<p>I'm a 16 year old Chinese California junior girl who is building her college list. I really don't want to apply to more than 8 colleges, so please help me narrow it down!</p>
<p>GPA: 4.0
SAT: 740M/750CR/770W/9</p>
<p>Here are the schools I am interested in. I like engineering, but am undecided so I would like to go to a not-entirely-STEM focused school.</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd(definitely applying, got fee waiver)
Carnegie Mellon
Northwestern
Rice
University of Rochester
Stanford
MIT(I am attending E2@MIT this summer and will decide over there whether or not to apply)
Brown
Cornell
UC Berkeley</p>
<p>Trying to decide two out of Brown, MIT, and Stanford to apply to. Brown is not a famous STEM school but would majoring in STEM at a non-STEM school work to my advantage? My list is extremely reachy and optimistic but is this good or do you think I should add another safety? Would Cal Poly SLO be a good safety to add?</p>
<p>Can you add two more UCs? How much can your family afford? Also SLO is a good engineering safety.</p>
<p>Female STEM with your numbers – Apply anywhere.</p>
<p>Understand that for the top schools, it’s a numbers game.</p>
<p>Rochester may be close to a safety school for you (great school, btw), but I have trouble seeing it as a true safety for anyone.</p>
<p>Brown – obviously a great school. I think their engineering school is ABET certified in a number of areas. If you plan on studying any of them, you should be fine. For non-STEM schools in general, I think you need to do your homework, it’s likely that there will be strengths and weaknesses.</p>
<p>Otherwise – you need a couple of safeties, and possibly a couple of more schools in the next tier down from the bulk of your list. Lehigh comes to mind as a great place. Michigan (though it’s much larger than most of the schools on your list). You should also be able to find places that are great, but give lots of merit money (Maryland and Purdue come to mind).</p>
<p>Why would someone with her stats want to pay huge amounts of money to go to Michigan, Maryland, or Purdue when she has the UCs in her backyard?</p>
<p>What colleges on your list do you consider are safeties?</p>
<p>For selective colleges, which are pretty much all of them on your list, many applicants have top stats like you so sometimes it becomes a little random.</p>
<p>Your list of colleges seems fine but top heavy. As zephyr15 pointed out, add at least one or two safeties.</p>
<p>@whenwhen</p>
<p>Maryland and Purdue – each offer significant merit money.
Michigan – top 10 Engineering School. (If you’d eliminate this school for cost, I might eliminate a number of the other schools on her list for the same reason). </p>
<p>Otherwise – I see a lot of geographical diversity on OP’s list, which suggests she’s open to going OOS. I was suggesting places that might not have sprung to mind.</p>
<p>It’s not as though even the mid tier UCs like UCI, UCD, UCSD, and UCSB lack research opportunities. They’re also far less expensive than Michigan and might offer Regents which brings the cost down considerably.</p>
<p>
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<p>Harvey Mudd is entirely STEM-focused in terms of majors. At MIT, about 80% of students major in STEM subjects. Both, however, have extensive humanities and social studies requirements for all students.</p>
<p>You appear to have no admissions safeties. You may want to add more UCs (and perhaps CSUs) if you are a California resident. Rochester (and Lehigh) cannot be safeties due to the fact that they consider “level of applicant’s interest” (a signal that they do not want to be someone’s safety).</p>
<p>Also, have you checked the net price calculators to see if all of the schools are affordable?</p>
<p>If you want an ironclad admissions and cost safety, you may want to look here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/15895768-post264.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/15895768-post264.html</a></p>
<p>If you have difficulty affording many of the schools on need-based aid, look at merit scholarships, like here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/15889078-post29.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/15889078-post29.html</a></p>
<p>
One way to cut down the list is to apply non binding early action to a couple colleges that you’ll probably get into. Then if you are accepted, you won’t need to apply to safeties and can focus on the reach schools. For example, I was accepted non-binding early action to Brown (they no longer offer this). So for regular decision, I only needed to apply to colleges I’d choose over Brown, which was only 4 schools – Stanford, MIT, Cornell, and Princeton. I ended up choosing Stanford and going into engineering. I have nothing but positive things to say about the school. It is an excellent choice for both STEM and many non-STEM areas.</p>
<p>@UCBAlumnus
Harvey Mudd has a third of classes in humanities, is technically liberal arts, and has the rest of the Consortium, so that was the exception to my not-entirely-STEM-list XD</p>
<p>Despite living in California, I don’t know too much about the UCs and didn’t want to apply there because I would prefer smaller schools(with the exception of UC Berkeley). Which UCs do you recommend? I don’t like big cities or large schools or UCI since I live too close to UCI.</p>
<p>Rochester and SLO were originally my two safeties but since Rochester has gotten more competitive lately(both my parents went there and encouraged me to apply) do you think I should add another UC? which one? Do you have to write extra essays to apply to more than 1 UC? (checks websites)</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your input!</p>
<p>Another question: EVERYONE in my community just LOVES Northwestern(hence, application), but how is it for engineering? How is it different from Rice or CMU’s programs?</p>
<p>For UCs, it is just one application and 2 essays no matter how many UCs you apply to. In the app, there is a list of check boxes for each UC, just check which ever ones you want your application to go to.</p>
<p>The only additionals are:
- the application fee is calculated per UC, I think last year it was $70 per UC, so if you checked 3 boxes, you pay $210
- since not all UCs have the same majors, for each UC you check, you need to specify the major/alternate major (except for UCB which doesn’t allow alternate), for UCSD, you need to rank the 6 colleges</p>
<p>So it is very easy to add a few UCs to your list and you can pretty much count them as 1 app.</p>
<p>As noted above, Rochester should not be used as a safety due to its use of “level of applicant’s interest”.</p>
<p>CPSLO is probably not completely safe either, since selectivity varies by major and they do not publish the thresholds by major like SJSU does.</p>
<p>Post #12 answers your question about applying to additional UCs.</p>
<p>Remember, if you do not have a safety in your application list, your safety is to attend a community college and then transfer as a junior to a four year school (probably a UC or CSU) to complete your bachelor’s degree. This is not necessarily a bad option for many students, although it can be limiting if you are advanced and would be taking junior and senior level courses as a freshman or sophomore if you were at a four year school. Use [Welcome</a> to ASSIST](<a href=“http://www.assist.org%5DWelcome”>http://www.assist.org) to check course articulation between community colleges and UCs and CSUs.</p>
<p>Well, how much interest would I have to demonstrate? XD Although it’s less famous/competitive, I really like Rochester and would love to go there, and I’m definitely visiting.</p>
<p>Different schools measure “level of applicant’s interest” differently. Could be a combination of having a visit recorded, asking questions to the admissions office, frequently checking your account at the admissions portal on the web site*, writing about your interest in the school in the essays, etc… You may want to ask on the school-specific forum what it counts as “level of applicant’s interest”. Basically, they don’t want to see a high stats applicant who is unlikely to attend if s/he gets in anywhere else.</p>
<p>*There was an article about Lehigh’s admissions process where an applicant who did not do this was rejected for lack of interest.</p>
<p>Note that “small size”, “engineering”, and “not completely STEM-focused” may make it harder to find schools that fit all three criteria (plus the usual constraints about cost, selectivity, etc.), although finding two out of three is relatively easy.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Yes, it’s hard for a small school that isn’t a techie school to have engineering. Having a college of engineering is an expensive endeavor.</p>
<p>Hmm, I see what you are saying! Mid-size schools are okay too. And I would be happy even at a school that doesn’t fit these criteria, I’m just trying to narrow it down a bit. I don’t want to be lost in a gigantum university, but I would like to have time/opportunity to pursue interests outside of STEM.</p>
<p>Can UCSDs engineering program be considered a safety? Which UCSD school would that be?</p>
<p>Thanks for all your input! UCB alumnus, could you recommend some schools to look at?</p>
<p>Within California, Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount are relatively small and offer engineering. SCU seems a bit more STEM focused than LMU, but that may simply be due to my familiarity with it. </p>
<p>Case Western is a medium sized STEM focused institution. I believe it has a free application and offers excellent engineering.</p>
<p>[Association</a> of Independent Technological Universities: AITU](<a href=“http://www.theaitu.org/]Association”>http://www.theaitu.org/)
The bottom of the page displays some independent STEM focused schools although some of their offerings are quite limited. Webb for example is an 86 person school offering only a degree in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.</p>
<p>How about Tufts? Union College, Bucknell and Lafayette are also worth looking into.
U. Rochester - you are a double-legacy so that will help you and you said you will visit so that is enough to demonstrate interest, though you should sign up for a campus interview too.</p>