Hello All,
I am currently enrolled in a Computer Science program with the Burlington County College in New Jersey. I am (like many CC students) planning on transferring out to a 4-year school after I get my Associates degree. I am very early into my Associates but currently hold a 3.9 GPA. This post/question is based on the premises that I maintain a 3.9-4.0 GPA throughout my entire Associates degree.
I have been trying to nail down my goals for 4-year colleges, and am at a bit of a loss. I think I should break my choices into three categories: Fall-back schools, Realistic schools, and Reach schools. I’m going to try and split each category into it’s own section. Here it goes:
Fall-backs: I will probably only apply to NJIT as a fall-back. It’s a decent school with a decent program that I am fairly certain I could get into.
Realistic: This is the group that I will probably end up in. My choice for this category is Rutgers in New Brunswick.
Reach: So here’s where it gets tricky. I have some extra requirements for my reach schools, and am not sure I will be able to find anything that meets my criteria. Here’s my requirements:
- Must be a school quite significantly better then Rutgers, as if the program is of comparable value then it would not be worth it for me given that it would be farther from home and (most likely) more expensive.
- Must be a school that I have a somewhat reasonable chance to get into. Will this exclude schools like Stanford, MIT, CMU, UCBerkley, ect?... What is your opinion on this? Should I try and apply for these schools anyway, or are my chances so astronomically low that it is not worth the application fee?
- Must be a school that is not outlandishly more expensive then Rutgers. I am willing to accept a bigger price-tag for a better experience, but only maybe an additional 30,000$ total (over 2 years). I would break this rule for some of the top 5's mentioned above. Rutgers is about 25,000$ a year for In-State Tuition. This would rule out any schools with tuition much higher then 40,000$ a year; however, I also do have to keep in mind how much need based aid a school has to offer. Summary: I don't want to wind up paying more then 80,000$ out of pocket when all things are said and done. And the school better be outstanding for that kind of money! :)
So, given my requirements for a “Reach” school, what do you think my best options are? I would be more then happy to attend Rutgers, but I can’t help feeling like I am settling on the easy choice. I am a firm believer in shooting for the stars and, if need be, settling for the moon. Although it’s a great school, I don’t feel like just applying for Rutgers would exactly qualify as “shooting for the stars.”
Can you please help me?
