AP Comp Sci A, AP Physics, AP Literature, and AP Italian (haven’t taken ap tests yet)
Very rigorous schedule: took 3 honor classes freshman year, 6 sophomore year, 2 plus 3 AP’s junior year, and this year I have 4 AP’s. (didn’t take AP Calc but I’m in Calculus)
Essay: my strongest point
Letters of Rec: from 3 teachers who love me to death
EC: Club Softball all four years (many hours a week), Varsity Softball all four years, “Girls’ Show” which is like a dance/drill team/theatre performance at our school for 4 years, Job for two summers/fall (35 hour weeks), Volunteer Softball Coach for younger girls for 4 years , Church volunteer for 3 years, Peer Mentor for groups of freshman 2 years (I was a selected applicant), writing and math lab tutor 2 years(selected applicant), Italian Club/ President for 4 years, Class of 2021 Committee for 2 years,
Honors: National Honor Society 2 years, World Language Honor Society 2 years, PV Honor Society 3 years, PV Student of the Month Also I’m a girl who is latina/hispanic (Peruvian to be specific)
APPLYING COMPUTER SCIENCE/DATA SCIENCE/IS
My list:
Georgia Tech
Colgate University
University of Miami
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
University of Washington Seattle
Stevens Institute of Technology
Purdue University
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Penn State University
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
University of Pittsburgh
University of Maryland
Virginia Tech
Clemson University
Syracuse University
University of Delaware
Rutgers University
NJIT
The University of Washington or University of Wisconsin? If thats the case for Uwashington, should I apply as an Electrical Engineering major , Informatics, or Human Centered Design and Engineering? Or keep CS as my first choice and make one of these my second? I want to be a data scientist in the future so I don’t know which would be best other than CS.
It is on the higher side compared to families overall, but on the low side for affording out-of-state public flagship universities without financial aid or scholarships which are harder to get as an out-of-state student. Try the net price calculator on each school’s web site to see if it is likely to be affordable.
University of Washington. I don’t think you can choose CS as first choice and then other engineering as second choice. Anyway, I can’t give you application advise. Just want to point out that UW CS is not very OOS friendly.
OP, are your parents in the early stage of the college price grief model, like denial or anger? I’m not sticking my nose into anybody’s finances but 12k a year out of 130k seems like a vacation budget, not a kid’s college budget.
Perhaps a cold, clinical review of facts with them would take them to “acceptance”?
Have you sat down and run the NPCs with your family for all of the schools above? Have they discussed how much they can afford per year? Did they fill out FAFSA? I think many of these schools are going to be $45,000-55,000+/year) plus travel. If you’re looking for a lower cost safety, take a look at York College in PA. Here is the CS link; you could qualify for some of their unique learning programs like Graham Innovation or STEM scholars; I think you’d qualify for merit and grants to bring the costs down closer to $20-23k/year, but you’ll need your family’s help to fill in the NPC. Good luck! https://ycp.edu/academics/kinsley-school-of-engineering-sciences-and-technology/programs/computer-science/
Agree with the need to square your finances. DD attends a school on your list, our income is less than what you say your parents earn and we pay way more than the $12,000 you say they are willing to pay and that is for a school that meets 100% of demonstrated need. “Demonstrated need” is calculated by the school based on the CSS Profile and it is NOT what your parents say they can or want to pay. Also, as a student, you are capped at $5500/$6500/$7500/$7500 for federal student loans.
You should run the NPCs and see what they say. Then you will need to show the results to your parents.
I think that you are not likely to find most of the out of state public universities affordable.
You have great public universities in-state. I would be a bit surprised if you can get the price down to $12,000 per year, but at least it is likely to be quite a bit better than the out of state public schools.
My best guess is that you might want to cut the list based on affordability, and your parents are going to need to take a close look at what university costs.
Look into Centre College. It’s an overlooked LAC (top 50) in Kentucky that offers both computer and data science.
Four years ago, my daughter was offered a financial aid package with a net cost to us of 19K$. We are in the same income range as your family. She decided to go elsewhere, but we visited a couple of times and were very impressed with the school. The people there are very helpful and friendly.
There are some state flagships that give large merit scholarships (e.g. AZ, NM, MS, AL), but they need high SAT or ACT scores as well as high GPA.
With $12k from your parents, plus $5.5k that you can borrow, that means you would need to target a net price of $17.5k or less. Run the net price calculator on each college’s web site to see if need-based financial aid may get you there; if not, you need to aim for merit scholarships, which typically means aiming for colleges that would be low match, likely, or safety for admission for you, since the large merit scholarships are typically offered to students at the high end of the college’s student academic credentials range.
Rowan. You’re in state, they have a good CS program and you have a shot at merit. Nice campus with great housing and honors college. Your cost could be closer to $15k if you get their $10k max merit.