Chance/reverse chance me?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hey everyone! I’m trying to get my college list finalized and I wanted to see some opinions on what I have down and some suggestions for matches/safeties!

Personal:
-Asian female
-Domestic (OH)
-Super low-income (<20k)
-Suburban public school (super competitive)
-Prospective major: chemical engineering
-I’m getting recs from my Lang teacher and my Chem teacher from sophomore year, and they’re both well-known for writing super good rec letters

Academic:
-GPA: 4.0 UW / ~4.55 W (not finalized yet)
-ACT: 36 (36 Reading, 36 Science, 36 English, 34 Math, 11 Writing)
-SAT: None yet
-Subject tests: Chem (790), Math 2 (hasn’t come out yet but I felt at least a 750)
-PSAT: 1480 (most likely National Merit Finalist)
-Rank: School does not rank, but I should be in top 20
-AP:
World History as a freshman (3 rip)
Bio (5), Chem (5), APUSH (4) as a sophomore
Music theory (probably 5), Physics 1 but took Physics C test (probably 4-5), Calc BC (definitely a 5), Gov (probably a 5), Macroeconomics (probably 5), Microeconomics (4-5), Lang (probably 5) as a junior
-Senior year course load:
AP Seminar, AP Physics 2, AP Comp Sci, AP Comp Sci Principles, AP Stats, Calc 3/Diff EQ, Band

Extracurriculars:
-A lot of flute stuff–one youth orchestra since sophomore year, another for my senior year, three different local wind symphonies since middle school, Interlochen (a prestigious summer arts program) in 2017, some other music camps before Interlochen, matinees done through my youth orchestra as volunteer work (basically holding a concert for inner city kids and teaching them about music so that they’ll be pushed towards future musicianship), playing at a local church for religious services, being in band for all of high school (concert band section leader junior and senior year, marching band section leader senior year, squad leader senior year), playing for the school orchestra when there is a flute part, musical pit for Drama Club
-National Honor Society
-Tedx of my high school (marketing director junior year, co-president senior year)
-Future Problem Solving since middle school (placed second in state for individual competition freshman year)
-Mock Trial
-Gay-Straight Alliance
-This summer I’m doing a summer precollege program at Carnegie Mellon based on Artificial Intelligence (it’s the first year the program is being offered so idk much about the prestige, but the cost of attendance is waived for anyone accepted so its probably pretty selective)

Awards:
-Some school awards like being consistently on Honor Roll, Academic Letterman, Band Letterman, teacher-given awards, Exemplary interest in music award (two people per grade)
-AP Scholar with Honor after sophomore year, probably another AP award after this year

Hooks:
-Woman in STEM (this is about it lol)

I’m planning on applying to:
-Princeton
-Uchicago
-MIT
-Caltech
-Stanford
-Yale (REA)
-Vanderbilt (my older brother went there if that helps)
-WashU
-Northwestern
-Ohio State
-UMich
-Carnegie Mellon

Again, I’m super low-income so if there are any more safeties/matches that offer really good merit scholarships or financial aid that would be great!

2

Whew! You are super well qualified and should be a strong candidate for the kind of schools you’re targeting.

UChicago doesn’t have engineering - would you be okay with a chemistry major there? Consider Rice - it has a residential college system like UChicago’s and a very strong engineering school including ChemE. Also think about adding Tufts, and possibly Case Western?

Are you applying to Questbridge?

Normal OOS financial aid at UMichigan isn’t going to cover your costs, but maybe there are specific scholarships that could make it an option for you.

I don’t know what the automatic-admit situation is in Ohio, but it’s hard to imagine that OSU wouldn’t cover your in-state safety bases.

Is a strong music program important to you in college, or are you planning to keep the music more on a recreational level?

3

You would have probably have a full ride to Cincinnati (safety) and Case Western (match) is generous with merit aid as well

4

@aquapt I would probably go into Chemistry if I went to UChicago yeah.
I really wanted to have the option to do music recreationally, but Rice wasn’t really good with that so I took them off my list (they kinda shut non-majors out of their musical groups with the exception of one orchestra so there’s a high chance I wouldn’t get to play at all).
Tufts seemed interesting at first, but I wasn’t really sure because of the lack of flexibility in switching between the engineering school and the arts and sciences school (just in case I change my mind about engineering lol).
I had Case Western on my list for a long time, but their NPC said that I’d pay about $17k and that’s really not feasible (plus I doubt that any merit scholarships would stack to make it more affordable).
I applied to the Questbridge College Prep Scholars program, and unfortunately, I was not selected (likely due to my family owning our house/assets in general–too much “rainy day” money lol), but I am probably still going to apply to the NCM program. Plus I think I can still use the application if not selected as a finalist?
Ironically enough, OOS financial aid makes UMich less expensive than OSU (if not taking into consideration any scholarships), but then there are scholarships for both that would make it less clear which would be cheaper in the end.
OSU is pretty much a school where you get in if you have the numbers, so I’m fairly certain that I’ll get in (everyone from my school with similar stats gets in), but OSU doesn’t really have great financial aid so I’m hoping that I get one of their bigger scholarships (I think I have the best chance for the Land Grant scholarship) to make it more accessible.
Thanks so much for your help!

5

@momofsenior1 I was considering Cincinnati (or at least looking at their website lol) but I didn’t realize that they had good scholarship options?
Case isn’t really affordable for me, and I don’t think that scholarships would stack on top of financial aid to make it more affordable unfortunately

6

Cincinnati has great scholarship options, especially if you will be an NMF. One of my daughter’s friends is there on a full ride plus a book and computer stipend. I think he said his yearly costs, mostly for traveling, would be $500.

7

That’s interesting about UMich vs. OSU! Sounds like you’ve done your homework and are assembling a good list. I wouldn’t rule Tufts out based on flexibility, particularly if you are admitted to engineering initially. It is rarely hard to switch OUT of engineering, and I’m just about certain that’s the case at Tufts. In fact, from what we were told on the tour it even sounds as if switching in can be easier than at many schools. But if you can get into engineering I think it’s clear that your path into A&S majors would be completely unobstructed from there. That’s not to say that you should choose to put Tufts on your list, but I definitely wouldn’t worry about getting stuck in engineering. Their need-based aid is good and their programs are good, so you might want to keep it on the maybe list, at least, for now.

And yes, Case isn’t as generous in its formulas as some, and it isn’t a no-loan school; and a no-loan school should be your goal if at all possible. You are right about stacking.

You’re also right about music opportunities for non-majors at Rice - they’re not zero, but relatively limited.

Carnegie Mellon can be kind of a silo school too. (Their website is all about the cross-disciplinary PR but it often does not play out that way in real life.) They’re also not a no-loan school and don’t even guarantee meeting full need. So while engineering and music are both good there, I think it’s on the iffier end of your list.

Have you considered Hopkins? I think the non-major music opportunities there are similar to Northwestern’s. And they do meet full need.

It’s even easier to blend music with academics at USC, and I think that between their full need met policy and their NMF merit, you would end up in a fully paid, no-loan situation. I’m not 100% sure about that last bit, but I think it seems promising enough that USC deserves consideration.

8

@aquapt

Michigan would almost certainly cover OP’s costs if admitted. They have gotten very competitive with financial aid for OOS under 90k family income.

9

@aquapt Interesting about Tufts! I didn’t visit, but one of my friends was telling me that the person she was talking to made it seem like it wasn’t easy to switch between schools at all. I guess I’ll have to look into it more on my own!

I was honestly debating about CMU for a while but doing more reading on it on CC and other places, it does seem like a lot of their financial aid goes to people who get in ED (not planning on applying early) and if they’re not as interdisciplinary as they seem, I might have to reconsider (especially because it’s one of the most expensive schools on my list.

To be completely honest, I tend to forget about Hopkins, but I’ll probably look into them more!

My older brother got into USC back when he was a senior, but it was too expensive for him to go (but my family’s financial state has become significantly more precarious since then so it probably won’t be so bad for me.) I didn’t think that USC would stack NMF scholarships on top of need-based grants, but perhaps I was wrong?

10

I’m sure USC won’t stack per se, but scholarship money may replace loans rather than replacing grants. So your out-of-pocket will not change, but a package-with-loans could turn into a no-loan package. They’re not obligated to do that - I have seen schools swallow scholarship money without making a dent in the loans (coughNortheasterncough) but replacing the loans is the more principled thing to do, and IMHO if they really want you to attend they’ll do it that way. (But first the out-of-pocket has to work, of course, or the question is moot.)

I haven’t heard any firsthand accounts of the non-major music opportunities at JHU, but it seems to have potential.
http://peabody.jhu.edu/academics/peabody-at-homewood/
https://apply.jhu.edu/peabody-double-degree/

My own daughter was interested in some of the interdisciplinary degree programs at CMU. Our sense after a two-day visit where we spoke with people from multiple departments was that the “interdisciplinary” mandate doesn’t necessarily get as much buy-in from the individual programs as one would hope. We kept getting forced smiles and hints that the students who are fully committed to one program are favored. (But we were looking at neither music nor engineering, so YMMV)

Anecdotally, I also know two people who wanted to attend CMU and asked to have their merit packages re-evaluated in hopes of making that possible, and in both cases CMU, instead of just declining to re-evaluate, came back with a worse offer than the original. The pass-ag is strong with those people, lol! (One of those students is now at CMU for grad school, though)

Anyway, you’ll probably have your own impressions of CMU after spending time there this summer. And the pre-college music programs will likely be going on at the same time, so maybe you can scope that aspect out as well.

There was a lot of discussion on our Tufts tour about the switching schools issue, and our guide swore he’d known people who switched in both directions and it wasn’t a big deal, but that switching out of engineering was particularly easy, as A&S is basically a “default” that you can always fall back on. Do your own research to be sure, but this was stated pretty clearly and consistently for us.

11

You are a competitive applicant. Your stats and ECs are great. Write amazing essays and you could get accepted to any of these schools