Your best bet is probably to do really well in Calc BC next year and hope that the Calc BC teacher will write you a good recommendation.
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I think on your spreadsheet you go college by college and see what they want.
You should only need two teachers. But some will want specifics, others not. You can choose in common which to send to which school.
Get your cost in order first b4 you worry about schools. You may not be able to apply to them anyway.
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I agree with the suggestion to setup a college only email account.
You will get flooded with emails. A lot of these are embedded with tracking cookies. Do not delete the cookies, and make sure you click on everything. Some colleges (particularly the less competitive ones) are using Google analytics to see how students respond to their email campaigns.
It looks particularly bad to a college if they send out several feelers and notice that a high scoring student doesnât even open the email. So if you are looking for merit money, clicking on everything is another point to help demonstrate interest.
Also sign up for all of the college email lists, and attend any local presentations by admissions officers. Your inbox will be full, but make sure you check it regularly!
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I emailed Cornell School of Engineering and they said that they understand my situation and will not count it against me to submit a rec from my physics C teacher.
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Thatâs great news!
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Are there majors that are similar to CS but not as competitive to get into if so which ones?
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What are your career goals? (at this point, knowing that may change 10 times in the next 5 years)
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What do you really want to study? Where do your passions lie?
If itâs CS, you can definitely study CS at a very good school. Maybe not at the tippy top schools on your list (although those are also possible), but you donât need to compromise on major if CS is what you really want.
But if you only have a passing interest in CS then yes, you can explore other majors.
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CS is not a must. It did not enjoy it much earlier on but this year I worked on a project that just made me enjoy it a lot and make me say, âwow I understand thisâ. My real love is engineering as I have been doing it since I was in the fourth grade. However, I still want to have some coding aspect in my field although it does not have to be 100% coding.
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I am not sure what my stats and ec show me out to be. I know it is engineering/STEM field but Idk specifically what.
Then apply to engineering, not CS. Youâll do much better in life doing what you enjoy.
Engineers do code. Youâll very likely be taking some CS courses as an engineering major.
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I could apply MecE but I heard that is just as competitive.
And there are many majors that are a lot less competitive than either. Do you want to apply to any of those?
You should apply to the major youâre really interested in, and pick your list of schools accordingly. Engineering (or CS) is hard but a lot harder if you hate what youâre doing.
And why do you want to pursue a career that doesnât truly interest you?
Figure out what you want to study, and you can find a very good school that meets your interests.
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That depends on the school and how they admit their students. At Purdue, engineering is an âeasierâ admit than for CS which is the college of science. And you donât declare your engineering major until the end of freshman year.
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To me there is one big issue here. In terms of what you do for your career, there is relatively little difference between a degree in Mechanical Engineering from an ABET accredited school that is ranked in the top 10, versus an ABET accredited school that is ranked in the top 100. There is a relatively larger difference between a degree in Mechanical Engineering versus a degree in Computer Science versus a degree in Mathematics (although there are still lots of good jobs either way).
As such it makes sense to apply for the major that you want, and then attend a university that accepts you.
A secondary point is that computer science can be applied in many ways, and all computer science jobs are not the same. I personally graduated with a bachelorâs degree in mathematics, and then found work as a software engineer. However, the specific software engineering jobs that I found were ones that used a lot of mathematics. I remember very well using multivariate calculus and probability theory and stochastic processes as part of my job as a software engineer. I strongly suspect that the people who hired me knew that the job was going to require quite a bit of mathematics (which is why I was a competitive applicant for the job). Someone else with a different degree might have been a strong candidate for a different type of software engineering job.
Which means:
Exactly. Of course you also need to find a very good school that you can get accepted to and that you can afford to attend. However, there are hundreds of very good universities to choose from.
Also, at least some of your reaches (MIT comes to mind) do not admit by major. Whatever you put down as your major will make no difference at all to your chances of getting accepted to MIT. If you are accepted, and if you choose to go there, they what you put down as your intended major will have an impact on who they assign as your freshman year advisor. Then at the end of your freshman year you get to pick your major and you will be assigned an advisor from that major.
And finally, your hard work and excellent results from high school will get you accepted to very good universities. Whether MIT or Stanford or Cornell will be one of them none of us can know, but there are a lot of very good universities out there with a lot of great professors and a lot of interesting opportunities for a very strong student such as yourself.
Make sure that you really are applying to at least two affordable safeties, make sure that you really know what your budget is, and you should be fine however this comes out.
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Have you looked into the Wireless Engineering program at Auburn? It is interdisciplinary and combines ECE,computer science and software engineering. Itâs a unique program and might be of interest to you.
https://www.eng.auburn.edu/ece/academics/undergraduate/wireless-engineering/index.html
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I will look into it. Thank you.
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If you like Mech E, do Mech E. Many of the top engineering schools are public flagships and you have a very good chance of acceptance at these with your strong stats. So look into these schools alongside your private reach schools.
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What is a public flagship.