Computer Science Schools

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I'm trying to put together my list of colleges to apply to, so any advice as to whether I should add, swap out, or remove a certain college is much appreciated.</p>

<p>Here's my current list:
MIT
Stanford
Caltech
UC Berkeley
Harvey Mudd
CMU
UIUC
Cornell
U of Washington
Michigan
Columbia
U of Minnesota--figured I should apply somewhere close to home for my mom's sake</p>

<p>P.S. I don't want to go to school somewhere in the south, so Rice, Georgia Tech, and U of Texas-Austin are all out.</p>

2

<p>Your statistics, please?
GPA, SAT/ACT/SAT SUBJECT TESTS/ ECs / etc</p>

3

<p>You don’t want to go south, but you want to apply to Caltech and Harvey Mudd?</p>

4

<p>Will you need financial aid?</p>

5

<p>I think Los Angeles is only considered “south” to people from Norcal, ucb. ;)</p>

6

<p>@ucbulamnus
I don’t really consider the west coast as south.</p>

<p>@RiversChoice
Yes.</p>

<p>@jwxie
GPA: 3.97 uw (B in theatre freshman year)
: 4.22 w (my school adds .0225 for each semester of an AP class w/ an A)</p>

<p>Rank: 21/432 uw and 9/432 w</p>

<p>SAT: 2200 (740CR, 790M, 670W)</p>

<p>ACT: 36 (36W, 36M, 34R, 36S)</p>

<p>Subject tests: Just took Math 2 and Physics last Saturday, expecting 800s or at the very least high 700s</p>

<p>AP tests:
Sophomore: Chemistry (5), Computer Science A (5)
Junior: waiting on and expecting 5s on all except for English; Physics B, Stats, English Lang and Comp, US History
Senior: I’m taking Psychology, Calculus AB, US Gov’t, Macroeconomics, and Biology</p>

<p>EC: Not very many since most of my free time is spent taking care of my two sisters and two cousins (we have legal guardianship) as my parents spend pretty much all their time working.
QuizBowl: 9, 10, 11, and most likely 12 (captain for 9 and 10, co-captain 11)
South Dakota State Univ. Program Design Competition: 10
LifeLight volunteer: 11, about 30hrs–I helped with all of the computer needs.
Target X Bus Ministry: Every Saturday from 9 to 2/3 we go out and pick up around 100 kids (ages 5-12) from the poor parts of Sioux Falls. We feed them, play games with them, and minister to them. I’ve preached lessons to them as well.
NHS: we don’t vote on positions until senior year.
Boys State
Since my elder, younger sister just turned 12, she’ll be able to start helping out watching the kids more. For senior year then I’m planning on joining my school’s Young Republicans club and rotary club. I’m tutoring math/science students my senior year as well.</p>

<p>Awards:
9: U of South Dakota Math Competition, first place in geometry, second place team (we came behind the upperclassmen team from my school)
10: AMC-10 School and State winner
11: AMC-12 School winner, Drake Physics test finished just out of top 20
Definitely a NMF as I got a 224 on the PSAT and South Dakota’s cutoff is usually around 205.</p>

<p>Other: Being from South Dakota is a hook for most of the upper tier schools.</p>

7

<p>You might want to consider having some Safeties and more Matches in there - a lot of the schools you mention are so difficult to get into that they are Reaches for everyone, no matter how good their grades and scores are.</p>

<p>In other words, schools with 10%-20% acceptance rates are reaches for everyone.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

8

<p>Which is why I posted here. What are some Match/Safety schools that I should add that have decent Computer Science programs? As of right now the only match/safeties I have are Michigan, UW, Minnesota, and UIUC (not sure what I should consider UIUC though since only 8% are out of state but they have a 67% admit rate).</p>

9

<p>Since South Dakota is a fairly small state you should see if they offer any sort of reciprocity agreement with other neighboring states for in-state tuition. I also remember there’s a SD School of Mines, though I can’t say I’m really that familiar with their reputation in CS.</p>

10

<p>You get reciprocity tuition at Minnesota, right? It’s a good school. I think I read that the CS program was ranked 35th in the country. But maybe I am biased.</p>

<p>I don’t think you will get money from UC Berkeley or U Washington, and probably limited from Michigan.</p>

11

<p>Yeah, I get reciprocity in Minnesota and some others (can’t recall the complete list but I think IA, ND, and NE are all in there). If I stay instate, I would probably go to SDSMT or SDSU; however, I would really hate being stuck in South Dakota.</p>

12

<p>Should I even bother applying to a school that will probably give a bad financial aid package?</p>

13

<p>“Should I even bother applying to a school that will probably give a bad financial aid package?”</p>

<p>I think it depends on how high the chance is. Example: Michigan is a tough school to get aid at out-of-state, but it does happen. So I would apply there and hope.</p>

<p>But I don’t think U Washington gives out-of-state students money. Maybe some departments give scholarships, but I don’t know of anyone from outside Washington who got a cent there. I could be wrong though, so you should ask on that part of the forum.</p>

14

<p>Caltech is probably the hardest to get into… not saying you are not smart enough. It’s just too selective.
Most of them are private colleges. I’d apply to your home state colleges too.</p>

<p>What state are you from? Minnesota?</p>

15

<p>Okay, I’ll add SDSU and SDSMT to my list then as last resorts.</p>

<p>I’m from South Dakota…</p>

16

<p>I might add that UIUC is notorious for not giving out non-loan financial aid even if you show need.</p>

17

<p>I don’t know how state schools are at handing out aid, but with lots of privates if you get into one of their peer schools (or one with a lot of cross-admits), and you get a better financial aid offer, you can usually use that to increase your aid at the school that gave a lower offer. For example, Rensselaer gave me significantly more money than CMU, and when I told CMU about it they were willing to match with grants. There’s no way I would have been able to go there otherwise.</p>

18

<p>Perhaps Reed college? They have a dual enrollment program for CS with Washington U and a double engineering program with CalTech, Columbia and RPI</p>

19

<p>As has been said, top CS schools are reaches for everyone. So go for it like we all do, but add into the mix schools that you really like for whatever reason, and good tech schools that you’ll likely get admittance and FA if you need it. I had all the right numbers in my app package, went for the top and got waitlisted for CM and MIT. But accepted with great FA at Penn and Cornell. I really like Penn, so that’s where I am with no regrets. This isn’t an easy major no matter where you go, and a top school in any respect will keep you busy.</p>