College List

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I have a list of colleges that I want to apply to: UC Berkely, Georgia Tech, UMich, Johns Hopkins ED, Harvey Mudd, Northwestern, Penn State (safety), Uconn (safety), University of Texas, UCLA, USD. </p>

<p>I want to go to major in engineering (deciding between mech, materials, and biomedical). So, UCB is my top choice school. That being said, I won't mind going to JHU if accepted. Penn State is there since I know it has a decent engineering program. I am also interested in its six year premed program(far from engineering but I am okay with that). </p>

<p>So, do I have a good list of colleges to apply to? Are their any colleges I should consider for engineering? I want to go to a school that is well rounded, so not too specialized in engineering like Franklin Olin College. Also, my parents think I should apply to more prestigious colleges. What do you guys think based on my stats? </p>

<p>Stats
• GPA: 4.13 (school does not report unweighted)
• SAT: 2120 (750 math, 720 reading, 650 writing)
SAT Math II: 770 (retake?); SAT Physics: 720 (retake?) </p>

<p>Courses taken
• Sophomore: AP physics B, Honors Pre-calc, Honors English II, Honors Chem, World Issues, Symphony Orchestra,
• Junior: AP Chem, AP Calc AB, AP Stat, Honors English III, US History, Latin, Symphony Orchestra<br>
• Senior (will take): AP Cal BC, AP Bio, AP Econ, AP Music Theory, AP Comp Sci, AP Lit, Symphony Orchestra<br>
• My school doesn’t offer AP physics C. I might try to learn it senior year if I have the time. </p>

<p>EC’s
• Violin-4th best violinist in school; made regional every year
• Played lacrosse till junior year
• Running on my own time; was on XC team as a freshman only; top ten runner in regional meet
• Captain of school’s engineering team; won 1st in division
• Captain of school’s Yale Physics Team; participated in annual Yale High School Physics Competition
• Member of the Varsity Math team
• Volunteered at Yale New Haven Hospital for past summers, 150+ hours
• Interned for a political campaign
• Member of interact club </p>

<p>Awards
• MIT book award
• School winner in American Mathematics Competition (AMC)
• National Honor Society </p>

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<p>Oh I apologize in advance if I break any CC’s rules. Thank you. </p>

3

<p>what’s your state of residency? how many APs will you have? how many As in APs do you now have? is your 4.13 out of 5.0? </p>

<p>finally, have you run the net price calculators at each school? have you gotten a number from your parents that indicates how much they will contribute each year? without this money info we’re just studying our navels.</p>

4

<p>I live in CT and I am a rising senior. I haven taken 4 APs. I will take 6 AP’s senior year. I have all A’s in the AP’s I have taken. My GPA is 4.13 out of 4.0 (school doesn’t report unweighted gpa). Money is not an issue at all. </p>

5

<p>Don’t take the 6 APs. Eight total is plenty. Any more will not help your chances, and you want to have SOME fun senior year. Come April, after you’ve already submitted all those apps and essays and have heard back your schools, do you really want to still be busting your butt with 6 APs? </p>

<p>Your strength at the elite schools is that you’re full pay. Full pay changes things. Elite schools will take the money of the full pays (about 55% of the students at Yale) so they can give it to the less-capable of paying. The 4.13 and the abundant APs will help. The CR+M will help. But there will be lots of applicants ahead of you with all this and more. Some of their “more” will be ECs like you and I can only laugh at. Don’t get me wrong. You worked very hard and did very well. </p>

<p>But even with your full pay hook, the 4.13 and the 1470 are going to make Hopkins, Mudd, and Texas tough. The Cali schools, PSU, Northwestern, and UMich probably will be glad to take your money. Georgia Tech might take a flyer on you; I don’t know the behavior of the school when it encounters this hook.</p>

<p>So in traditional format (for a non-traditional student):</p>

<p>Reach: Hopkins, Mudd, Texas (look at their admissions rates for OOS students, and they’re sitting on billions in oil reserves)</p>

<p>Match: Georgia Tech, UCB, UMich, Northwestern, UCLA</p>

<p>Safety: PSU, UConn, USD, UCSD</p>

<p>I’ve never heard a student say they wouldn’t mind going to JHU! </p>

6

<p>UCB admissions selectivity varies by division, and major within its College of Engineering. Bioengineering, EECS, and engineering undeclared are reputedly the highest selectivity majors to apply to, probably in the reach-for-everyone category. UCLA probably also has variations in selectivity by division and/or major.</p>

<p>Northwestern is also a highly selective reachy school. Most of Texas’ admission spots are taken by top 7% rank students from Texas, making it a reach for everyone else. Note that Texas uses class rank, not GPA, in frosh admissions.</p>

<p>UCSD, due to its holistic admissions reading process, should not be considered a safety, although it may be low match for some applicants. UCs generally put a high emphasis on GPA – but recalculated by UC’s method (unweighted, weighted with up to 8 semesters’ of honors/AP courses, and weighted without that cap). Since your high school’s weighting method may differ, your high school’s weighted GPA does not help anyone assess how realistic your chances are (4.13 weighted GPA may be based on a 4.0 unweighted GPA, or a 3.4 unweighted GPA).</p>

<p>The UCs, while they may be glad to take OOS money, are said to look favorably on applicants who write convincing essays about overcoming adversity or hardship. While officially need-blind in admissions, that admissions criterion can correlate to what appears to be need-awareness, but in the opposite of the usual direction. (Of course, the needy OOS students can’t afford them, except in unusual circumstances like rare large merit scholarships.)</p>

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<p>Thank you so much! So it seems my list looks good then? Should I retake SAT I? I know my writing score sucks but I heard many colleges don’t even look at that section. Finally, if I want to major in engineering, should I retake Math II for an 800 and SAT physics for 750+? </p>

8

<p>Do you have scores on the AP exams?</p>

<p>You can do some research online and calculate your UC GPA.</p>

<p>I think your MathII score is good enough. You might consider taking the Chem SATII, and doing some prep with a book that shows what the test covers. They don’t always match up with honors or AP courses.</p>

<p>I’m not convinced that PSU is a safety for you as an OOS student, nor am I convinced that U Mich or Northwestern are matches. In the case of U Mich, at least, applying as early as possible is probably a good idea.</p>

9

<p>You might not get that much FA from Michigan and UCB as an OOS student and their costs might add up to equal or more than a private. Might I suggest Lehigh or Lafayette if you are interested in engineering but in the small environment in terms of class sizes?</p>

<p>You may qualify for the Marquis Scholarship at Lafayette (you will have to work hard though) which could amount to 20,000 - 25,000 a year, which imo is a pretty good deal. Good luck!</p>

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<p>shawnspencer, unfortunately my parents do not want me to go to small liberal arts schools. I had to convince them to let me put Harvey Mudd on the list. Anyway, my weighted UC gpa is a 4.23 while my unweighted UC gpa is just a 3.9. </p>

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<p>Not at need-blind schools it doesn’t, which many on the OP’s list are (especially the elite schools). Now if the OP were international, then it would make a difference at a lot of the schools on his/her list. OOP, are you male or female? Don’t think you said.</p>

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<p>Oh yeah I am a male. </p>

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<p>You can usually pick two of three characteristics: strong engineering, small size, and well rounded (i.e. not extremely engineering-heavy). Harvey Mudd is a somewhat unusual case in that it is part of a tightly knit consortium of schools with many other subjects, which gives it the well rounded characteristic.</p>

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<p>OP, you’re getting good advice here. @ucbalumnus and @Consolation’s questioning of my categories is helpful and should be considered. Not that they’re correct, but these are fine distinctions we’re making; each of us has our own reasons for making them. Of course, we could argue about how fine they are, too: @Consolation is just wrong about PSU’s lofty OOS admissions standards :smiley: I have, however, reason to pay close attention to anything @ucbalumnus says about CA schools.</p>

<p>@shawnspencer is correct that Lafayette has a Marquis Scholarship that this year was worth $24K (generally offered to the top 15% of applicants), but they also had a new Marquis Fellowship this year that provided $40K in merit and there were 20 of them. </p>

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<p>Thanks for replying guys!
@ucbalumnus, so given my UC gpa and my SAT scores, would UC Berkeley be a reach for me? I want to major in MechE. Would that give me any advantage over other applicants for having a declared major? Or would it be better to apply as an undeclared major? Also, I would rather choose a school that is strong in engineering and well rounded. Class size is nice, but it is definitely not a priority. I know that I am not going to see small classes in the UC schools. </p>

<p>@Consolation, yea I don’t really like chem so I will probably not take the SAT Chem test. </p>

<p>@jkeil911 and @shawnspencer, the Marquis Scholarship is nice but again, my parents are probably not going to let me apply there. Name recognition is really important to them. Anyway, it is my first time hearing about Lafayette. Is it a well rounded school or is it specialized in engineering? </p>

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<p>At Berkeley CoE, students in declared majors do have to apply to change majors, while those who enter as engineering undeclared can choose any CoE major within their first year. However, engineering undeclared is probably more selective than any declared CoE major (probably a reach for everyone). There is not enough public information to make a guess on the other CoE majors’ selectivities, though EECS and bioengineering are probably in the reach for everyone category, with the others probably somewhat less selective.</p>

<p>Here is a summary of the most recent Berkeley frosh admission results posted on these forums:
<a href=“Berkeley Frosh Class of 2018 decision summary - #10 by ucbalumnus - University of California - Berkeley - College Confidential Forums”>Berkeley Frosh Class of 2018 decision summary - #10 by ucbalumnus - University of California - Berkeley - College Confidential Forums;