Chance me for Ivies / Columbia Enginnering / Univ of Washington / Top 10 STEM
Asian Female in NY (US citizen, limited need for FinAid)
Comp science
GPA UW 3.94 - Top 3 ranked in school.
ACT 35
Took max APs in school, couple of 4’s, some 5
National award based on essay.
Awards in performing arts national competition/ finals.
Leadership: President of Engineering club & 2 Leadership committees
Tutoring, counselor & Intern experience
Essay, LOR - 8/10 per counselor, working to improve. Strong LOR due to rank and extra-co’s.
For UW Seattle, OOS CS is a tough admit, with low single digit acceptance rate. They do not accept LORs, and will probably not look at your ACT score (they rarely use test scores in admission). They consider your grades, course rigor, ECs and essays. Go ahead and apply, but don’t consider it a safety school; CS is a reach for anyone applying from OOS. Freshmen by the numbers | Office of Admissions
If you need financial aid to afford the cost, I would eliminate U. of Washington, as out-of-state schools are generally fairly stingy on financial aid for nonresidents. Make sure your family runs the Net Price Calculator at all schools to see whether their definition of what your family can pay is actually what your family an pay. (Often, it is not.)
How many APs did you take? Depending on the school, 4 APs might be the max or 20 APs might be the max. The fact that you took the max means that you’ve done the most rigorous pathway, which colleges will look favorably upon. My question about the number of tests is because you mention “couple” and “some” for the 4s and 5s. Did you receive any scores lower than 4? What percentage of your APs were 5s? What percentage 4s? For the schools you’re looking at, they may well end up caring.
Current senior, applying ED to Columbia Univ in NYC.
Apologies, in original post I meant Washington university St Louis.
Also interested in CMU- Carnegie, Boston College, Duke. Engineering preferred.
Parents ok to go without FinAid only if top 20. (Asian lol). Aren’t Top colleges need blind ? If not applying for FinAid, will that help in any way ?
Took max possible APs in junior, two 5s. Planning to skip submitting ones with 3 and 4
CS and engineering, at all but a few schools, are in different realms, irrespective of the department they fall under. I’m still not sure from what I’m reading if the student wants to study computer science or engineering. It’s an important distinction as there are quite a few schools where CS is strong, but engineering is not well regarded. That’s probably an appropriate description of all of the Ivy League schools, save Cornell, where both engineering and CS are seen as strong.
It is hard to chance without more details. What is the ACT breakdown? What classes were the 3s in? What about the 4s? I think you should submit the 4s definitely. What math level is the student in now, and what physics has been taken? STEM matters for SEAS at these competitive places—trying to realistically seewhere you are.
MIT, Stanford, Caltech, GTech, Michigan, CMU, UIUC, Purdue, UT Austin, Berkeley, and Cornell. For smaller colleges, Harvey Mudd is also at the top there.
Berkeley is having overcrowding issues, though
Looking at CS in particular one should add University of Washington Seattle, UMD, and UCLA.
Engineering degrees at most Ivies are not worth the cost of attendance. They do not provide a better engineering education and they definitely do not provide better work opportunities for their engineering students. They do, as a rule, cost more, especially compared to in-state tuition.
I won’t deny that they are all solid schools, but “best” is highly subjective. Depending on what one I’d looking for, it’s possible that none of them make someone’s “best” list. They didn’t for our son, and he had the stats to be very competitive at any of them.
It’s true that not every college is suitable for everyone, but by that token we wouldn’t be able to make suggestions to anyone on these forums. We can provide names, and then applicants need to do their own due diligence to determine fit.
