Chance me for a diverse list of colleges... :)

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>Note**: I have posted in chances before, but my college list was pretty much only ivies and higher end schools. I did more research and I LOVE MY LIST of colleges! :) I believe it is very diverse for my stats, not to be conceited, and I am curious what people think. </p>

<p>I would like to apoligize in advanced if this post is too lengthy.</p>

<p>GPA UW (10-12): 4.00
GPA W (10-12): 4.3333
GPA UW (9-12): 4.00
GPA W (9-12): 4.2174</p>

<p>COURSES:</p>

<p>10th Grade Courses:
English II
Algebra II Honors
Comp Sci AP (4 on exam)
Contemp. Media II (fine art)
PE (2 years required to graduate)
World History
Spanish I</p>

<p>11th Grade Courses:
US History
Chem AP Lab
Chem AP Lecture (5 on exam)
Math Analysis Honors (5 point A, equivalent of Trig+first trimester of Calc)
English III
Spanish II
Statistics AP (4 on exam)
Game Programming</p>

<p>12th Grade Courses (planned):
Spanish III (took during summer, A's)
Calc BC AP
Physics AP
English Honors (team taught with Gov, new course, 5 point A for this and Gov/Econ)
Gov. Honors/Econ
Math Tutoring</p>

<p>Also, for languages, I have taken Spanish for 3 years, but I speak fluent Russian as well, it was my first language</p>

<p>TEST SCORES:</p>

<p>ACT Composite (single sitting): 32 (31 second time)
ACT Super-scored: 33
ACT Math (for both sittings, best single sitting): 36, 32
ACT English (for both sittings, best single sitting): 33, 33
Combined ACT English/Writing (for both sittings, best single sitting): 31, 31
ACT Science (for both sittings, best single sitting): 29, 29
ACT Reading (for both sittings, best single sitting): 33, 33</p>

<p>SAT II:
Math II: 790
Chemistry: 790</p>

<p>Class rank: top ~7% (unsure though, school doesn't do rank)
Class size: 537</p>

<p>EC's and Awards: CSF (California Scholarship Federation, 4 years), AP Scholar, Boys Tennis Team MVP (11th grade), Tradition of Excellence Award (for maintaining 4.0+ GPA grades 9-11), Boys Tennis Team Co-Captain (10th grade), Boys Varsity Tennis (4 years), 50+ Volunteer hours (assorted, but longest commitment was to City Hall last summer, about 20-30 hours total), Link Crew (helps new high-schoolers to adapt to my school, 12th grade), and my trump card, Chess: I am ranked in the top 100 in the United States for my age and have earned over $2500 competing in professional tournaments (a lot of which went towards College , have dedicated around 1500-2000 hours total (my current rating is 1950, if you know what that means)</p>

<p>Schools (my pride and joy :) ):
Note: I am planning on majoring in Engineering (going to go in undeclared)</p>

<p>Rice University
Harvey Mudd College
Carnegie Mellon University
Cornell University
UCLA
UC Berkeley
UCSD
UCSB
UC Davis
Texas University, Dallas (for a chess scholarship, on list for money reasons)
Clemson University
Cooper Union Institute of Arts and Sciences
Penn State (Schreyers Honors College?)
Georgia Tech (also for Honors college?)
USC</p>

<p>I know this may seem extensive, and I'm sorry if it's a bit long. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING THIS!!!!</p>

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<p>Note**: I am a senior now, and the senior courses are the courses I am taking now (other than Spanish III which, as I said, I took in the summer)</p>

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<p>Depending on your essays, could get into Georgia Tech. Especially with your SAT II’s.</p>

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<p>srsly bro? If you dont get into every one of them, except maybe cornell, you’re the unluckiest person ever.</p>

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<p>I think you should get into all of those schools</p>

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<p>I second the post above.</p>

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<p>My kid’s stats were virtually identical to yours and he was also pursuing an undeclared engineering degree. Instead of chess he was a musician playing 4 different instruments. Instead of Russian he is bilingual English/Japanese. He was a valedictory scholar and did an internship as a bilingual networking engineer at a Japanese IT consultancy. The difference is that he did not want to leave California and had a smaller list of schools. He did not want to apply to any privates other than Harvey Mudd and had no interest in UC Berkeley. My kid describes himself as an “extreme centrist” disliking elitism and both extreme left and right wing political agendas.</p>

<p>Here is his final list of schools. Once we got all the acceptances in we visited each and every one of the schools and dug deep into each program.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly SLO). I did not see this school on your list and it should be. We believe that this school offers the best engineering program in California at the most reasonable price. The school has a unique “Hands on Learn by Doing” teaching methodology. All professors – no TA lead classes. Smaller class sizes, and where relevant, every class has an associated lab with it. My kid has been on campus for 6 weeks and he has already been deeply involved in building fuel efficient cars for competition with the Supermileage Club and experienced labs in each separate discipline. Cal Poly grads enjoy the highest starting salaries of all California public institutions including UC Berkeley. Cal Poly has an incredible location, beautiful town, amazing facilities and a new dynamic president that loves the school. My son is a General Engineering major and that major allows you to create your own curricula in the last two years to allow you to explore new technologies. Transfers to other engineering disciplines is allowed as needs change. My son will participate in the 4+1 program that allows you to graduate simultaneously with both an undergrad and a masters degree. We also love the career service center that works diligently to provide many internship, coops and real jobs upon graduation.</p></li>
<li><p>Harvey Mudd – Pros: Awesome school, great faculty, brilliant kids. Unparalleled reputation, part of the Claremont consortium thus gives you access to all sister school campuses and classes. Incredibly rigorous academics, liberal arts education along with engineering.
Cons: Small dingy campus, underground classroom, dirtier air than Los Angeles (it all collects right there up against the mountains and dumps it on the school). The cost is a staggering $55,000 a year for four years increasing each year. If you do not get scholarships expect to pay close to a quarter million for 4 years. The dean of admission told us this directly. We were offered nothing in scholarships. </p></li>
<li><p>UCSD – A great engineering program. Fantastic facilities, nice campus, great dean of engineering. UCSD has an outstanding reputation and in our judgement topped the list of UC’s. The issue was large classes and an overemphasis on research and theory. Labs were not of great emphasis and the goal of the program seems to be on preparing you for a masters or a PhD program NOT employment after graduation.</p></li>
<li><p>UCSB – Great location, good reputation, nice campus. Nothing more to say than that.</p></li>
<li><p>Cal Poly, Pomona (CPP) – Good hands on teaching method. Similar to Cal Poly SLO but just not on the same elite level. Most kids were not academically on par with you or my son. However, some were for sure. What we really liked was that they built an office park directly adjacent to campus where impressive corporations have facilities and hire students for internships and full time jobs after graduation. CPP grads go on to great grad schools and employers like the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and Southern California Edison, etc. Dirt cheap cost. This school was the most affordable of all schools we looked at.</p></li>
<li><p>UCLA – Although this school told us time and time again that they were the “best”, we were not impressed. There were 11,500 applicants to the engineering department at UCLA this year for only 600 spots. My kid was offered one of them. Yes, it is a very prestigious program. The professors went on and on about their research and awards and budgets, etc. However the student projects were unimpressive (Cal Poly SLO’s student projects were off the charts) and it was very, very clear that the undergraduate students were of extremely low priority to the professors. Unlike other school orientations, students were kept in the background while professors took center stage. Most classes are taught by TA’s 75% of whom are from Chinese speaking countries (no joke - they actually showed us a pie chart displaying the origin of their TA’s and most were foreign with 75% from China, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, etc.). We are an Asian mixed family so we have no prejudice here. But the lack of diversity among the TA’s was astonishing. We were introduced to ZERO labs and basically we were left scratching our heads wondering what kind of an education would my kid get? GE’s have hundreds of students per class and one of our friend’s son did not score his first engineering class until the beginning of his junior year. My kid marked this school off his list the moment we shut the door to the car on the way home from the orientation. For some, the UCLA experience will be fantastic, for my kid – no way, a total mismatch.</p></li>
<li><p>UCI (Honors) – Safety school we did not visit it. My friend’s son studies engineering there and loves it. The honors college really is of great benefit and allows you priority in class registration and all kinds of other perks. If you are Jewish, this could be a very uncomfortable environment. There is a large and vocal group of Muslim students on campus that have harassed Jewish students and shouted down the Israeli ambassador on a visit there in the recent past. Things have calmed down since and some of the students were actually prosecuted but some tension exists.</p></li>
<li><p>UCSC – Safety school did not visit.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Hope this helps. Other schools to look at are Virginia Tech and RPI too.</p>

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<p>Osaka Dad, thank you so much for your wonderful insight. I have similar stats to both your son and the OP, and I’m really glad you clarified SLO for me because I have been leaning towards it heavily.</p>

<p>My two cents: skip UCLA [as Oaskadad said]
My dad takes UCLA engineering interns [he works for LA Dpt of Water and Power] and he tells me that they are downright awful: too much theory, not enough practicality</p>

<p>UCSD is good alternate to SLO, and UCI would be a safety school. For whatever reason, SB is not appealing to me for engineering, so you may want to revisit the reasons to go there besides the pretty scenery.</p>

<p>And of course, Harvey Mudd. They have an excellent program in general engineering only, but it’s quite expensive, and would probably be only somewhat affordable if you got a decent scholarship. Friend of mine got an 80% and that’s the only reason he went [he had a 4.4gpa, 2280 sat; his family and i have no idea how he got in with such a huge scholarship]</p>

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<p>@ heartarrow – I am very glad that I could help. Cal Poly SLO promised us a lot and so far they are keeping that promise and more. In fact, we were expecting a bit of a let down for my son as routine and reality set in after moving in and starting classes. But no, it just keeps getting better. One of the things that we were very grateful for was the ongoing communication that the school has with students and parents. There was the Spring open house for accepted students (do not miss this program it was awesome), in Summer there was SOAR (Student Orientation and Registration), then there was a full Week of Welcome after move in and before classes started. By the time school started in earnest, my kid knew the campus, the town, had made numerous acquaintances and was preregistered for every single one of his classes without hassle. No fighting for classes, no drama, everything was ready including his loans on day one. For organization and ease of transition, we were blown away by Cal Poly. Also, they take the hands on learn by doing thing very seriously. Much of all the orientation programs were actually run by the students. What we really like about the school is that the main focus and top priority of the university and faculty is the undergraduates. Cal Poly requires you to choose your major at the time of application. Do not worry about this – you can change majors if you need to. The reason why they are so strict is that they hit you with engineering classes in your major the very first quarter. They get you started right away. Something that we love.</p>

<p>With regards to Harvey Mudd and scholarships in general, we did not qualify for any needs based financial aid due to our FAFSA results. That was one factor. Your friend really lucked out. Mudd does not give away merit scholarships very easily.</p>

<p>Best of luck to you and if you are interested in Cal Poly SLO really consider it seriously and possibly apply for early decision. The average entering freshman for the engineering department for this school is now a weighted GPA of 4.03 and an ACT of 31. It is very, very competitive equal to or even harder to get in than many UC’s. But you should be OK with your stats.</p>

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<p>@OsakaDad – I don’t foresee a problem getting into SLO ED or RD [and neither will the OP], but the problem with ED is that it requires a notification of intent to enroll by January 15th. For me, that’s the deal breaker because my preference is really small private schools. I know I don’t stand a chance of getting needs based scholarships at any of the schools I will apply to simply due to family income, yet I’m holding out in case I manage to get a substantial merit scholarship at a private school I would love to go to. </p>

<p>But SLO looks like a great alternative for its price and quality, though the large amount of students is a con for me.</p>

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<p>My kid felt the same way. He did not apply to SLO ED. After the UC tours, SLO seemed like a tiny little school. Enrollment will be cut to 16,000 undergrads. However, Mudd has less than 800 students. Really small private schools are a whole different ballgame and only a handful have good engineering departments. You might want to look at Rose Hulman, Cooper Union and others like RPI. Nationally, there are only a few really small privates with good engineering programs.</p>

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<p>Thank you everyone for your input! I will consider adding Cal Poly SLO to my list, but I am not sure if adding yet another application to put the number up to 16 is worth it. I may replace Texas University at Dallas with Cal Poly SLO. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!</p>