A bit worried about academics! I moved in to the United States from Argentina about 6 years ago. I’m still a junior, but I figured if I stress about it now I don’t have to stress later B)
Demographics
US citizen
State/Location of residency: Southern Florida
Type of high school: Small, very high ranking public HS
Gender/Race/Ethnicity: Male, White, Hispanic
Other special factors: Might be first gen? (Dad graduated a two-year degree in Argentina), lived in U.S. for about 6 years.
Weighted HS GPA: 5.18 (actually not sure out of how much. School district has no consistency, but website states that AP & D.E. awards two extra points for As and Bs and one extra for Cs)
Class Rank: School doesn’t do class rank AFAIK
ACT/SAT Scores: 1530 SAT (770 RW, 760 Math). New scores come out the 19th, and I’m fairly certain I got >1560.
Coursework
APs: Spanish Lang (5, 8th grade), Human Geo (5, 10th), Lang (5, 10th), CSP (4, 10th), CSA (5, 10th), APUSH (Expected 5, 11th), will be taking Calc AB, Lit, Macro, and Gov senior year.
DEs: College Algebra (A), General Chem + Lab (B, A), Intro to Communication (A), Intro to Psychology (A), Basic Physics (C), General Chem 2 + Lab (B, B), Intro to Philosophy (A), Intro to Computer Technologies (A). All 11th grade. will be taking Intro to C++, General Bio (+ Lab), Discrete Math, advanced C++, and Intro to Humanities in 12th.
I’m mostly just worried about that C and those four Bs in college-level STEM courses. They’ve been stressing me out for a while. I’ve tried to appeal the grades-- so far unsuccesfully-- but I’m beginning to think they might stay like that.
Awards
AP Scholar with Distinction
CollegeBoard Hispanic Recognition Award (2022 - Present)
Princeton Book Award
Principal’s Honor Roll Recipient several semesters
Possibly National Merit Scholar (1480 PSAT)
Extracurriculars
Programming
6 years of experience in all sorts of languages (JS, Java, C#, C++, Python, HTML & CSS)
Three large scale game dev projects since 2019
Three large scale open source projects, one currently in the works to increase web accessibility through machine learning
2 years of participation in MIT’s Battlecode (hopefully 3!)
1 year of VEX Robotics (lead of programming team)
1 year as Coding Club Treasurer (10th grade)
Two notable programming competitions: second place in one (HTML & Web Design, back in my home country), fifth in another (Virtual Robotics)
Writing / Creative Writing
4 years participation in two school newspaper (2 and 2), two year as editor-in-chief
2 years running independent satirical newspaper (~50 articles written, editor-in-chief and founder, think The Onion but funnier ;))
2 years independent blog
2 years competitive swimming
Founder of a school Mycology Club
Job Shadowing opportunities at a small Design firm and NASA
CS internship this summer (hopefully published also)
NO USACO!! (Can I put it in an application if I compete next year? Will it be too late?)
Essays/LORs/Other
In the process of writing them. I trust my writing skills heavily, so I’m hoping very strong.
LOR 1: Extremely dedicated Chemistry professor (has bragged about writing five page LORs. Finished course with a B.)
LOR 2: Undecided yet. I get along well with all of my HS teachers.
Cost Constraints / Budget
MIT EFC: ~18k (anywhere around this is fine)
Maybe you know this, but MIT’s expected family contribution is generally much lower than other colleges. For example, when I run the MIT NPC for my family it comes out around $30,000. Our FAFSA EFC is over $70,000.
If your family can truly only pay around $18,000 you should run the NPCs at other colleges to see what they will expect you to pay before applying.
That’s a good point. I haven’t filled out the FAFSA yet so I’m not sure what the actual number is but I’ll check back in with EFC for a few other schools
EFC for Carnegie Mellon: ~33k
EFC for Northeastern: ~35k
EFC for UMich: ~60k
I’ll definitely need some sort of private scholarship. I think I can trim some of the cost off with NMSC (very little, lol) and community service awards.
The FAFSA is changing significantly next year, and I have read that it might not be available until December, unfortunately. But you might be able to get a decent idea of cost from the NPCs at schools that use the CSS. There are the usual caveats that those won’t be updated for next year‘s numbers until the fall, possibly October, so make sure you recheck the NPC in mid October.
But remember, the FAFSA only determines your eligibility for federal aid. Typically that is for people who have very low family incomes. Some schools will use the FAFSA calculations for EFC/SAI to determine how much institutional (that is, from the college) need-based aid you should get. But many schools that have other forms that they use, such as the CSS Profile or school specific forms.
Michigan and Northeastern are probably both reaches. Michigan is likely unattainable $-wise.
I would absolutely not want a 5 page LOR, especially from a teacher in whose class you got a B. No admissions officer will read something that long, and you have many great classes in which you earned As. There must be a better option.
I agree UMich and NEU are reaches. These, along with GT are also going to be unaffordable IMO. NYU says they meet need, but they tend to load you up with loans - so be careful.
UMich isn’t even considered inexpensive for in state students, but it’s akin to a private school for out of state students (OOS tuition is quite high).
I have a rising out-of-state senior at Michigan. Tuition & room/board for her last year were estimated at around $76,000. The real cost was even higher as she, like most upperclassmen, lived off campus and Ann Arbor is pretty expensive. Financial aid is tough for OOS students and they offer very few big scholarships.
Public school tuition will vary significantly from state to state. If you are considering out-of-state state schools, look for ones where you automatically qualify for merit given your high stats.
Keep in mind that most public universities do not offer much aid to out of state students. As public institutions their financial responsibility is to their state’s residents. Exceptions are UVA and UNC… they meet the financial need of OOS students too. So as you continue your research, make sure to check the cost of attendance for each school, public or private.
To meet your budget, you should look at FL publics, private schools that meet need or publics/privates that offer merit. Auto merit schools like Alabama, Miami-OH, Arizona have charts that show exactly what scholarships you will get based on your stats. If you are NMSF, there are full tuition paid schools like UTulsa, UT-Dallas (especially good for CS), Fordham, Alabama, a good many in FL, etc. plus scholarships for CB Hispanic Award.
Yeah. DeSantis is really making himself known when it comes to Florida education. On top of all the bans on books (I still cant believe anyone would ban the Diary of Anne Frank & The Handmaid’s Tale) he’s been trying to cut down on all sorts of financial aid.