Chance me with my existing college list and match me with other colleges with good engineering programs

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • US domestic (US citizen or permanent resident): US Citizen
  • State/Location of residency: California
  • Type of high school (current college for transfers): public high school
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): White Male
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.):

Intended Major(s): most interested in aerospace engineering but also open to most other types of engineering; specifically mechanical, civil, or software

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.93
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.6 (5.0 scale)
  • College GPA (for transfers):
  • Class Rank: not available but most likely within top 5%
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 32 ACT

Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))

Freshman
Geometry H, English 9 H, Bio H, Spanish 2, Intro to Business, Theater 1

Sophomore
Algebra 2 H, English 10 H, Chem H, Spanish 3, AP European History, Photography

Junior (full IB)
Precalc at community college, IB Lang & Lit, IB Chem, IB US History, IB Spanish, IB Music

Senior (full IB)
IB Calc 1, IB Lang & Lit 2, IB Chem 2, IB World History, AP Physics, AP Comp Sci

Awards: various piano competition awards, certificate of merit level 10 (piano)

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
Played piano, soccer, and track/cross country pretty much my whole life (I have since stopped doing soccer and track), volunteer counselor at rec/park district for kids summer camp, am in the process of getting a job in retail/food industry right now

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)
$40k per year total (incl. room & board)

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)
Primarily looking at UC’s because of the cost but open to any other colleges with good engineering programs that fit my budget

  • Safety (certain admission and affordability): Arizona State, CU Boulder, UC Riverside, University of Washington
  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable): Colorado School of Mines, Purdue, UCSB
  • Match: UCSD, UCI, UCD, Cal Poly SLO
  • Reach: UC Berkeley, UCLA
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Can you please calculate your three UC GPAs and share those? GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

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University of Washington, Purdue, and the UCs may be more difficult for admission than you may be assuming. For UCs, you can see below (but you must use the recalculated weighted capped HS GPA, not the weighted GPA given by your high school), but you should assume that engineering admission is more difficult than overall admit rates suggest.

Recalculate your HS GPA with GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub . Use the weighted capped version for the table below.

Fall 2021 admission rates by campus and HS GPA range from Freshman fall admissions summary | University of California :

Campus 4.20+ 3.80-4.19 3.40-3.79 3.00-3.39
Berkeley 30% 11% 2% 1%
Davis 85% 55% 23% 10%
Irvine 60% 31% 14% 1%
Los Angeles 29% 6% 1% 0%
Merced 97% 98% 96% 89%
Riverside 97% 92% 62% 23%
San Diego 75% 35% 5% 1%
Santa Barbara 73% 28% 4% 1%
Santa Cruz 91% 81% 46% 9%

These are for the whole campus. Different divisions or majors may have different levels selectivity (usually, engineering and computer science majors are more selective).

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Your OOS choices seem unlikely to meet the budget apart from ASU. Boulder certainly won’t, others may be in the $40K-$50K range. I’d add Oregon State and Utah as cheap OOS options: you’ll definitely get WUE at the latter and potentially also at the former. Arizona is also likely to be within budget if their merit doesn’t change significantly for 2023.

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@Twoin18 is correct.

You need to reformulate your list based on budget.

ASU is fine - but U of A is even cheaper - and a great program. So add it.

CU Boulder typically gives $6250 a year - or has in the past - so take that off.

UW - not sure where you got safety from. No way - move to reach. Same with Purdue - not likely but unlikely.

Mines is a match, not a likely - and not going to meet $40K. Don’t forget, college costs more than they say - so add another $5K or subtract from your budget.

The kind of schools, with your stats, that you are looking for:

Alabama, MS State, Alabama Huntsville (strong in aero) as it’s in Nasa’s second city. You might try a U of SC, Utah, New Mexico, Ole Miss, Auburn, Nebraska, Wichita State, Mizzou, and Arkansas too. even if they don’t have aero, you can major in mechanical and easily transition.

You could potentially hit some privates if you have need. Have you calculated need? Check out some Net Price Calculators to see. Schools like Vanderbilt, WUSTL, RICE, Case Western, Miami and even some lower level like a Denver as an example.

You’ve got a great record and there are schools that want you at your cost. But your list is top heavy - and / or expensive.

Time to refine.

Good luck.

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For Cal Poly SLO, calculate your SLO GPA using 9-11th grades for the a-g courses with an 8 semester cap for the weighted Honors classes taken 10-11th grades.
Overall 2022 Admit SLO GPA for the College of Engineering was 4.17 – 4.25
For Aerospace Engineering based on target projections it has around a 13% acceptance rate which places it in the Reach category.

UCSB should be in the High Match to Reach Category with an average UC GPA capped weighted for admitted students at 4.36. ME will be highly competitive and the Engineering department is small in comparison to many of the other UC’s.

UCI’s Aerospace acceptance rate for 2021 was 25.2% so more in the Match to High Match Category. UCSD will also be in the High Match category. Both schools admit into the University first and then into the major so select a non-impacted/non-capped major as an alternate when you apply.

UCD is probably close to a Match.

You are a competitive applicant but the UC’s are unpredictable with many qualified applicants getting waitlisted or rejected especially for the Engineering majors.

Best of luck.

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For getting a sense of difficulty of admission to the UCs, the info posted by ucbalumnus is really helpful. You can dig deeper in the link posted (Freshman fall admissions summary) to see graphs of how admission has changed over time for each level of UC weighted capped GPA. The graphs were really eye opening for us to see how much tougher admission has become at the mid tier UCs.

Another good source of UC data is this link, I think. You can look up your high school and see how many were admitted to each UC each year, and compare your GPA to those admitted from your school. We found this to be helpful. Again, the GPA given in this tool is the UC weighted capped GPA.

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Purdue will hit the budget depending on what dorm option is chosen but for engineering, it’s no longer a “likely.”

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Ok, I went ahead and calculated my UC GPAs, and this is what I got:
Unweighted: 3.92
Weighted: 4.71
Weighted & Capped: 4.25

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Just remember the UC capped weighted admit data is not major specific, does not break out data via residency (IS/OOS/International) and is the overall for each campus. Engineering major admit rates will be lower than stated.

Best of luck and I would add another Cal State as a Likely: Cal State Long Beach or San Diego State are good options for Aerospace.

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I can see I definitely needed you guys to help me fix my list. Here is the updated one:

Safe: ASU, Oregon State, Utah State, University of Arizona, Alabama Huntsville, University of Miami*, University of New Mexico

Likely: Cal State Long Beach, San Diego State, Purdue

Match: UCD, UCSD, UCSB, WUSTL?, Vanderbilt, School of Mines

Reach: UCLA, UC Berkeley, University of Washington, Cal Poly SLO, RICE*

*can’t go without some type of scholarship

Thanks for the help! Also if there are still some issues with this list or there are other ideas for colleges please let me know.

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That list works. Not the categories. Purdue is a reach, likely rejection. And it will be tight budget wise and then u have travel and extras.

Vandy. WUSTL. -reach reach. Miami. Slight reach.

Miami meets need. Typically gives $25k. You could get more. It’s ok as a home run school. Worst case it doesn’t get you to budget. You have others that do and that’s all that matters. Vandy/WUSTL/rice meet need to but also have bigger merit scholarships.

Oregon State unless I’m missing something will be over $40k. Slightly.

I worry how you classify but this list will get you into a school and under budget.

But not nearly as many schools as you think.

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Also, yes, I am aware that engineering acceptance rates are often much lower. But I do have one question. Would it be worth it to apply for a type of engineering that has a higher acceptance rate and then immediately swap within the school of engineering to aero/mechanical? Because, for example, at UCLA, materials engineering has a 36% acceptance rate whereas aero has an 11%. I know it’s usually hard to transfer into engineering but is that true for transferring within engineering?

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No. You go for what you intend. Gaming the system typically does not work.

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The top few percent of applicants get WUE which should bring it within budget. Without that it’s too expensive.

And it should be the University of Utah, not Utah State (which are two different colleges in different cities, like Oregon and Oregon State)

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I agree with @tsbna44 that you should apply to your first choice major instead of trying to change majors later on. Being admitted to the College of Engineering does help with the change of major, but most schools cannot definitely guarantee a major change even if you meet the minimum eligibility requirements.

Here are the steps for a change of major at UCLA: https://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/change-of-major/

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Unless the scholarship is automatic for your stats, Miami is not a safety. Move it into the category of how difficult it is to get the scholarship. WUStL and Vanderbilt tend to be reach to begin with, and more of a reach for a scholarship. Same with Rice.

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology is a safety if you have a 2.75 HS GPA and 20 math ACT, since its out-of-state cost is well under your price limit of $40,000 per year.

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My bad - I get confused with our “WUE” in the south - which is only good on schools that don’t have the major in your state. It’s called the Academic Common Market.

If you do Mechanical, then 49 schools show up including both USU and UU. For aerospace, New Mexico State and Cal Poly Pomona.

So not everyone qualifies - bummer.

Thanks for the correction - but it sounds like a reasonable chance but not close to a sure thing.

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Mechanical is a wonderful option- and it preserves your employability if you happen to graduate into a weak job market in aero. Ask any engineer who lived through the mid-90’s when so many aero jobs moved overseas… ME is a much more versatile degree since nobody can predict the job market in 5 years (let alone in 15).

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Mechanical isn’t much easier to get into than aerospace. And yes, mechanical engineering is a solid, practical, open ended degree. There is a lot of excitement in aerospace now a days, however, and you can’t fault students for having stars in their eyes. But just as many other engineering degrees, an aerospace degree doesn’t mean you’ll only end up working in aerospace. A good friend has an undergrad in aerospace engineering and is working in some sort of biomechanics/robotics R&D. Which brings me to materials engineering that OP mentioned. There’s a lot of great work happening in materials engineering for aerospace applications. I recommend the book “The New Science of Strong Materials, or why you don’t fall through the floor” by J. E. Gordon for any aspiring engineers including the OP. It’s a little dated but an excellent read that might kindle OP’s passion for materials. And I think it’s not that difficult to change majors within the Engineering department at UCLA. But I’d look into the different disciplines and apply for the major you are most interested in studying so that your application has the strongest chance of being accepted. Good luck!

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