I’m a sophomore attending HS in California and I recently began my college search, having an interest in Computer Science or an engineering field - mainly electrical, but environmental and mechanical are options as well. I have a good list of reaches (Harvey Mudd, Caltech, Stanford, CMU) and a few matches or low reaches (?) in Purdue, Georgia Tech, Cal Poly SLO, and Rose-Hulman. I’m also planning on applying to a couple UC’s like Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCI, etc. Does anyone know of any good safety schools for my planned major? I’m fine with going out of state, but I have no idea which schools to add to my list as safeties. Are there any other match / reach schools I should add as well?
I have a 3.7 UW gpa and I’m hoping to bring that up at the end of this year, I also scored a 202 (~1390) on the NMSQT index with no prep, so I feel I can improve by junior year. I’ve been a member of the xc / track team for two years and have placed at a couple regional meets. I’m also a prospective secretary and section leader for band (2nd chair) and next year I will probably be a starting member for the mock trial team. Next year I plan to start a FIRST robotics team and organize a county math competition with the AMC or math bowl. Without a proper test score, I know it’s kind of hard to find where I fit in, but any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
I am going to give you a surprising answer. New Mexico Tech. It is a small public tech school with a fantastic success rate at having its graduates earn PhDs in STEM. According to the NSF when you take into account it’s small size, it ranks 14 in the nation in graduates who become PhD recipients and is the highest ranking public school, when you do the calculations per capita, rather than by total number. It is a very small school
As a CA resident it can be very inexpensive. First it is a part of the WUE which allows for a CA resident to pay 150% of instate tuition and it also automatically grants instate tuition with specific GPA/SAT combos. They also offer many other scholarships. So it is an academic and financial safety. But it is also an excellent option.
Below is a link to the data on PhD recipients by BA/BS starting institutions. You will see all the biggies in the top tables, but scroll way down to table 4 where you will see what is really going on. It is an excellent choice for a safety or one to simply consider for its own sake.
Safeties must be affordable. Do you and your parents know the budget, and have you checked net price calculators at various schools’ web sites?
Be aware that CS has become very popular recently, so admission to the CS major may be significantly more selective than overall admission stats for the school it is at may indicate. Also, if you are not quite decided on major, pay attention to how difficult it is to change into any of your desired majors.
UCs are very GPA oriented but much less test score oriented in admissions. http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/freshman-admissions-summary indicates that, with your probable UC-weighted GPA of around 4.0, only the three least selective ones (UCSC, UCR, UCM) appear highly likely to admit you – but you should consider your chances to be lower when applying to CS or an engineering major.
CSUs other than CPSLO admit by major using an eligibility index based on GPA * 800 + SATCR + SATM (GPA is the same as UC-weighted). CPSLO is probably as selective as UCD/UCI/UCSB, though variable by major (again, engineering and CS are probably the most selective). Other CSUs are less selective, but some engineering and CS majors can be surprisingly selective (see SJSU’s past thresholds at http://info.sjsu.edu/static/admission/impaction.html ). Fortunately, lots of less selective CSUs offer ABET-accredited engineering and CS majors.
SJSU and Pomona are definitely good safeties to include.
I not sure I would count SLO as a safety though. I have the statistic and it’s 10% acceptance rate this year for the CS dept at SLO, with a 21% average for college of engineering in general there.