Please help me pick the right college for my profile. Any suggestions would help a lot.
ME
Female,
Indian
Major interested: Computer Science
State- Arizona
Scholarship - Some
EDUCATION
High School Diploma Expected: 2021
GPA: U -3.98/4, W- 4.75/5
SAT: 1520/1600
Class Rank - 1
13 APs/16
Community College
• JavaScript I, Web Development, MySQL
edx
• Programming in Python Professional Certification, Introduction to Computer Science Professional Certification, Programming in JavaScript Professional Certification,
Intended Subject SAT
• Physics 2, Math
ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS
Code Ninjas | Instructor | July 2020 - Present
Girls Who Code MRHS | Founder | August 2019 - Present
Allgirlithm | Patreon Writer | May 2019 - Present
Software Development company | Intern | August 2019- Present
CodeDay | Intern | March 2020– Present
Arizona Science Center | Intern | May 2019 – August 2019
The Dance Project | Dancer | 2016-2019
Gujarati Cultural Association – Volunteer – 2014- Present
Stanford Speech and Debate 2017
Boston leadership Biomedical Engineering Research: researched creation of artificial medical implants using computational engineering 2018
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
CodeDay Hackathon Top Ten Competitor |
DECA - Arizona Financial Operations Research State Champion |
FBLA - Arizona Information Technology Help Desk State Champion |
FBLA - Arizona Coding and Programming Regional Champion |
FBLA - Arizona Information Technology Regional Champion |
Renaissance Program |
Spark App League Top 5 state competitor
Participate in Hackathons whenever I get a chance.
LEADERSHIP
Tech for Tails (Non-profit organization) | Founder | March 2020- On going: teaches kids how to code
Future Business Leaders of America | President | March 2020-Ongoing
DECA| Vice President of Career and Competition Development | Feb 2020– On going
National Honors Society | Treasurer | March 2020-Ongoing
National Charity League | Vice President of Philanthropy 2021 | Jan 2020-Ongoing
Future Business Leaders of America | Vice President of Community Service/Fundraising | August 2019- Feb 2020
You are competitive for them all, and all are reaches for anybody. As for the best one for you, you need to think what you want from a college, and why that particular college.
You also need to figure out what your parents can pay. CMU is a private and expensive, while GTech and UIUC you will pay fairly high OOS tuition.
By Wash U, do you mean Wash U, St Louis, private college with a good CS program, or U Washington which is a public university with one of the best CS programs in the country?
What would be your matches and what would be your safety (academic + financial)?
In which case. you should drop it. It is expensive, has very low acceptance rates, and its CS program is not at the level of many colleges which are cheaper and have higher acceptance rates, even for CS.
In any case, for CS, all are reaches, since GTech, CMU, and UIUC have far lower acceptance rates for CS than for other programs, and GTech has lower acceptance rates for OOS than for in-state students… What are your matches and safeties.
@Mwolf my safety and matches in my opinion are ASU (in state), Penn State,
university of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of Maryland College park, Rensselaer, maybe UT Austin & UCSD. Any suggestions to this list would be appreciated.
UT is a reach for out of state applicants as they are mandated to take the vast majority of their students instate.
What does this mean?: " Tuition is okay to pay as long as program has a high ranking."
I agree that academically you should get in to the other schools you listed as safety/matches but are they affordable? You should see merit $ at RPI but the COA will probably still be $40-45K/year. Is that in budget?
The area of UIUC is really questionable. The region there can be dangerous at nights and just not a great place to live, I’ve heard. University of Washington’s CS program is really good as well, comparable to UIUC, but with a much nicer area/campus. Might want to consider it.
Colleges which are far more crime ridden than UIUC:
UCLA, Berkeley, U New Hampshire, SUNY Buffalo, Northeastern, Stanford, UVA, Rutgers, MIT, GTech, Vanderbilt, Duke, Harvard, NYU, and USC, are a small sample of the colleges which have far worse crime on and around campus than does UIUC.
The area of University of Washington, Seattle has 6,953 crimes per 100,000 people versus UIUC’s 3,291 per 100,000.
So no, the area of UIUC is no more “questionable” than the areas of any of the other colleges which the OP is considering. And that includes your favorites as well.
I wouldn’t consider UCSD and UMD out-of-state for CS as safeties and maybe not matches. UCSD will be expensive. I’d look at Ohio State over Penn State. It’s urban, easier to get to, and you might get some scholarship money.
Is WUE an option? I would think Utah or Oregon might be an option for CS. After that, maybe NC State?
I’m assuming ASU would be good option, especially the cost and the Honors College.