Computer Science Chances

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hey everyone! I am a high school junior trying to find the best fitting schools for me, looking to major in Computer Science. So far I have toured WPI, RPI, and UMass Amherst and liked all three, but since I have started veering from engineering towards computer science, I wanted to see which schools I should look at. Other than these, I like Northeastern, RIT, Wentworth, and my biggest reach would be Cornell. I live on the east coast, and would prefer not go somewhere on the other side of the country. Let me know what you think!

Decile- Top 10%, this could be 1% or exactly 10%, I’m not sure.
GPA- 4.45 weighted, 3.8 UW.
SAT- 1440 (700 English 740 Math)
SAT II- Have not taken(plan on taking Math II and physics)
ACT- Have not taken yet
AP’s- 6, not including one independent study because I don’t know if it’s AP or not.

Freshman, Sophomore, Junior Year Courses- Took highest route in math and science with all honors, took engineering classes 2 years, and computer classes 2 years. My GPA is low because I took low level english courses 2 years and low level history courses all 3. (I regret this, they are not challenging for me I just dislike them)

Senior Year courses- AP Calc, AP Physics, AP Computer Science, AP Computer Principles, AP Literature and Composition, independent study on 3D modeling and game engines.

EC’S(Pretty weak)- Varsity Golf 3 years, play almost every day after school.
Baseball 1 year
STEM Club 1 year
Computer Club 2 years
Working at local nursing home
Coaching junior golf team at my local country club
National Honors Society
(Yeah, not much but all my time after school is spent working or at the golf course, not much time for many clubs)

Community Service - Coaching the golf team will get me somewhere near 140 hours, also scorekept basketball games for around 30 hrs and helped with graduation of this year’s senior class which is around 10.

Although I am not a recruited athlete, I strongly believe I could play Division II-III golf and am hoping that would also make an impact. My golf coach will be reaching out to any of these schools I decide to apply to.

I do not plan on needing financial aid. I’m a white male from a suburban town, nothing interesting.

As I said, I would love to hear your input on my top schools or other schools you think will make a good fit!

2

You’ve got a great list so far - all of the schools mentioned are good choices for Engineering and/or CS and vary from reach to safety. You should get into most of these minus Cornell. WPI, RIT, and Wentworth are very solid matches to safeties for you, the others would be matches to low reaches.

I had a similar list / looked at schools based on my criteria, with the exception of focusing on cities, so I also included schools like BU, University of Rochester, etc. Those schools are not as strong in the subjects, but offer good environments that aren’t full tech school vibes like half of the list, if that matters to you at all.

Drexel would be a good safety for their co-op program.

3

Your idea of WPI and RPI are great, I’d choose RPI if the finances allowed.
For CompSci you might want to add StonyBrook and Rutgers.

4

Thanks for the input! Also, because of my PSAT scores, I was invited to many summer programs such as Carnegie Mellon and Harvard, would taking a course in these help my chances at all?

5

All great schools. Has your HS nominated you for the RPI medal? WPI definitely has a different vibe then RIT, RPI and Northeastern. I would also consider Carnegie Mellon and Georgia Tech (if you want to venture a little further from home).

6

@123Mom456 CarnegieMellon offered very little money to me so it would be quite costly. He said he doesn’t need financial aid but still, if he could save 50k per semester I think it’d be better not to bother with Carnegie Mellon, just way too expensive. I agree that RPI, Northestern and Georgia Tech would be good additions.

@golfer1505 If you plan to add Northeastern you will HAVE to make a visit. From experience I can tell you they definitely require demonstrated interest. RPI is the best school choice in my opinion.

7

@GoRedhead Thanks for the input! So to you, Cornell is too much of a reach? I had it on my list because I heard their CS program had a pretty high acceptance rate, and wanted to see others opinions.

8

@golfer1505 Cornell was my ED and I was rejected, but before being rejected I spent a lot of time talking with other applicants with higher qualifications that were all rejected as well. With regard to Computer Science, it is generally the hardest major to get into at any college. There is a current trend that this is the most sought after major in colleges.

Now with regards to Ivy leagues colleges like Cornell, you will find that the SAT and GPA will not matter as much. Sure you will only be considered if you got a 1500 or above with a 4.0 uwgpa, but those extra curriculars are mandatory.

Let’s say you get into Cornell, now what? Full day studying because the rigor is so brutal you’ll rip your hair out. If you’d like, google search all the people that have sought transfers out of Cornell into easier schools because of the unbearable rigor.

Lastly, the following are records from 2017. Keep that in mind, as there are fluctuations depending on the job markets and fluke job demands by different companies.
[Computer Science Early and Mid-Career Payscale](http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/best-schools-by-majors/computer-science)
If you go to the bottom of the page and hit LOAD MORE a few times, you will see where Cornell ranks in comparison with schools like WPI, RPI and NYU. You will see that even schools like Rutgers and CUNY schools are better mid-career in salary than Cornell for Computer Science. The truth is, it’s all in the connections and that fluke employment scouting chance thing I spoke earlier about.

If you get into Cornell, good luck and I hope it works for you but I turned Carnegie Mellon down for this very reason-- because I soon realized the prestigiousness of the school was the wrong thing to look for me in picking a school. The excessive loans I’d have in the end and the stress from the rigor level was my deciding factor.