Agree with this. As a safer in-state we applied to Rutgers Newark as a backup this cycle.
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Should apply into Rutgers Arts and Sciences and not mention CS as an intended major given the C- in Calc BC. You can say anything else. You can say politics. It doesn’t matter. My son had a low GPA, high SAT. But his grades were ok in 11th and reasonable in 12th. The Math grade in BC was not terrible. He was at an A-. I thought that was borderline weak for an intended CS major. So CS was mentioned as an intended major at Rutgers. Otherwise we wouldn’t have mentioned CS even at Rutgers so as not to take chances. He also managed to get into Rutgers Engg for CE (closed major). He also got into Penn State CS (closed major) and UPitt CS (closed major). So after those results came out, we reassessed and put in more lottery tickets. They didn’t make a difference.
My son had an A- in Calc BC (and a 5 on the AP that came in later), 800 in SAT Math, and 800 in SAT Math 2, an A in AP CS A, and a recc letter from the math teacher that would have been decent. This was helpful in mitigating a really low GPA.
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He is ok with your safety being community college?
What is the cost constraint? Have net price calculators been tried?
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By the way, CS is in Arts and Sciences at Rutgers and you declare later based on grades in some 5 courses – some of them are Math courses. Admittedly the bar is low for those grades. Still YMMV regarding eventually doing CS at Rutgers. You may or may not get through those requirements.
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I agree.
@user_623058, in addition to Rutgers NB I would suggest NJIT (I believe you’ll get in) and Stevens (decent shot) if you can afford it. These two might not meet your parent’s prestige bar but they both have very good placement outcomes for their CS grads.
IMO the C- in Calc will be an eliminator at MIT, Princeton and CMU, all of which have a strong math component in their curriculum and whose successful applicants typically have strong math backgrounds. So you may want to take those off the list and focus on other schools. It takes a lot of effort to write great supplemental essays so it helps to focus on fewer super-reach schools.
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To add an additional datapoint to this discussion, my son got waitlisted at NJIT. I think NJIT may be harder than Rutgers. I found this surprising. We wouldn’t have picked NJIT over Rutgers though.
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I’m also wondering why you have BU on the list. It’s much lower ranked than Rutgers for CS, has an urban campus that not everyone likes and is very expensive.
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It seems the list is solely based on parental perception of prestige. I hope the OP rethinks their application plan after reading this thread and showing to the parents… it does not seem that either fit or affordability have been researched as yet.
OP, do not be discouraged. There are excellent schools that will be a fit for your profile and help you achieve your career goals. You’ve got this! Keep asking questions and please be open to the responses.
ETA: As others have stated, looking only at T20s is not the same as top schools for CS. You need to look for schools strong in your major AND that fit your academic profile for the best chance at acceptance and most importantly having a happy and successful four years.
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Not sure why so many NJ parents look down upon Rutgers. Its a great in-state option with national recognition. Almost every employer will have heard of Rutgers.
A rank in the 10-15th percentile along with your grades, ORM status, being from an over-represented state, and applying to an over-represented major is going to make it very difficult for you. Your chances at Penn ED are very low, probably so low that I wouldn’t bother with the application. Princeton RD is near certainty rejection. Applying ED will sometimes push you over the edge if you have some other institutional priority (minority status, development, legacy, etc). But you already have 3 strikes against you.
Your ECs are solid, but I don’t see anything that would make an admissions officer jump up and advocate for you. Examples of students with stellar ECs: David Hogg, Malala Yousefzai, Greta Thunberg, etc.
If you really are shooting for a top ranked school, then sometimes you can squeak by having full pay status. Are your parents willing to shell out $300K+ for a degree? Thats an awful lot of money.
CS degree will make it easy for you to get a job. The employers in CS don’t really care where you graduate from. You’ll need to pass the coding tests to get hired anyway. Some high paid devs don’t even have a college degree. So chasing prestige is somewhat meaningless.
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@user_623058, I have a daughter who’s close to your age. So I can understand that receiving so many opinions here from strangers, especially ones that may seem discouraging, can be overwhelming. Perhaps even demoralizing.
If you feel that way I would suggest may be taking a break before coming back to this thread. Please don’t take any of these messages personally. They are all both well-meaning and realistic posts.
You do have many wonderful accomplishments and you’ll do great at many fine institutes. The message here on this thread is simply to pick the right set of schools.
There is a “top 20 best colleges” list for everyone. It may or may not overlap with the list published by USNWR, but that shouldn’t be the guiding principle. Find your own T20 list.
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OP - curious, is CS your choice or your family’s choice for you?
In the end, it’s your life and I hope you will be studying what excites you.
And your family should support this.
Good luck.
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There’s nothing inherently wrong with applying to T20 schools but It’s better to understand the probability outcomes before you apply than be disappointed later.
As many have stated, the chances of a T20 school with a bad calculus grade in your junior year with record amount of applications probably does not bode well for a CS major.
Maybe you should try Rice because you dont have to declare an intended major until your sophmore year or a LAC with an open curriculum?
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The other schools on OP’s list might be better for CS, but I wouldn’t be surprised if OP has interests in business, particularly entrepreneurship.
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Not that the OP should apply to Penn, but Penn is not bad for CS:
Ofcourse there are many kinds of rankings.
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Those ranking are only relevant for grad school or for those looking for a faculty positions. None of the elements of ranking have much to do with undergraduate education. It’s all research productivity and research activity of faculty. There is nothing there about quality of undergrad education, undergraduate research opportunities, internships, job placement of undergraduates, etc.
I mean, it doesn’t even measure non-academic job placement for graduating PhD students, even though the majority of CS PhD are employed in industry, not academia.
If you take a good/strong faculty like UPenn has, and couple it with a small school, which UPenn is not in the scheme of private schools, but it is in the scheme of the large publics that are above it in rankings (say UMich, UMD CP etc), then UPenn is very likely to provide a very good undergrad experience in CS. And they place reasonably well.
My son’s friend moved from GTech to UPenn in CS, and is very happy there. This is a very well informed kid, about CS, even before he went to college. UPenn will have better resources per capita than many other schools that are ranked above it in the list, and likely many other smaller schools such as LACs etc.
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CS has been what I’ve wanted to do from Grade 4. Going to High School and taking CS classes has only furthered that.
Also I should clarify, Math itself is not my weak point, it’s just Calculus. I anticipate that I’ll have a better time in classes like Linear Algebra.
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I have interests in Business as well as Technology. UPenn offers the M&T program which I am interested, I don’t expect to get in as it’s very competitive but it’s worth a shot.
I like the freedom in being able to take a variety of classes outside of the core requirements in the other schools, and I’ve heard of interesting interdisciplinary electives that Penn offers which is why it is my ED choice.
Also, it is only an hour from me, so the location is very convenient. I can go home pretty much whenever I need.
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Is it possible that you’ve confused Penn with Penn State? Penn is a private Ivy that is overall very highly ranked, overall very selective, with a total undergrad enrollment of a little under 10K. U Mich and U Maryland are large public flagship U’s, with undergrad enrollments of over 30K. They’re selective, but not nearly as selective as Penn.