Can you please help with a list of match colleges?

College Search & Selection
1

Hi everyone, I have been reading the forum, but joined now since it is time for my daughter(rising senior) to apply to colleges now. Would greatly appreciate if some of you can help us figure out the match colleges. Here are her stats:

Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Indian
Interested major: Engineering (Computer science, Electrical)
School: Very large public school (9 rated, 2200 students, in CA)

Academics:
unweighted GPA: 3.87 (unfortunately, she had 3 B’s first semester of junior year in APUSH, APENG and AP Physics 1, and 1 B+ and 1 B in the second semester. All A’s until sophomore year)

SAT: 1570 (math:800, Eng:770)

AP’s taken - AP Euro, APUSH, APENG, AP Spanish, Ap Physics 1
AP’s scheduled for senior yr: AP Eng Lit, AP Gov/ AP Economic, AP Calc BC, AP Physics C, AP Comp Science A, AP Statistics

AP scores: Euro-4 (sophomore yr), APUSH-4, APENG-5, AP Spanish-4, Ap Physics 1-3

Subjects tests: Math 2 and Physics, yet to take this summer (hoping for near perfect scores)

Extracurriculars: 1) Section leader in marching band-2 yrs, band member- 3 yrs
2) COSMOS summer program (summer after sophomore yr)
3)Software internship(paid)- 5 weeks (summer after junior year)
4) Piano- 6 yrs, Diploma in social music(Guild exams)

Community service (about 120 hrs): 1) Math tutor in elementary school -2 yrs
2) Math chair, formed a math team at a non-profit organization(that is affiliated with our school district) and held weekly classes in a local school- junior year(8 weeks)

Financial aid: can pay up to 45 K (family income less than 175K). Single-family income. Have saved some, can loan some(which will be paid of by the student later). Can stretch if acceptance within a good school in CA. OK to go out of state with good fianancial aidl/ scholarships and has a good CS/ engineering department

We heard that acceptances were very difficult the last year, so if anyone can help us decide where to apply to so that she can have at least 5 acceptances to choose from, it will be very helpful

Any ideas for making her application stronger, please let me know. Thanks to everyone in advance!

2

She is also a member of math club for 3 yrs(took some AMC tests), made the science olympiad team and participated in the regional tournament etc…but did not mention it, since she did not win anything.

3

Perhaps have her develop more ECs related to her engineering interest. Start a club or something easy that gives her leadership. Her stats are good enough to apply to any school in the country, so choose several reaches, such as Ivies or Stanford, and apply early decision to one of them. Most of the UCs could be matches and safeties for admission

4

Not sure if she wants to go clear across the country but RPI would be a match and they give merit $. For a safety, Clarkson. Pitt would also be a match.

5

Band is okay (no regional chair or something?), COSMOS im not sure what it is but if it’s like a learning camp it depends on how selective it is, software internship is really good (How big is the company? My friend interned at Intel senior summer and got into Cornell, if that gives you an idea, and he was indian male) seems ur on the right track for your daughter.

Reach schools: academics are average, EC’s are average

Match schools: Should get in to several

6

I would not put Purdue as a safety for an out of state CS major. Definitely a match/high match. Purdue also give very limited merit money although the OOS COA is around your 45K/yr number. I think UT Austin for OOS is also very competitive for CS/engineering. I can’t speak to the CA schools but many here will chime in.

Good luck to your daughter, she has great stats!

7

Cal Poly Pomona would be a safety. Cal Poly SLO with a CS acceptance rate around 5-6% is a Reach. EE at Cal Poly SLO would be an easier admit with around 30% acceptance rate. Also SLO uses 9-11th grades in their GPA calculation, so add her 9th grades to the Rogerhub calculator and take the capped weighted GPA= SLO GPA.

She has an excellent SAT score but UC’s tend to be very GPA focused. She is definitely within range for all the schools on her list but the top UC schools UCLA/UCB are never easy. UCI/UCSB/UCSD are in the Match/High Match category.

UCSC would be a safety along with SJSU.

Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 3.80-4.19 for capped weighted and not major specific. Expect CS/Engineering to have lower admit rates to the competition.

UCB: 12.6%
UCLA: 11.7%
UCSD: 38.7%
UCSB: 53.6%
UCD: 56.5%
UCI: 52.1%
UCSC: 75.7%
UCR: 90.1%
UCM: 96.1%

Her Fully weighted is competitive for the top UC’s so make sure she spends time on your personal insight essays since these could set her apart from the the rest of the high stat applicants.

Best of luck to her and she should be proud of her accomplishments.

8

I’m going to give you an out-of-the-box possibility, at least from a CA perspective,

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, MA. Why?

–perhaps surprisingly, a highly rated STEM school (see USNWR national university rankings)

–some of the highest starting salaries of any school

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/slideshows/10-national-universities-where-grads-make-highest-starting-salaries?slide=6

–mid-size national university with a very nice LAC/engineering-style campus and very vibrant vibe

–very unique hands-on, project-oriented approach

–seems to be giving pretty generous merit aid, especially to strong female accepted students, to achieve greater gender parity (has moved from largely male student body to near gender balance in recent years)

–very successful female president

https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan

https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/global-project-program

https://www.wpi.edu/people/faculty/laleshin

It’s a match, not a safety.

Good luck!

9

Thanks to all of your insights, it is really helps you see others erspectives. I will research WPI, thanks to TTG for her/ his recommendation. I had some more details like the list of colleges we had in my second post under what are my chances thread, that the mods deleted. So I had made a list of the colleges we were considering. Can you guys please chance her for these colleges. am I allowed to post on the what are my chances thread?

Here are the other details from the deleted thread, that I had forgotten to add in the original.

Intended major: Engineering( CS, electrical, EECS)

Reaches CMU, Cornell, Rice, Georgia Tech, Harvey Mudd, UCLA, UCB, UC Davis

High Match/Match/ Low match: UCSD, UCSB, UCI, USC, University of Texas at Austin, UIUC, U Washington at Seattle

Safety: San Jose State, UCSB, Cal Poly(not sure if match or safety)), Purdue(not sure if safety)

unweighted: 3.87 (all the B’s are in Junior year(unfortunately), and all A’s until then. A B in Physics 1 in the first sem became an A the second sem; An A in Pre Calc Honors first sem became a B in the second sem; All the other grades improved)

UC weighted GPA (from Rogerhub) : 4.5

UC capped weighted: 4.12

The 5 week paid internship she is doing has the title of Application Developer or something: It is at an established software company in the Bay area, not the big names, but pretty well established. She did 2-3 interviews, gave 3-4 referrals and went through the entire verification process to get the job.

Community Service: When she was the Math chair, it was for our entire school district at a non-profit that is affiliated with our school board. She collaborated with other high school volunteers from different schools to conduct these classes for the kids coming from different elementary schools. It was not for the underprivileged, but the opposite. She felt, that in most public schools, the kids that are advanced in math are not challenged or paid attention to. All the teachers are taking care of the kids trying hard in class, but these kids are often ignored. So the classes she conducted was for the kids advanced in math to challenge them and create love and curiosity about the subject and they developed hands-on activities to teach them concepts like finding the value of Pi, for instance, which they really loved.

Please

10

Please chance her for the above colleges, if you find a moment. Thanks in advance!

11

He has a good shot at UC’s at UCD Evel and below. Cal poly for EE is a low reach. CPP, UCSC should be safeties.
Most of the OOS public universities on your list will be out of budget.
UWash is a reach (for everyone Oos) unless she applies to one of their cs-adjacent majors.
Seconding WPI, EPI, RIT. What about Union?
ASU Barrett is a safety, as is Wwu (wue), Colorado State, and Montana State (also wue).

12

I think your list is excellent. My only comment would be to reverse UCD and UC San Diego.

13

UCSB is not a safety.
Perhaps you meant UCSC, which would be.

Another school to consider would be Smith, which is one of only two ABET accredited women’s colleges.
It would be a solid match and they would likely provide generous merit.

RPI and Case Western would also likely be good matches.

14

Yes, I meant UCSC:-) Thanks you, I will look at Smith. We are from CA, so I haven’t heard of many of the colleges mentioned in this thread…

15

Ya sure! She actually did a summer program at UCSD called COSMOS, and won the Gordan Engineering award for her capstone project (10 teams won out of 100).So, I was thinking she has a better chance at UCSD! The UCSD professor who held lectures in Physics for their cluster agreed to write her a recommendation letter…so that might help?

16

MYOS1634, Thanks for pointing out to the other colleges, I will take a look at them. Our household income is around 160K, do you think we might get financial aid for out of state school, if we can pay around 50K? We have saved some money, and can take a loan for the rest which she will hopefully pay off later. Are we at a disadantage at some of the private colleges like USC and HArvey Mudd if we apply for financial aid? Are the schools that say they are need blind, actually mean it? Do they still prefer students that don’t apply for aid? Thanks for any input, or if you can talk about your own experiences.

17

To be honest, a lot of your list looks very financially reachy. UIUC, UT Austin, UW-Seattle, GT… all exceed your budget. (Plus, getting into their CS departments is ultra-competitive.) CMU would cost an arm and a leg, plus she’s not likely to get into CS there. (Yes, her stats are great, but they’re looking for kids who have won national-level coding/hacking contests.) Cornell… where is $75Kx4 going to come from?

For well-priced but high-quality programs outside of California, check out the WUE schools that offer discounted tuition to CA students at public U’s in the other western states. You can search by major here, and if you click through to the school it will give you details about the costs/discount, majors that are included in the program, etc. http://wue.wiche.edu/search1.jsp

Top CS schools from this list would include U of Utah and Washington State U. Also the U of Nevada campuses. There are excellent Honors Programs/Colleges at all of these schools. And with WUE, they’re cheaper than going to UC. (Utah also lets students establish residency and pay in-state rates for years 2-4, so it’s an amazing bargain. Also an unrivaled combination of major city and unbelievably convenient outdoor recreation.)

Beyond the WUE region, if she wants to continue marching band, UMinnesota Twin Cities is great for CS and for marching band (they played in the Super Bowl show last year). Affordable, too. CU Boulder is a great band and STEM school too.

Private U’s with excellent CS where she has a shot at enough merit to meet your price point: Case Western Reserve U, U of Rochester, Tulane, Northeastern. (Rochester and CWRU have great music opportunities too, through Eastman and Cleveland Institute of Music respectively.) Also the five college consortium in MA - Smith & Mt. Holyoke both give merit, and UMass Amherst has a top-ranked CS program and could hit your price point too.

Remember that CS is a meritocracy where smart and motivated students can do well anywhere. Harvey Mudd just announced their new faculty hires. Guess where their two new CS professors got their undergrad degrees? UC Riverside, and U of Nevada Las Vegas. They’ve obviously done just fine.

Stay within your budget. Your daughter will be able to afford a masters from Big Name School TM if she chooses her undergrad school wisely.

18

that was very helpful, I will look into your suggested list of colleges. Thanks for taking the time to help us out!

19

In terms of financial aid requirement, we have saved up to be able to pay 45-50 K per year for 3- 4 yrs. If a school costs above 50K/yr, we will need financial aid/ scholarships. If we don’t get that, we might have to take a student loan which she should pay off later.

Also, do any of you know if the need-blind private schools like USC are really that? Do they still prefer students who pay in full? If we want to increase our chances at a particular school, is it necessary to apply without financial aid?

20

Need-blind refers to their admission policies, and is not an indicator of merit aid or need-based aid,
which is typically considered separately.

What need-blind means is that the admission people will not take into consideration the ability to pay
(how much or not at all) when they read a students’ application.
When a student is admitted, their file is sent “down the hall” to the FinAid office for them to create a package based on the criteria that each school will set for themselves.

Your student has stellar stats, so what you’d be looking for as a family are those schools who offer generous merit aid. You’d find that out in the FinAid section of an individual schools web site. Sometimes you’ll find named scholarships for specific majors within the site,
such as the Smith STRIDE program - https://www.smith.edu/academics/applied-learning-research/stride-program
or the ASU Barrett Honors College, which allows a student to be any major. Note that their CS programs are excellent - https://students.asu.edu/scholarships/newamericanuniversity

Another indicator of merit aid will be apparent when you run a schools NPC, and they ask for GPA and test scores.
Good luck.