Hopefully fine. Like anyone a reach but being female can help. You would have your pick of very inexpensive schools if you were to forgo top 20, saving hundreds of thousands of $$. Top 20 I’d often single digit acceptance so no one can predict. Bit you have a great overall portfolio. Y not u ??
FYI - it will be difficult (if not impossible) to minor in graphic design at many T20s. That’s considered a specific, technical skill and doesn’t align with the undergrad academic models at many of those schools.
Here’s an article that might help you get to the top ranked schools that have programs.
Without rank, chancing is very hard. Obviously you have a good SAT and your ECs support your intended course of study. It’s just a numbers game applying to T20s and in a normal year there are 40,000 students with a 1540 / 35 and a 4.0 all competing for the same spots.
You’re a strong applicant, and should have a shot everywhere you apply. At the most competitive schools, the odds are against you as an unhooked applicant, regardless of the strength of your record.
If you’re seriously interested in the integration of CS+Design, it’s worth looking specifically for programs with strength in this blended area. The CS+Design combined major at Northeastern is terrific, and has both great co-op opportunities and also a student-led design studio that can be fantastic for building your portfolio. https://scout.camd.northeastern.edu/
Harvey Mudd is a terrific CS school, and the opportunities in Design have grown significantly over the past few years. The Hive Home - The Hive is the hub of design activity for the whole consortium, and Mudd’s Human-Centered Design curriculum is based there. Mudd students can also cross-register, seamlessly, for courses in the other Claremont Colleges’ art departments, such as the Digital Art sequence at Scripps.
The Cognitive Science department at UCSD is another hotbed of CS+Design activity.
RIT and DePaul are also known for crossover majors, and would likely be safeties for you.
In terms of “shooting the moon” with T20’s, I would think that the combination of Brown’s flexible curriculum with cross-registration at RISD would be hard to beat.
As for CMU… their Design program is fantastic, but when we toured, we found out that they really aren’t as supportive of the BXA majors as the university’s marketing would lead you to believe. They aren’t excited about dedicating studio space to people who are splitting their time rather than making design their primary major and focus. CS at CMU is devilishly difficult to get into. Definitely visit if you can; of all the schools I visited with two kids, this was the one that ended up being the least like what I expected from what I’d read online.
Good luck with the process; I’m sure you’ll do great - the important thing is to find the right fit so that you can pursue your passions without swimming upstream in a program that doesn’t encourage them.
Good chances at a private than a public. The private schools really appreciate the interdisciplinary skillset and the writing skills and recognition. Broaden your pitch by talking about art rather than keeping it narrowly focused on graphic design. Talk about digital art if that makes sense given your portfolio. Submit a portfolio if you have one. Brown is an interesting choice to consider, especially if you are ok to ED into them. Because they have a joint program with RISD. They would appreciate the mix even if you don’t apply into the joint program. Places like Princeton are not that graphic design friendly. CMU CS is hard core. You may not appreciate it, and the department is fenced off from the rest of the university – so you won’t have as easy an opportunity to dabble in art and CS simultaneously. This dabbling in two separate things is generally difficult at public schools. I suspect Yale may be friendly, but Yale is quite weak for CS.
You definitely stand a shot at T20 schools, but instead of focusing on schools by ranking, focus on finding places that feel like the right fit. Every year there are students who matriculated at the highest ranked schools and then realized that it wasn’t the right place for them. I’d recommend creating a balanced list of schools where you are extremely likely to get in (90+%), likely to get in (60-90%), possible to get in (25-55%), and then less likely to get in (less than 25%). Some people even suggest adding a very unlikely category (like 10% or less chance of admission). The key thing though is making sure that you’d be happy to attend every single school on your list.
As T20 schools (and most schools with acceptance rates less than 20%) have far more qualified applicants than there are spots, I’m going to focus more on schools that are likelier acceptances for you. That is not to say that you don’t stand a shot at the most selective universities; it is just that students usually have an easier time choosing schools that are less likely for admission and have a harder time finding schools that are likelier.
Seconding the suggestion of Rochester Institute of Technology. As mentioned in this article on 20 best graphic design schools, “RIT is a good option for students who are interested in the intersection between tech and design.” And although it sounds as though you might need to dig a little deeper into the ease of doing what you want, Carnegie Mellon gets a lot of recommendations for your fields of interest.
This article on the top 50 graphic design programs also offers more description about each of the programs and their particular benefits.
Yale’s gotten several mentions. UT-Dallas might be another option to consider as it has a strong CS department and is strong in digital arts. NC State is in another area booming with technology and has strength in CS and graphic design. U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is very selective for CS, but also has a good graphic design department. U. of Michigan and U. of Minnesota are two other colleges strong in both CS and graphic design.
Another key factor which hasn’t been mentioned yet is cost. What is the budget?
Hoping you can elaborate on why you’re saying this. S22 starts CMU SCS in the fall and although he’s not planning on BXA, we did not get that impression at all. They seemed quite supportive of BXA students.
That’s not entirely accurate. The Gates building is located in the center of the campus. It was built on a large gully with the intention of connecting the two areas of campus separated by that gully. It’s true that from one side you get there either by walking across a really interesting foot bridge lined with metal sculpture walls to enter on an upper level or by descending a set of steps to enter at the ground level. Yes, there is some fencing in the gully but it’s to keep people from falling. Some pictures here: https://www.arup.com/projects/cmu-gates-and-hillman-centers
To the OP: visit the places that interest you, if you can, and and see what’s right for you. I think most people here want to help, but remember that no one’s opinion is as important as your own.
I didn’t mean this at all :-). I meant figuratively. In terms of people from outside the department being able to take CS classes, or people from CS taking classes in the renowned arts department. CMU is tied down. Very structured. Preferences for kids in the dept etc … Not unstructured like Harvard for example.
Funny, I totally misunderstood you! Agreed that students outside SCS may not have access to some CS courses, but there seems to be some overlap between the SCS students and the ECE students in engineering school. Currently, SCS students are required to minor and (according to my son, anyway) it can be outside the SCS.
My daughter has this particular interest too and game design as well. She loves computers, gaming, and art. We are visiting NC State in 2 weeks. Hope to get more info!
The minor requirement is interesting. My sense (certainly not first hand – but my son has close friends in CS, EE and IS) is that the groups keep to themselves. The CS cohort doesn’t mix much with EE and IS and so on. There is also some informal pecking order in terms of the majors, and peer perceptions (not a fan of this ) on campus. You probably have better first hand information.
It was the design program in particular, that was tepid about BXA students. They only have so much studio space, so every BXA major they take is one less design-only major they have space for. The person we met with was clear that they’d rather have people who will do their full curriculum, not the abridged version that BXA requires. Other majors that don’t deal with the same space constraints may feel differently.
) on campus. You probably have better first hand information.