.</p>
<p>Thanks Antiquark: Caltech was on her radar before everyone started telling how not getting 800 on SATs may affect her chances.
She has done AP Calc BC in 10th and is taking AP Statistics in 11th. She will be doing multivariate Calc and differential calc in 12th.
She is still confused between computer science and computer engineering. Olin seems like a good school for some one focused on doing just Engineering.</p>
<p>Caltech has definitely taken people without 800s on SAT1s before (myself included). However it is much more difficult to get in without an 800 on the SAT2, so I would retake that (considering an 800 is only the 88th percentile). Otherwise, she would not have a bad chance of admission. </p>
<p>You should also keep in mind that Caltech EE/CS is very theoretical, and EE is considered one of the harder majors (mainly because of two ridiculously time-consuming classes that can take up to 30-40 hours a week in the lab).</p>
<p>Also, a published paper will help a lot. Research is very important and she will have many, many opportunities to do research here.</p>
<p>ArpMom, is there a reason Michigan is not on her list. Given her Stats, it would be a good “safe match” and the department is generally ranked among the top 5 in the nation.</p>
<p>Alexandre: She will prefer to be at UC than at Michigan if she has to choose a state school that is the only reason for Michigan or Illinois not on her list. It really doesn’t make much sense to be that away from home and spend that much more money when she has so many good UCs to choose from.</p>
<p>redirect : She is not score obsessive and is not willing to retake any exam. We are trying hard to convince her to retake SAT1 to increase her CR. There is no way she is gona retake SAT2 Math IIc to increase her score by 30 points.
Her teachers have indicated at many times that she is more interested in learning things than getting good grades.
We have told her that it might be a problem at the time of admissions but that has not made any dent in her personality.
So we are going to live with this.</p>