Chance (another) Nervous CS Major! [FL, 3.97 UW GPA, 1590 SAT, $10k budget]

Chance Me / Match Me!
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I recalculated my GPA accounting for the C and it comes out to 3.85, worryingly. Perhaps even worse is that no matter how many As I add afterwards to account for future courses I can never get it to break 3.9 again. Closest I can get by the time I apply, assuming an A in every class I take, is a 3.89.

I don’t really know what to do here. I always knew this C was going to be an awful hit, but I never anticipated it would be this bad.

Edit: jesus christ, why does it all have to be so fragile. I’m feeling so good and then a single bump in the road and I’m out of the race forever.

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It’s only fragile if you assume single narrow paths to success, which I can tell you is not true. You’re a very good student and you will get into a very good school assuming you’re smart with your applications. You should be able to get into a good CS program - and once you’re there, it’s about accumulating skills and experiences…

Basically, think of things a series of intermediate points that make things easier or harder to achieve certain goals… going to certain schools might make certain goals a bit easier, but it’s probably an incremental benefit vs. a deterministic benefit.

Keep working hard, and only worry about what you can control. You can’t control the past, including the C now – but you can control how you respond, so focus on that.

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I know getting a good job or leading a meaningful life doesn’t really rely on what college you go to. It just hurts so much to be so close to my dream and get left in the dust right after.

I’ve done everything I could, but that just makes it worse. I can’t really excuse myself knowing I didn’t try. I can’t even really know if I failed at all. I just have to live with the next year knowing all the work I do could have already been ruined.

Edit: or maybe I’m being a little too dramatic, but I would argue it’s hard to put work into my safeties and targets knowing both will still feel like a consolation prize. Every “you might not get into your reaches but…” still ends up feeling like a but. You know?

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I do know b/c I remember being where you’re at, but I also have a bit of perspective because now I’m old. You’ll never be able to prove the counter-factual. It’s possible you would have gotten into CMU if you had gotten better grades, or you might not have. If you went to CMU, maybe you would have had better opportunities, or maybe it would have led to a nervous breakdown… maybe you meet the love of your life at University of Georgia (or insert any random college), or maybe not.

Life is long (hopefully), and there are many paths to success. It’s ok to be upset, but don’t wallow too long - one nothing has been decided, your odds have decreased but they aren’t zero (they were low to begin with b/c they’re low for everyone, and now they’re lower, but they aren’t zero), and this is advice I’d give anyone even a 4.0 student… learn to fall in love with a safety - there are some really great ones out there. You have a LOT of time to do some research.

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Yea you’re being over dramatic.

Tons work hard. Tons can’t go to the dream. It may be because they don’t get in or it may be worse - that they get in but can’t afford it. NPCs aren’t necessarily accurate so yours may be off.

You are making assumptions about your application because of a grade. Stop.

You don’t know if you’ll get into a specific school or not. And if you don’t, you wont know why. Was it the C? Was it your essay? Was it something else ?

Your targets and safeties are not consolations. If you think that way then don’t apply.

More national merit scholars go to Alabama than any school in America. You think for the majority of them it was a consolation? 20% or so of Tulsa are NMFs. You think they didn’t get into anywhere else more prestigious?

My kids both chose safeties with my daughter choosing the 16th ranked of 17 schools she got into.

She didn’t say top school and nothing else.

She got into top schools, visited many, and realized that the 16th of 17 acceptances was better for her. And has a great internship this summer.

You created a fantasy list from magazines. Find the right school. For you.

Prestige doesn’t bring happiness. It’s gone when you step on campus, which last four years and if it’s not right that’s a long time. A big time college name doesn’t ensure success. A lesser name doesn’t ensure failure or less success.

Read @DadBodThor again. He’s spot on. You are doing this to yourself.

Focus on school, developing a proper list, and find a place you love, regardless of what any magazine says about it.

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Yes…you are being dramatic. Many students find that the target and sure thing schools are perfect once they start attending. There is nothing “magic” about your reach schools…other than you like them better.

But really…here is the saying “grow where you are planted”.

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Which is fine. You can handle some disappointment. Handling disappointments on a semi-regular basis is part of the human condition. Accepting “consolation prizes” and coming to realize that prizes, consolation or not, are wonderful things, is a part of growing up and gaining perspective.

My kids go to a high-achieving public where each year multiple kids complete Calc BC in 9th grade, 35+ kids are NMS, multiple get ACT36, last year 2 got SAT 1600. Most of these kids end up at our state flagship (a solid but non-elite school), some because it is their top choice, some because they didn’t get in anywhere “higher ranked”, some because of affordability. Others attend the big-merit NMS schools that offer great opportunities in their fields of interest. It’s true that these kids going to “non-elite” schools don’t receive the ooohs and ahhhs that the kids going to T20s get when they announce. In the summer between graduation and starting college, most of them even admit to feeling sort of hum-drum about their destinations. But that changes pretty quickly after college starts.

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Thank you all for your kind comments. We’ll see how this plays out, I guess.

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IMHO, it will take some of the stress and angst out of this process if you are able to compartmentalize a bit more.

Look at it this way. Your options for college fall into three categories:

  1. The schools that are guaranteed to be affordable or even free, because of National Merit and/or Bright Futures.
  2. Schools with competitive (not guaranteed) big merit awards that could potentially make them affordable. These are long shots because the merit awards are hard to get.
  3. Schools that would be affordable with need-based aid alone. These are long shots because it’s extremely hard to get in.

This issue with your DE grades is making you feel as if categories 2 and 3 may be out of reach, and thus you’re feeling like everything is ruined. In reality, there was no assurance of a category 2 or 3 option even if your grades had been perfect. And many of the options in those categories would be financial stretches that would be tempting, but quite possibly not the wisest choice anyway.

Nobody knows whether you can get a Category 2 or 3 offer that will work financially. And if you don’t, you’ll never know whether perfect or near-perfect grades would have changed the outcome.

The problem here is not that you won’t have a path forward; in fact, you’ll have your choice of multiple excellent paths. The problem is that you’re seeing Category 1 as being “out of the race forever.” That’s a huge distortion of reality that is only hurting you.

My suggestion, FWIW, is to take a step back from the whole chase for Categories 2 & 3. Not forever. It’s only May - you have time. Make a plan to come back to the elite-school question in a month or two. Just table it for now. The “noise” of worrying about this is keeping you from seeing how great your Category 1 options are. Do you think you could commit to focusing on those schools for a period of time - figuring out which ones you like best, which academic programs and research labs and EC’s at those schools excite you, what the Honors Colleges have to offer, etc. etc.? If you can dial down the panic about the elite school “dream” long enough to develop a real fondness for at least one “ace in the hole” school, you could then resume looking at “Hail Mary” options with a much healthier perspective. I would suggest starting a whole separate thread just for this, to keep tangents about things like “but isn’t there a magical unicorn scholarship to make CMU affordable?” from poisoning the well of looking at your sure-bet options in a positive light. Figure out your default plan and get excited about it. You have plenty of time to circle back to the shooting-the-moon project.

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3.8&academic rigor is the typical threshold - you’re okay.

You have LOTS of choices.
I would look at Benacquisto, UF, FSU Honors, and UCF Honors (NMF).
However I can understand wanting to leave Florida’s heat, humidity, and insanity, not to mention it may become really uncomfortable for quite a few students. So, you secure something at the public universities (and officially UF doesn’t look at majors when students apply so that’s a plus for would-be CS majors :p) as soon as the apps open; then use these as a basis for your NMF-related apps (UTD, UNM, etc.) then you focus on other colleges that get you out of the heat.

I second St Olaf and Grinnell, I would add Macalester and Denison. All are good for writing (various titles to the concentration) and for science/CS. St Olaf and Denison offer merit. Macalester is in Minneapolis/St Paul, a thriving megapolis with hundreds of Fortune 500 companies. (St Olaf is about 45mn from there. Denison and Grinnell have excellent industry contacts.)
For all 4, you’d need to “show interest”, which means leaving your name with +“join our mailing list”, then opening emails they send you and clicking on links you find interesting. It’ll all be tracked. (Create a “sparkling-water_college” email that you check every day.)

Not sure they’d be affordable (run the NPC): Lafayette, Lehigh, Kalamazoo, Whitman, Davidson.
Washington&Lee has a full ride (the Johnson) - I figure the history may not bear upon you as much as it would for many young Americans. (For perspective, it’s a bit as if it were an Argentinian college named SanMartin&Videla and trying to get out from under the weight of that name while keeping it.)

Fordham is a near academic&financial safety (show interest), in a huge rife with opportunities, and definitely “northeastern”.

If you liked NEU, what about U Cincinnati? They invented the first co-op system, their CS program “places” very well (excellent, paid internships but also semester-long, well paid co-ops) and you’re definitely competitive for the big merit scholarships (Cincinnatus scholarshipbut also “merit within merit” that is unlocked once you “win” some.)
Same thing for App State: Honors&Watauga Residential Community together may be just right for you! Good scholarships, too.
(UCincinnati is an urban university; App State is definitely rural/in the mountains. However both will be cooler - way cooler for App State- than the South).
I would add UMN-Morris because it’s well-known for CS, relatively inexpensive to start with and you’re likely to get a scholarship on top of it, and it’s a safety. Apply EA.

Ask you GC whether you qualify for free applications through COmmonApp. If not, look for “free app” days from colleges, also offered for visits, college fairs…

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I know I shouldn’t laugh, but I did.

Yes. UM-Morris gives a full tuition scholarship for all National Merit scholars.

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If really you were doing well throughout the semester, here’s an idea: take a Physics summer class (the next level class, NOT the same!!) and get an A. Your transcript will basically tell your adcom that the Spring Physics grade was a blip or perhaps a big problem with the final but you had mastered the concepts… and therefore that grade shouldn’t be fully factored into their evaluation - they’ll still use your GPA but since it’s strong, no worries.
An issue is that it may be difficult to get the next-level class at the CC near you over the summer and of course it’ll be more intense so you need to be sure you can handle it, because a second C, instead of an A cancelling that first C out, would give the idea you’re out of your depth in physics more weight.

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Thank you all! Ill look through all your suggestions when i get home <3

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Finally got around to reading these. I’m adding them all to a separate list to narrow down what @aquapt called "Category 1"s. I’ll probably start a new thread here as well, just to stay organized. Thank you both for your extensive suggestions!

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There have been suggestions of schools that will ‘only’ cost $30k (which you’ve said your family can’t pay) and that you can borrow ~$6k per year ($27k over the 4 years) and you can work to earn $6-8k per summer (which I think is a very high estimate and means you’d be making about $15/hr x 40 hours x 12 weeks=$7200 but you’d have FICA, federal taxes and assumes you would not spend a DIME all summer, and that you’ll work 40 hours for all 12 week-which is hard to do.

But WHY?

Assuming you are NMF, at any Florida public school you’d get Benacquisto, which is a full ride - tuition, fees, R&B, books. Why borrow $27k and work like crazy? Two private schools, Emery-Riddle and Miami, also accept Benacquisto; it’s not the same deal as publics, I think you get about $22k but those schools do allow you to stack other scholarships so they can become full rides. You could also use BF at other Florida private schools too (Florida Tech, Rollins, Eckerd) and stack other scholarships.

Some kids are lucky and their families can afford for them to go to any school they want and others get full FA packages at schools like Harvard because their families can’t contribute . I think you are in the middle, and can’t afford $30k but won’t get full FA either. Maybe lots of merit, but that’s tough to get the COA down to $0.

You’ll have to decide if Alabama or UT-Dallas or Tulsa are better for you than a Florida school, and whether the politics in those states is any better for you than in Florida.

Paying $30k per year out of pocket (loans, working, parents) for the reach schools on your list is a pretty high price IMO.

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It is. I’m discarding $30k safeties/targets, though I’ll keep reaches in mind in case I get lucky with scholarships. I can afford my very top reaches (MIT, Princeton, NYU), though, and my safeties/targets are largely covered by Bright Futures or NMF.

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I think that in addition to need-based aid you’d stand a good chance of merit at Kalamazoo, St Olaf, perhaps Grinnell, Denison, or Whitman (your being bilingual and coming from an under-represented area is a hook for these schools.) In addition, Denison, Dickinson, Whitman, St Olaf, Macalester, and Grinnell “meet need” so that, if you’re low-income, they should be within budget.

What’s your EFC?

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Haven’t filed FAFSA yet, so I don’t really know EFC. Is there any other way to calculate it?

Also, I’ll keep those in mind! I recognize the names, so that’s definitely a plus :sweat_smile:

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https://studentaid.gov/aid-estimator/estimate/student-information

You can try this^ to have an idea.

If your EFC is 10K or below, then you can apply to the (highly/very selective) “meet full need” colleges. If not, you’ll need a combination of need and merit - but between the NMF scholarships, Benacquisto, etc, etc, you’ll be fine with many different choices.

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My EFC is $27,000. I’ll definitely need to rely on both merit and need, though.