93 UW (my school doesn’t weigh AP or honors classes), I know this is sort of low but for context most of the kids in my school who get into Ivys + such have a 95 or higher so my GPA’s not that low
1520 SAT (trying to pull that up this summer for some of the more competitive schools)
Will prob be president or VP of Girls in Tech club @ my school next year as a senior and planning on lots of cool things (hackathon, CS conference, outreach program to middle schoolers, etc.), some smaller positions in Model UN and Amnesty International, other ECs include honor society, costumes crew for yearly theater production, web development dept, CS outreach conference planning committee)
Math II 800, USH 750
Taking a challenging senior year schedule + have taken lots of AP courses so far (mostly humanities though)
I go to a well-known competitive public HS (feeder for Ivies, UChicago, etc.)
Looking for:
Prospective CS major
medium to large size school
good financial aid (NYS resident but income is just above the cutoff for the Excelsior scholarship :(, parents willing to pay up to 20k max per year)
I really love English so my ultimate major would be a joint major in CS + English, but a strong humanities dept is a must in general!
Not sure about practical vs theoretical CS, but planning on going into tech industry after college
OOS would be great (I live in NY right now)
Study abroad option (not sure how feasible this is esp if I do a joint major in CS + English, but will do anything I can to make this happen)
Leaning towards doing a BA in CS rather than a BSE, but not that big of a factor tbh
Not interested in any schools that are super conservative lol
Schools on my list right now:
Reach: Stanford (#1 choice right now), Princeton, Brown, Tufts
Target: UMich, Cornell (my school has a really good track record w/ Cornell which is why it’s listed as a target), Northeastern, U of Rochester, NYU
Safety: Stony Brook, Macaulay Honors (or Hunter if I don’t get into the honors program), Binghamton
Considering: USC, WUSTL, Rice, Northwestern, Case Western (?)
Not interested in MIT, RPI, RIT, etc. (basically no schools with a super STEM focused culture and that are not big on humanities)
Would love to know what schools offer a joint major in CS + English (so far all I know of is Northeastern + Stanford)
Also sorry for such a long post but I thought it was better to go overboard rather than be vague lol
Have you run net price calculators on each school to see if they are affordable given the parental contribution of $20,000?
For example, assuming parental income of $101,000 with you as the only college student in a household of three, NYU’s net price calculator at http://www.nyu.edu/financial.aid/misc/npc/ suggests a net price of $52,084 (after subtracting $19,430 of grants from a list price of $71,514). Since it is not realistic for you to borrow and work for $32,084 per year, NYU must be considered a reach for its large merit scholarships, since admission without a large enough scholarship is equivalent to a rejection for you.
@ucbalumnus I ran the NPC on all the schools on my list so far, and most of them look to be ok financially. NYU, UMich, and U of Rochester are the exceptions, but I can live at home instead of dorming to offset the cost of NYU & I already figured that UMich wasn’t going to give me a ton of aid, but I figured I might as well apply and see if I can get any aid anyway.
I kind of am in a similar situation- I’m a cs buff that also has a strong interest in philosophy and am looking for a liberal arts experience as well. That being said, you do not always have to go to a liberal arts college to get the ranged education experience. In your case, I recommend colleges such as WUSTL, U of Washington, and Clarke University. They have programs that are known for producing students with not only hard skills, but also, great soft skills as well.
Now, money can be a big factor in deciding where to go to college. I am also in a similar situation as I am looking at college and I am examining the worth of a degree. I highly recommend not overextending yourself and taking out massive loans, so that way you do not start out with a mountain of debt before you even really begin. That’s why I recommend going to more of hybrid between a safety school and a target school in order to find a good, affordable education.
Northeastern and Cornell would be a great fit for you as well I believe. Either way, your future is looking bright so don’t stress out too much. You’ll do fine.
@padfootprongs First of all, love the name. Almost makes me want to change mine to MoonyWormtail.
The joint major CS/English is pretty unusual, so you can’t really build a list around that criteria.
So, can I assume that you also considering doing the more traditional double major? If so, a few things to keep in mind.
I am 99% sure you can't double major at Princeton, mainly because doing two senior theses will most likely kill you. It's not on your list, but you can't double at Columbia either - its core requirements make it pretty much impossible.
Stanford and Northwestern both use quarter systems which allows you to take more classes - this may help you to double major and also study abroad. The opposite is true for schools with semester systems. A lot depends on how many credits the majors require, distribution requirements and the number of credits you bring in.
3 Brown has an open curriculum (Rochester has an almost-open curriculum) which may make it easier for you to double and study abroad. Although Brown is getting rid of many of its Brown-only programs and almost everything is done through CASA (Consortium for Advanced Studies Abroad). I’m not sure if this is good or bad, but something worth looking into.
Some universities house their CS major in a separate college from their humanities majors (e.g. Wash U, Carnegie Mellon). In most cases, it will not stop you from getting a double major, but it can cause issues with course registration and access to certain facilities.
Also a few final comments -
Other schools to consider - any reason why Berkeley, Duke, Johns Hopkins and UCLA aren't on your list for reaches? Medium/large schools, great CS, strong humanities. Some of the other UCs (UCSD, Davis) come to mind as well. Also agree with @descartsphilospher on University of Washington.
You mentioned medium to large size schools, but Rice is pretty small (~3400 undergrads). Great school though.
With top test scores, Case Western gives out quite a bit merit aid - you don't have a separate application for it which is nice.
If study abroad doesn't work out during the school year, there are plenty opportunities over the summer.
IMHO, you may want to think a little more about "fit". For example, USC is very different from Brown. Rice is very different from NYU. It will help your application if you do so.
Along the same line about fit, think very carefuly about your safeties - will you really be happy at Stony Brook, Binghamton or CUNY? Maybe you will be, but most students I know spent too much time looking at/for dream schools and not enough time finding safeties they would be happy to attend. Besides being NY public universities, all three are have significant differences. You may be spending 4 years at one of the colleges, so take the time to make sure you will thrive thrive there.
Lastly, don't forget that not all financial aid packages are created equal. I believe Princeton and Stanford are the only schools on your list that will meet 100% of need without loans. Brown, Cornell, Rice, Northwestern and WashU meet 100% of need, but you're above the no-loan threshold. Tufts and USC also meet 100%, but with loans. NYU is pretty famous for offering sucky financial aid packages.
Wow. I’m totally rambling. Sorry it got so long and for any typos.
All of the out of state publics that have been mentioned so far must be considered reaches, since the OP must earn a big merit scholarship, not just admission, to make them affordable.
@Shrmpngrtz Always great to meet another HP nerd haha. Didn’t put any UCs b/c I’m OOS and I’ve heard their financial aid for OOS students kinda sucks. Never really considered Duke + John Hopkins b/c they’re both reaches and I already have quite a few of those, but I’ll be touring John Hopkins this summer so we’ll see!
Also in regards to fit, I haven’t had the chance to tour any schools yet :(, but I will be visiting quite a few of them in the summer so hopefully I’ll be able to narrow down my list by September.
With safety schools I just put down what my college counselor recommended/what safeties people from my school usually use, but I’m def open to suggestions if anyone has any b/c I haven’t heard many good things about Stony Brook and Macaulay.
@STF4717 I like UMD, just not 100% sure about cost.
@ucbalumnus What schools would you suggest for matches/safeties then, taking merit scholarships/financial aid into consideration?
Not sure why you do not like Stony Brook, because it has a good reputation for CS. It does, however, seem to have a “suitcase” reputation (where some of the resident students head home for weekends). Perhaps other SUNYs as well?
You may want to gather lists of suggested admission matches and safeties among other schools and then run their net price calculators. If affordable, they are true matches and safeties. If not, then they become reaches because you need to aim for big scholarships instead of just admission (unless, for a safety, the school’s big scholarship is automatic for stats that you have).
Be careful of schools where CS is a popular major that may be “full”, so that it is more selective for admission than the school generally is. I.e. the school may appear to be a match, but may instead of a reach for the CS major.
@roethlisburger I like Harvard, but I figured I already had too many reaches on my list and that I should start focusing on more match/safety schools.
@ucbalumnus I know Stony has a good reputation for CS, but the suitcase reputation you mentioned is a big reason why I don’t really like it as much, & it also happens to be close to where I live and a lot of students from my school go there every year. Personally, I’d like to go somewhere completely different from where I live right now, but I know that there’s a good chance it might not happen.
Honestly, CS and English are two majors that really take time and effort to be good at. A double major will ensure that you are not great at either one. Pick one as your focus, and just take some classes or minor in the other.
NYU may cut the aid shown on their NPC if you don’t live on campus. They give notoriously poor aid to start with. You may want to check with their FA office on the impact of living off campus (if it is allowed for frosh, not sure of their policy) on FA in general before spending the money applying.
Sobering thought: Room and board will run 10-20k per year depending on region and your habits.
So… Putting one or two automatic full tuition schools on the list gives you some true safeties.
…and, if you’re willing to commute, does it really matter what Stony Brook is like on weekends?
You’ve got a solid list to start with. It sounds like finances are definitely going to come into play, however. I agree with @50N40W about adding one or two guaranteed admissions/FA schools based on test scores. The one everyone always touts is University of Alabama. There was a NYT article last fall about how they court top students. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/education/edlife/survival-strategies-for-public-universities.html
If you’d be happy with SB, Bing or Hunter/Macaulay, fine. But you might add a couple of safeties/matches known for giving good merit $$ to the list. Pitt and Case Western have been mentioned and are good options. Did Cornell come out as affordable when you ran the NPC? Would you be applying to one of the Land grant colleges (somewhat cheaper for NYS residents) or Arts & Sciences (which is most likely more appropriate for your intended majors)?
Research how many credits you’d get for your various AP courses at each of the schools, too. Depending on how generous they are with credits, it could make double-majoring easier.
Good luck - and keep posting here as your list evolves.
@Much2learn Yeah, I know both CS and English are both time-consuming majors – right now, I think I’m just going to apply for a joint major in both subjects if the college offers it (at the moment, it’s just Northeastern and Stanford), but for the rest of the schools, I’ll just apply as a CS major and minor in English b/c there are also lots of other classes in other areas I want to take.
@intparent Will definitely take a look at NYU’s fin aid policy once summer vacations starts!
@50N40W To be honest, I’d much rather stay on campus, even if it’s close to home, rather than commute assuming total costs add up to ~20k (which I know is unlikely for some schools). I currently commute 1.5 hours each way to HS, for a total of 3 hours a day, so I’m excited to dorm and have a much shorter commute for the next 4 years haha.
@4Gulls I’m not sure about U of Alabama – I live + grew up in a super liberal area so I don’t know how well I’d like living in the South in a much more conservative area than I’m used to. I do like Pitt and Case Western for OOS safeties though, especially since all of my safeties are in NYS so I’ll add them to my list! I’ll be applying to Cornell CAS I think, but it still came out affordable when I ran it through the NPC.
@STF4717 Nice to hear about Hofstra – will take a closer look.
