Help me make a college list

College Search & Selection
1

I’m going to be applying to colleges this year, so i’m looking to get a head start on my choices. My stats are below. Also am going to visit about 10 schools this summer so I will be choosing my ED/SCEA shool from that.

Objective:

[ul]
[] SAT I (breakdown): 800M 780CR 660W 8E, also I took the June test, so will retake in Oct for hopefully 2350+
[] ACT: 34C 35R 35M 35S 32E 8E might retake in September to get a 35+
[] SAT II: Have not taken yet, will take Math 2, Chem, and Physics in November
[] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.788U/W 4.515W
[] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 9/866W 26/866UW
[] AP (place score in parenthesis): Calc BC 5, CHem 5, Physics 1 5, Macro 5, US Gov 4, Lang 3
[] IB (place score in parenthesis): N/A
[] Senior Year Course Load: AP Bio, AP Physics C, APUSH, AP Lit, AP German, Calc 3, Linear Algebra, Diffeq
[] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): WYSE 2015 Chemistry State 4th place, AP Scholar with distinction, (recieved 226 on psat and my state is normally like 215 so probably NMSF, and NMF) [/ul]Subjective:

[ul]
[] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Scholastic Bowl Varsity Captain, WYSE Team, Science Club, Math Team, German Club, German Honor Society
[] Job/Work Experience: Seasonal Worker at Bestbuy 2014/2015
[] Volunteer/Community service: Only about 20 hours so far, will get about 100 before applying.
[] Summer Activities: Summer Research Internship at Notre Dame with grad students in chem department (currently doing) Also taking CS50x on edx, and will take a finance course on there too.
[] Essays: Will spend a lot of time on them but I not a great writer.
[] Teacher Recommendation: Will get one from physics teacher (had him for physics 1 and will have him for physics c), and german teacher (had him for three years and will have him next year)
[] Counselor Rec: Large school will probably be generic
[] Additional Rec: will see if my PI at my internship will write me one [/ul]Other

[ul]
[] State (if domestic applicant): IL
[] Country (if international applicant):
[] School Type: Public
[] Ethnicity: White/Polish
[] Gender: Male
[]Income Bracket: 100K
[] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First Generation
[li] Major: Deciding between CS, materials science/engineering, or finance [/ul][/li]
I’m looking for one guaranteed safety school where I get a guarantee of full tuition at a minimum with my act/sat score. Then two engineering match schools, three engineering reaches, and three finance reach schools. My parents dont really want me to go too far away, and they’re pretty much against any school in California, so I would like schools that are closer than that, however its not totally set in stone. Things i’m looking for in a school; either a strong engineering program, or strong investment banking recruiting. I don’t really have any opinions on size; I visited Northwestern, UIUC, and Notre Dame, and the size thing doesn’t really matter, large or small it doesn’t make a difference to me. Also sports doesn’t really matter to me either, however if I was between two schools, and all else being equal, the one with the better/larger sports program would win. In terms of cost my parents could afford about 15k/ year for me at the most, an I would like to keep my debt under 60k at graduation, so these schools need to be about a 30k coa at most after finaid/scholarships.

One Financial Safety (Guaranteed full tuition): [ul]
[]Alabama? Kansas? Suggestions? [/ul]
Two Engineering Matches: [ul]
[]UIUC
[]Northeastern? Wisconsin? GaTech? Suggestions? [/ul]
Three Engineering Reaches: [ul]
[]MIT
[]Northwestern?
[]Stanford? Caltech? Suggestions? [/ul]
Three Finance Reaches: [ul]
[]Harvard?
[]Yale?
[*]UPenn? [/ul]

2

Cornell fits your third caregory, and is a little closer by car than the other eastern schools on your list. With a well put together application, it wouldn’t even be much of a reach for you.

3

Thanks! I’ll look into their programs.

4

Anyone else have any suggestion? Safeties? Matches or Reaches?

5

Purdue would be a match
Iowa State University has a top ranked materials engineering program (and strong engineering in general) and you would get full tuition with NMF if you list them as #1. You would also get a load of other engineering scholarships for being 1st gen. I would suggest that as a safety.

6

Have you figured out your EFC at these schools? The reason I ask is that none of the “finance reach” schools on your list offer merit aid, so you would be depending solely on need-based financial aid to get the cost down. I don’t think many of the engineering schools on your list offer merit. However, Northeastern does, and if you are NMF you are likely to get at least $30,000 in merit there, with a possibility of full tuition if chosen as a University Scholar.

Also please note that you personally can’t borrow $15,000 per year. Dependent Students (except students whose parents are unable to obtain PLUS Loans) have a First-Year Undergraduate Annual Loan Limit of $5,500 (no more than $3,500 of this amount may be in subsidized loans). This goes up to $6,500 for Year 2, then $7,500 for 3rd year and beyond. If your parents apply for a PLUS loan and are denied, you can borrow $9,500 in Year 1, $10,500 in Year 2, and $12,500 for Years 3 and beyond.

Alabama is a great choice. I don’t know much about Kansas but they do have one of the top ranked public honors colleges in the country. I believe you have to apply for Kansas’s honors college, though (meaning no auto acceptance based on stats) whereas you are guaranteed Honors at Alabama.

7

You may have already determined the projected cost of attendance at some of the match/reach universities on your list. If so my post won’t be too helpful and you can ignore it.

All the reach colleges on your initial list are “need blind”. I’m not aware that any of them award merit scholarships. For each of them I encourage you (or more likely your parents) to determine the projected Cost of Attendance (COA). Colleges are required to provide a Net Price Calculator (NPC) for this purpose. Examples are:

https://npc.collegeboard.org/student/app/northwestern
https://npc.collegeboard.org/student/app/upenn

If the COA is substantially above what your family is willing to pay then there is little point in applying to these “reach” “need blind” colleges nor to propose additional such colleges.

Your stats are competitive for all the reach colleges that you’ve identified. UIUC is a likely safety for you. As an instate student your likely cost (with scholarships or financial aid) is $30,000 or so which is within your cost parameters. You may do better should you receive a scholarship/financial aid.

While your out of state matches (specifically University of Wisconsin and Georgia Tech) are good academic alternatives to the UIUC they are not academically “superior”. Should you decide on a career in Finance the cachet of a renowned college matters, and for this reason I doubt that Alabama and Kansas are good choices.

Once you have your COA numbers you may find that the reaches on your list are in fact affordable. They are all exceptional colleges and are excellent choices. Consistent with the COA and your family’s willingness to spend accordingly your chances for admissions to “one’” of the reach colleges (especially to those that have ED rather than EA) would be much improved if you were to apply ED to one of them.

8

My efc at the ivies is around 18-20k, which is definitely doable. Yeah i’m definitely leaning towards UA, however i’ll need to see in September after NMSF are named to make sure I made it. I’ve been looking at schools that offer full ride/full tuition for NMF and a lot of them look appealing like Texas Tech’s full ride

9

@fogcity For finance I definitely realize that prestige matters a lot. Thats why for fiance my only schools are going to be ivies, and everywhere else I will be applying as a engineering major. Also my COA at my reach schools are within reach, and for my match schools I will likely be relying on scholarships.

10

You might get enough merit aid from Temple to make it affordable, and I think it’s an academic safety for you. Pitt is possible, also, although a little more selective for merit aid.

11

You’ll get a full tuition scholarship at the U of Alabama. so thats a good safety.

12

Temple doesnt have chemical, or materials engineering so its not really appealing to me, and pitt I think would be too expensive because I would be out of state.

13

At this point, you’ll have free tuition plus 2500 per year from Alabama. If you make NMF, you’ll get a lot more.

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In terms of cost my parents could afford about 15k/ year for me at the most, an I would like to keep my debt under 60k at graduation


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You can only borrow the following amounts

$5500 frosh
$6500 soph
$7500 jr
$7500 sr

to borrow more would require your parents to cosign and most parents won’t do that.

Which ivies NCPs did you run? HYP are EXTRA generous. What did Cornell’s NPC show?

Are your parents self-employed? Do they take business deductions?


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so these schools need to be about a 30k coa

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Most schools will ALREADY have full student loans in their FA pkgs, so you won’t be able to borrow what your parents won’t pay for. …unless your parents co-sign.

14

I ran Harvard’s Yale’s Princeton’s Penn’s Columbia’s, and Cornell’s they’re all possible. Also my parents will cosign on my loans.