Type of high school: very prestigious (to the extent that the baseline for students going to Ivies have a 95 GPA and 1520 SAT)
Gender/Race/Ethnicity: Asian male
Other special factors: first generation
Intended Major(s): CS, or Software Engineering
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 91.7
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): school uses an unweighted system
Class Rank: school doesn’t use class rank
ACT/SAT Scores: 1510 SAT
Coursework
AP Environmental Science: 4
AP World History: 4
AP Comp Sci: 5
AP US History: 3, potentially dropping score
AP Physics 1 (test only, school did not even implement their version of the curriculum well): 3, potentially dropping score
Took Mandarin (up to level 3)
Will be taking two post AP courses in the CS direction, as well as Calc AB and maybe Statistics
yes, my AP scores with a 3 are bad, remote learning has taken a mental health toll on me and I wasn’t able to do as well as I liked on them
Awards
No awards
Extracurriculars (Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
Summer job doing graphics design
App development on the side with one app on the App Store and another one in the works
Rowing team (coxswain and rower, won multiple second place awards)
Robotics team (helped to win championship twice, but second time got disrupted by COVID)
App development club (I’m also working on another app with members on monitoring one’s health)
Taking care of family’s business and working as translator sometimes due to parents being bad in English
Volunteering at math competition, food pantry and math museum
Theater club making movie production (only because COVID)
Cost Constraints / Budget
Would like to try and keep it under $60K a year, also balancing out price to reputation for their programs
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)
Safety (certain admission and affordability)
UBuffalo (EA)
Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
Binghamton (EA)
Stony Brook
Match
NYU (ED2?)
UMass Amherst
RIT
RPI (EA)
UMD College Park
Virginia Tech
Stevens Institute of Technology
Rutgers New Brunswick (RD)
Reach
UIUC (EA?)
Northeastern (ED1?)
UVA Main Campus
Extras
I prefer to live in an urban-ish place. Would rather have a campus vibe though. I’m mostly limited to the Northeast region both because I was told that connections tend to pivot around the geographic location of the institution and because my mom wants me to stick in the geographic area just in case something goes messy socially wise. (Please do suggest schools outside my given geographic area just in case though).
Can your family afford around $75-80k for Northeastern or NYU? You have good options in UBuffalo and SBU. UMD ,Vtech,Rutgers and UIUC are peer institutions to SBU for CS, so I am unsure about any advantage there for the Oos premium $$. (Of course, location and feel of school is a separate issue) Regardless, you will need to apply by EA deadline for most of those schools for CS.
SBU may have gotten more competitive for CS. Check their website.
Have you run the Net Price Calculators for all of these schools? (Especially potential ED choices!) If you require need-based aid, then the OOS public U’s may not be affordable. If you don’t qualify for need-based aid, then the private U’s that don’t give merit awards may not be affordable. You have a good list, generally - I just can’t see a pattern in terms of costs, which either means you’re not price-sensitive at all, or you haven’t culled the list based on finances yet.
The culling will happen with how I will be applying. Apply EA/ED to private/in state institutions and wait to see if things pan out to my advantage. If it fails, then I may apply OOS.
You might add WPI and Pitt - Pitt is decent and in the city.
If cost were an issue (like you wanted to spend just a fraction of $60K). and it’s not in your area but it’ll save you lots of money vs. $60K - FSU and U of Arizona could both work for you, have lots of Northeasterners. UTK would be a safety with great merit and is urban as well.
Va Tech is great - but is not urban-ish. Great for nature though. UIUC is in a small city area. To me, if cost is an issue you can eliminate many of the out of state that don’t give merit and are uber competitive - i.e. you have too many - UIUC and Va Tech, for example. NYU is not going to give you money if you don’t have need - so check to see if you’d get aid. They do very little merit. A Syracuse (where youd’ get aid) or a UVM which is in the city and gives merit - might be alternatives.
CS and software roles are very meritocratic based. If you can do well on the coding tests and interview, it doesn’t matter if you graduate from State U vs Ivy league.
Is New York your home state? If so consider state colleges near urban centers. Baruch and some of the other CUNY might be a good option. You’ll get a great education for a bargain price. Plus you’d be close to the tech companies in NYC.
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