College Search for STEM Girl'24 (3.78uw/ 35 ACT/ no tuition stress) [international student at US boarding school]

College Search & Selection
1

Can’t believe its the time of my life to start worrying about colleges! To be honest I’m pretty stressed out on the college process with my low uw gpa and no strong ecs in terms of competitions or research experiences, so I was wondering if there were any recommendations or suggestions on cc for me to take.

A bit of a self intro:

  • non US citizen (from a small country in Asia)

  • studies in boarding school in east coast (school has had several HYPSM students for 23 fall but I think its simply because they were all geniuses)

  • doesn’t have tuition stress but it would be great if there were scholarships!!!

  • I don’t really have a field that I am particularly interested in, so I am most likely going to change majors a lot in college. Therefore, I am leaning towards getting into a school that has an overall decent academic reputation in all fields. (that is, in a more quantitative way, a T30 school)

  • grades -

  • act 35 (r:33, s:35, g:35, m:35)

  • uw gpa:3.78, school doesn’t do weighted gpa, got three b+ and four a-

  • taken a few “advanced” classes (our school no longer offers aps so its called advanced studies, and there is a cap for every grade so 3 courses was the best I could do)
    as physics 1: b+, as physics 2: b+, as csa: a-
    am taking as psychology, as chemistry and as calc ab for senior yr

  • took the ap test and got a 4 for ap physics 2, others all 3s so probably not gonna submit them

  • ecs -
    for sports:

  • 3 year school field hockey jv & varsity team member,

  • color guard Asia championship
    for volunteering:

  • 2 year weekly volunteering at child care facility

  • 3 year school stem tutoring

  • volunteering in hometown during the summer
    for leadership experiences:

  • 2 year dorm proctor

  • 1 year business club co-head

  • 2 year chemistry club co-founder and co-head
    for summer experiences:

  • UCLA MechE summer school

  • interned for four summers as an engineering and lab assistant for company that provides industrial cleaning solutions
    other experiences:

  • 4 year MUN member

  • 4 year Robotics and engineering club member
    overall, was very involved in the school community but doesn’t have any competition or fancy research going on, so thats why I’m worried.

  • major selection -
    My original intended major is engineering given the fact that our family are all engineers, and I like the realistic approach of engineers towards solving real world solutions. But I’ve been told by some counselors that the b+ in two physics courses could potentially ruin the game, especially when I’m Asian.
    Another reason of hesitation is that I do understand engineering to be physics and math heavy, and to be honest, getting those b+ in as physics 1&2 really required countless office hours for me. If I am already struggling to understand these college intro courses, I’m doubting myself to get further in the future.

I’d say my weak areas of studying are biology (too much memorization) and physics (very conceptual), but other than that, I’m pretty good with anything.

  • school list -
    for reference, the current school list is as follows (placed in reach, match and safeties by my school counselor)
  • reaches
    UCLA
    UCB
    Rice
    Duke
    JHU
    USC
    WashU
  • Matches
    Georgia Tech
    UMich Ann Harbour
    Brandies
    UCSD
    UCD
    UCI
  • Safeties
    UIUC
    Purdue
    UW Madison
    Santa Clara
    UT Austin
    UC Boulder

I do find this school list to be a bit questionable if I am applying for an engineering program, and I would love to cut it down a bit just for the sake of application fees, so if you know any schools on the list that you would immediately kick off, please let me know!

  • school preference -
    would like the school size to be medium to large, doesn’t mind private or public, no religious schools, not to far away from the city, not too big on greek life.

  • for the engineering abet question -
    I most likely won’t stay in America after my bachelors degree, so I don’t mind if the program is abet accredited or not.

A few questions I have:

  • does the admission rate for engineering vary a lot depending on specific fields? (def not going for cs or ee) I’m leaning towards environmental engineering, environmental science, materials engineering and nuclear engineering, majors that are comparatively niche so probably easier to get in??
  • what other major could I apply to with my courses and ecs that could fit the narrative but could be relatively easier than directly applying for engineering?
  • what else could I do to strengthen my chances?
  • other possible school options?

Thank you all so much for reading towards the end!! I’d really appreciate any comments and hope you have a great day :slight_smile:

1 Like
2

It looks like you are interested in California. Is there a reason?

For the UCs, will you have fulfilled your A-G requirements, including a year of Visual and Performing Arts?

I think you should spend some time looking through the variety of majors offered and see if there is something that fits your interests and skills. As an example, UC Davis has a College of Agriculture and Environmental Science. Would you be interested in something like Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning or Environmental Science and Management ?

3

I don’t think any of the schools you listed are safeties, though UC Boulder and perhaps Santa Clara are matches. Your matches are actually reaches and UIUC, Purdue, and probably UW (Madison) are high matches/low reaches. Your choice of major when you apply will make a difference, as some majors are much more competitive than others.

1 Like
4

International student, or do you have US permanent residency (green card)?

In terms of majors, what general areas (social sciences, humanities, math based subjects that do not depend on physics that much, etc) are most interesting to you?

5

These are all high targets or reaches, especially if you’re applying to engineering.

These are reaches too.

It doesn’t look like you have any true safeties.

I’ll add that engineering is hard. If it’s not something you truly want to do, you may want to explore other fields.

(ETA: I see that @kidzncatz made the same point about targets and safeties. Messages crossed).

3 Likes
6

If you apply ED, then probably so. If you apply RD, then it’s a harder admit (my favorite personal anecdote from D23’s college admissions adventure is the fact that she got a Regent’s Scholarship to UC Berkeley but was waitlisted by Santa Clara, to which she applied RD).

1 Like
7

Since you put “STEM girl” in the title, disliking or finding biology and physics difficult suggests the following possible directions that depend less on those subjects:

  • Math
  • Statistics or data science
  • Computer science or computer engineering
  • Industrial engineering or operations research
  • Economics (math and statistics intensive, like for those preparing for economics PhD study)

Note that most natural sciences like chemistry, environmental science, geology, etc. are are least adjacent to biology and/or physics (e.g. chemistry majors will take organic chemistry and physical chemistry), and most kinds of engineering have significant dependence on physics.

2 Likes
8

Santa Clara is Jesuit, with about 50% Catholic students. Undergrads are required to take 3 religious studies classes. Don’t know if this fits your criteria of “no religious schools”.

2 Likes
9

A 3.78UW GPA is not low. That is a very good GPA. It might be difficult for entrance to some of the “top 30” schools you’re thinking about, but overall, that GPA is definitely not low. There are colleges where you can get an excellent education that will happily accept someone with that GPA.

The guidance counselor at the school will be best able to advise as to your chances at the colleges on your list. They will also be able to give some indication as to what your approximate rank is (top 10%, 20%, 50%, etc) which, for some colleges, is an important factor in their consideration.

Those two things do not correlate. There are many schools that have an overall decent academic reputation in all fields that are not a T30 school. Besides, how are you classifying T30? USNWR? Some other publication? National universities, liberal arts colleges, etc?

I’m surprised by some of the classifications by your school counselor, but as I said earlier in my post, your counselor at a private boarding school is probably best placed to chance you.

With respect to the various UCs, those are schools where you often need to apply by major and it can be difficult to switch between majors. @Gumbymom and/or @ucbalumnus might have more comments about those, but the UCs are definitely a special beast admission-wise. Additionally, since they’re test-blind they won’t see your excellent ACT score, either.

You might end up caring, particularly if a foreign company is doing any contracting for a US company. Additionally, I know that there are international universities that are ABET-accredited. This is not my area of expertise, but I would talk with experts to get their thoughts on the importance of the accreditation for international engineers.

Wanting the flexibility to switch between majors (particularly popular majors like engineering) can often be difficult at the most popular public universities amongst those seeking a Top X experience, including most of the ones on your list. Getting the medium to large size you are seeking combined with the cachet you want and the ability to switch between majors is where the issues are more likely to arise.

But some schools you may want to consider include:

  • Binghamton (NY): About 14k undergrads
  • Boston U. (MA): About 18k undergrads
  • Case Western (OH): About 6k undergrads…make sure to show them lots of demonstrated interest if you’re hoping for an acceptance…they don’t want to be anyone’s “safety”
  • George Washington (D.C.): About 11k undergrads
  • Lehigh (PA ): About 5500 undergrads
  • Marquette (WI): About 7500 undergrads
  • Loyola Marymount (CA): About 7300 undergrads
  • Northeastern U. (MA): About 16k undergrads
  • Southern Methodist (TX): About 7100 undergrads
  • Tufts (MA): About 6800 undergrads
  • Villanova (PA ): About 7k undergrads
  • U. of Miami (FL): About 12k undergrads
  • U. of San Diego (CA): About 5700 undergrads
8 Likes
10

Congratulations on being a competitive applicant and I will only address the UC”s.

First you need to calculate your 3 UC GPA’s: Unweighted, Capped Weighted and Fully Weighted.
Since you are an International applicant and also attending an OOS boarding school, only AP/IB or UC Transferable DE courses will be weighted in the UC GPA calculation based on the a-g core courses taken the summer after 9th through the summer prior to 12th grades.
9th grades are considered for completion of the UC a-g course requirements and 12th grade courses are considered for HS course rigor and completion of the a-g course requirements.
Here is the a-g course requirements and the majority of competitive applicants have exceeded these requirements.

Make sure you have a year of a Visual/Performing arts course also which is a requirement.

UC GPA calculator: GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

Below are some UC admit rates for Mechanical Engineering.

Campus Mechanical Eng
UC Berkeley 7.3%
UC Davis Extrapolated <30%
UC Irvine 15%
UCLA 5.5%
UC Merced 90%
UC Riverside 56%
UC San Diego Extrapolated <20%
UC Santa Barbara Extrapolated <25%
UC Santa Cruz N/A

Your Match UC’s would closer to a High Target/Low Reach due to the competitiveness of UC’s Engineering majors. Also the UC’s tend not be to be too flexible when it comes to many impacted majors such as Engineering so if you have an interest, it is better to apply to an Engineering major. Much easier to switch out of Engineering vs. switching into Engineering.

Since the UC’s are test blind, your ACT will only be used for course placement. UCB is the only UC that may consider LOR’s by invitation only. The UC’s do not require the submission of a HS transcript (self report) until you enroll and do not accept Mid-year Senior transcripts unless specifically requested.

Below are the residency admit rates for the UC’s.
2022 Freshman admit rates

Campus CA RESIDENT OUT OF STATE INTERNATIONAL
Berkeley 14.5% 8.6% 5.5%
Davis 32.3% 59.8% 43%
Irvine 18.2% 36.6% 21%
Los Angeles 9.2% 8.9% 5.8%
Merced 100% 78.6% 81.7%
Riverside 66% 88.1% 68.%
San Diego 23.8% 31.5% 15.5%
Santa Barbara 26.7% 28.8% 19.7%
Santa Cruz 43.2% 70.7% 55.4%

Best of luck.

1 Like
11

Considering you didn’t especially like Physics nor found it especially easy, I would stay away from Engineering.
What about Applied Math, Informatics, or just applying Undecided?
UCs and some oversubscribed universities often make it difficult to switch majors. Among UCs, I’d say UCD and UCSC may be your best bet for STEM (it’s much harder to get into UCs for STEM than for other majors; obvs, apply to UCLA etc, but as a reach).
Even if your boarding school is a known quantity and thus would be evaluated as high rigor/strong grades (+awesome ECs), your safeties are matches, except perhaps CU Boulder. I would look for a couple more universities in that category: UVermont, Pitt, WPI (3 different sizes and vibes!)

1 Like
12

Many other countries have similar accreditation for engineering majors, and there are mutual recognition agreements where ABET and organizations in other countries recognize each others accreditation for such purposes like licensing and employment that may want to see that. See Mutual Recognition Agreements - ABET (particularly the Washington Accord).

3 Likes
13

What does your guidance counselor at your school say about appropriate schools to aim for? At private high schools like yours, the counselors tend to be very well-versed in how a student’s record translates to college placement. Conversely, it’s hard for commenters here to gauge where you stand, because we don’t know the rigor and reputation of your school the way your counselor does.

On the other hand, CC could be a great forum for you to get major/career suggestions, and this really seems like the most important piece of the puzzle right now, to make sure you end up at a school whose programs are a good fit.

The way your post reads to me is that you’ve been operating under the assumption that you should be a “STEM Girl,” because of your whole family being engineers, and the presumed doors that an engineering degree would open in terms of career opportunities.

On the other hand, you say you had to work really hard to get B+'s in non-calculus-based physics, and you haven’t loved either physics or bio. To me, this doesn’t scream “would love engineering.” I don’t doubt that you could take on a few tough classes and prevail, if they were required on the way to a degree whose main content you really liked. But if the “tough and not what you love” aspect were central to the major, that sounds like a recipe for misery.

You mention being in the business club, and also wanting to work outside the US once you have your degree. What this brings to mind, for me, is international trade and the broad and very important field of “supply chain,” whose importance we all saw when there were disruptions during the pandemic. The more STEMmy way to approach this field is to major in Industrial Engineering (sometimes also called Systems Engineering), which gives you a strong engineering foundation combined with business principles. Supply Chain is just one specialty area that an Industrial/Systems Engineer could work in. The more business-y approach is to major in Supply Chain Management or Operations Research within a university’s business school. You could also get great career opportunities this way - there would still be plenty of math involved, but less physics, etc. than the engineering route.

I like sometimes like to use RIT’s website to compare majors and programs, because they have so many different ones and it makes it relatively easy to do an apples-to-apples comparison of curricula (you can click through to “curriculum” via the left sidebar on any major’s main page). Here’s RIT’s Industrial Engineering vs. their Supply Chain Management:

Note that Industrial Engineering is STEM-OPT Visa Eligible, while Supply Chain is not. (Many masters programs in Supply Chain are STEM-OPT eligible, though.) I know RIT isn’t on your list (although it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad school to consider - their “exploratory” majors could be great to help you figure out your path), but it’s nice to be able to compare multiple majors in a consistent format. Of course, these same majors are available at many other schools, including some on your list.

Another RIT major that combines STEM with business, and has fantastic employment prospects, is Packaging Science https://www.rit.edu/study/packaging-science-bs This is a STEM-OPT eligible major that tends to be very project-based and interesting, despite many people’s initial, “What, you want me to major it, like, boxes?” reaction. Employment rates and salaries are sky high. The curriculum requires chemistry, physics, higher math, and materials science, but not a super-intense amount of any one of those subjects. You’ll note that there are elective options that tie into the supply chain field, which makes sense since packaging is an element of that ecosystem. Packaging Science is a major that often isn’t on radar for high school students, and thus it can be a way into schools that you might not be able to get into for engineering, like Cal Poly SLO for example (comparable to the UC schools you are considering, in reputation, but less outrageously expensive for non-CA residents - gorgeous location too), and also San Jose State (just a few miles from Santa Clara U, in Silicon Valley).

In terms of the other majors you mentioned…
I cannot fathom saying, “Physics really isn’t my thing, but I might major in Nuclear Engineering because it’s “niche” and probably easier to get into.” I’m hard pressed to imagine an engineering field more physics-based than Nuclear. It also ties your geographical options to specific locations that might not be where you want to end up. I don’t see Nuclear as a good plan at all, based on what you’ve said.
Materials, otoh, is a good, versatile field… but still a lot of chem and physics.
Environmental Engineering tends to be a sub-field of Civil Engineering, which means studying a lot of structures/mechanics/physics type stuff - quite different from environmental science. For something with great international applications, that’s very environmental-adjacent, you might want to consider something like this https://brae.calpoly.edu/department/brae or this Agricultural Engineering Concentration | Agricultural & Biological Engineering | UIUC or this Agricultural Engineering - Agricultural & Biological Engineering - Purdue University

Then, as others have said, there are the more math-y options like Statistics and Data Analytics. An environmental-adjacent option in that vein would be the GIS-related majors. This is a very interesting example at USC: https://spatial.usc.edu/b-s-in-global-geodesign/

If you delve into some of those ideas and give feedback about what does and doesn’t appeal, we can help generate more ideas from there.

9 Likes
14

I was just about to post this. If you don’t want a school affiliated with any religion, you can cut Santa Clara. It’s also only 5000 undergrads so really not a medium to large size school.

Why is this one on your list?

Re: Abet accreditation…this sets a minimum standard for programs in engineering and you would be wise to choose an ABET accredited program.

One of our kids is a Santa Clara graduate in engineering/biology. She loved the school…and while we are not Catholic, she also really enjoyed the Jesuits. There are over 100 religion courses from which to choose. Our kid took Women in Religion and an ethics course as two…I don’t recall the third, but she really enjoyed them. A welcome break from all the math and science in engineering. There is no required church attendance.

4 Likes
15

I am a staunch atheist and I have attended both Fordham and Georgetown. I am a huge fan of Jesuit education, despite my own lack of faith. I personally never found those things difficult to reconcile.

6 Likes
16

Hi!

I really liked my summer school experience in UCLA, I have a few friends based there and I enjoy the warm and sunny weather a lot!

I do fulfill most of these requirements, other that (E) the secondary language portion. I come from a country that doesn’t have English as the primary language, so my school counselor didn’t require me to take another secondary language during my high school years. (I do know Chinese, Japanese and Korean if that helps)

For sure! I think the policy analysis and planning part sounds really cool! I will delve deeper in this. Thank you so much :slight_smile:

2 Likes
17

I see! Thank you so much! I am considering applying for other majors now too so hopefully that makes the list more reasonable.

18

@Gumbymom Does an international student who went to HS in the US need to submit all A-G requirements? Or do they follow the international requirements?

Based on what UCSD lists for internationals on their website, I think they would need to complete all A-G.

19

Since they state they are studying at an East Coast boarding school, they would need to fulfill the UC a-g course requirements.

4 Likes
20

I don’t have a green card so I think I am in the international pool entirely.

I really enjoyed taking history courses and having debates over subjects, I like economics and chemistry seemed like a breeze for me, so I’d say these three subjects are most interesting/ easy to me. (however, for history, my parents are most likely not going to support me if I choose it as a college major, and for chemistry, I am not very detail oriented and more of a extroverted personality, so I am not sure a lab setting would be suitable for me.)