Hello! I was looking for some advice on my final college list and some potential add ons. My instate is NJ and the farthest I’ll go is 4 hours each way from Philly / accessible by train is a plus.
Some stats:
1530 SAT
98.6/100 UW
2/400 rank
18 college credits and all honors (no ap at school)
white female
looking to study computer science but want the option to transfer into an engineering major
solid essay and recommendations
ECs include : captain of varsity tennis, varsity cheer, co-president of student council, full time and part time jobs, internship with IT department, head of web design for climate non profit
My current list:
Safety:
Rowan
Rutgers
Match:
Boston U
Northeastern
Lehigh
UMD
Reach:
Columbia
UPenn
My parents are willing to pay up to 25k a year, but I’m sure our EFC will be around 35-40k
is this a good list? should I add a financial safety? any other suggestions? thanks!
Can you clarify the finances- If your EFC is 40 and your parents can pay up to 25K, who is paying the gap between the sticker price and your available funds? This doesn’t look like an affordable list except for Rowan and Rutgers (where I assume you’ve done the math…)
my parents have a savings fund of around 100k dedicated solely to college. If they don’t use their other income and assets to pay any remainder then the rest would most likely fall to my own employment or loans. 35k is probably more likely the EFC
Rutgers is not generous with merit, my daughter’s stats were lower (8th in class, 34 ACT), didn’t get a dime. Good chance for a lot of merit at UDel (my daughters friend was 2nd and got at least full tuition).
So your budget- 25K per year from the college savings, plus another 6-8K from you (work plus loans). Which of these schools is coming in at that figure?
I have to run some more npcs, but almost all of the reaches and targets are - they also have promises to meet all domestic student need afaik. save for UMD and potentially Lehigh.
The question now becomes, how happy are you with your in-state financial safeties of Rowan and Rutgers?
Columbia and Penn are extremely difficult reaches for almost 100% of applicants. Apply certainly, but realize the most likely outcome is to not be admitted. BU and NEU are nearly as difficult for nearly all applicants. Also, their idea of your financial need might be different than your idea of your financial need by $10K-20K/yr, possibly making them unaffordable. It’s almost certain that UMD will be unaffordable.
Are you parents married or divorced? Do they have W2 jobs and nothing else, or do they own a business? Do they own extra real estate beyond the house you live in? These things and more can lead to different results from NPCs. Often, families enter partial information into the NPC and generate an amount that is within budget, but when the universities review the FAFSA/CSS Profile a different, higher COA is produced.
If you’re completely satisfied with your financial in-state public safeties, great! If not, I think you need to identify at least a couple of other schools that are more likely to admit and be affordable - just to be safe and leave yourself with options in the spring.
I would be fine with Rutgers and Rowan is sort of a “break glass for emergency” type thing.
My parents are married and only have W2 jobs. Our EFC is 25k per year and most of the colleges mentioned promise to meet that fully with loans and workstudy included. UMD is more a chase for the Banneker Key scholarship.
Do you have any suggestions for those affordable safeties/admits?
Add on TCNJ to your safeties, then you end up with three affordable instate options that you can pick from that will be the best fit for you. It’s also a great school for Engineering
Dig a little into your match list maybe Fairfield, or RPI. On top of the school, look through the specific programs to see what appeals to you.
If you are aiming for Columbia and Penn, then perhaps add Princeton ? P’s engineering and CS might not be as highly regarded as those at Columbia and Penn, but they are not shabby and you, a competitive candidate at P, might have a slight in-state advantage there as well.
The largest freshman cohort at P is (usually) from NJ, with MA and CA close behind. P does not admit by major. Declaring a major and transferring among majors at P are straightforward. Additional questions are asked on the application for P, if you state that you are interested in engineering and want to be in the School of Engineering; however, switching into engineering is quite barrier-free. P might give more financial aid than Columbia or Penn. Good luck with your shot at the Banneker-Key !!
I think the just-mentioned Fairfield and RPI are great options, as long as you like them once you look at their on-line information.
Most students/families automatically initially default to the top half of the USNWR Top 100 list and know practically nothing of other school, except their in-state options. There are a multitude of great schools that will educate you and be a great place to spend the next 4 years of your life. Your job is to identify the ones that appeal to you and might be affordable.
From your list, it looks like you either want to remain in NYstate or go as far out as Boston. Using Boston as a radius and slightly shortening it includes CT, PA, MD, VA, and maybe OH and NC. Fairfield and RPI fall within that radius.
You could also run the NPC for schools like CWRU, UCincinnatti, URichmond, GWU, Drexel, Providence, U Scranton, U Dayton, U Delaware, and Pitt. Some might come back outside your budget. Some, you may instead prefer Rowan and Rutgers. The goal is to identify schools more likely to admit than most of your current list and also likely to be affordable.
You might decide your initial list is enough - if so cool. But since you referred to Rowan and Rutgers as “emergency” options, it might be worth your while to investigate some of the other options mentioned in this thread to see if they might appeal to you.
If Lehigh is looking like a good option, have you considered Lafayette as well? It’s a little smaller but in the same geographic area and has similar strong engineering programs to keep that option open. And it’s a full-need-met school as well.
Since you like BU and NEU, Tufts could be a great addition to your list - generous aid, good flexibility to move in and out of engineering, reachier than BU/NEU but less reachy than Columbia/UPenn. Penn is very ED-focused but it’s not clear that it’s enough of a first choice for you to make that commitment.
Have you ruled out NJIT?
URochester is a little farther than you want but could be a really nice option in other ways, so might be worth a look.
Can your parents spend $25K from current income + the $25K they have saved? If so, that’s $50K and Rutgers is in play. If not you need to leave the Northeast short of a meets need school - sorry. If you have $50K, you open up - to UD, UMD, maybe Pitt. You need to go to schools that give merit if you are applying to OOS publics. They are not going to meet your need short of UVA, UNC and I think U Mich.
With your stats, you’ll go near tuition free at Alabama. South Carolina is another good one. U Miami meets need. You said Northeast and I get it - but if you want to be in a 20K total, short of those meets needs you need to go South.
Within range of Philly and meeting need you have Bryn Mawr (no Eng), Colgate (no engienering), Cornell, F&M (no engineering), Gtown (no enginereing), Lafayette, Rochester, Swat, Trinity, Vassar (no eng), Wesleyan (no eng). Of course the colleges without engineering have 3/2s so you can get elsewhere, etc.