Help selecting colleges to apply to? (HS Junior)

College Search & Selection
1

Hey,

I’m a HS junior in the final process of narrowing down colleges I’m applying to for Computer Science. I’m looking for any suggestions on colleges I should consider applying to in addition to the ones I’ve picked. I’d say that I’d be a good, somewhat competitive applicant, but I also don’t have anything incredible on my list (No ISEFs, Big olympiads wins, etc). I’m probably going to graduate school for CS after college because I really like CS as a subject and think 2 more dedicated years to learning CS would be great for me.

Stats

Ethnicity: Asian
Scores: 1470 PSAT, Just took the real SAT this weekend (Scored 1500 on practices, felt even better on the real thing)
GPA: 3.98 (B in first semester Calc BC)
WGPA: 4.8
APs: Government, US History, Computer Science Principles, Computer Science Java A, English Language, Spanish Language, Physics C, Calculus BC
Senior APs/Hard Classes: Multivariable Calc, AP Lit, AP Chem, AP Stat

Extracurriculars

  • Programming Competition Team
    • 2nd Place in large regional programming competition run
    • 2nd Place in another large regional programming competition
    • I haven't done any USACO though I study from their prompts. I'll try one next week
  • Cybersecurity Club
    • Leadership
    • 2nd Place in another large regional competition (this should be a theme)
    • Participated in several online CTFs
  • Varsity Cross Country and Track and Field athlete
    • Will have 6 years total of cross country by the end of high school
    • 4 Varsity Letters
    • Cross Country times aren't super impressive, track times are good for lower D3 schools
  • National Honor Society
  • National Math Honor Society
  • Computer Science Internship next year (School Requirement)
    • I applied to a few big competitive places like NASA though I'm realistically going to work for a smaller company
    • I also contacted some CS professors asking to work for them, got an interview scheduled soon. One of them in particular seemed really impressed with my knowledge given that I'm in high school, so that could be one I can get.
  • 100 Hours of Community Service at nursing home
  • Over 300 Hours of Community Service

Current Choices

I narrowed down a list of a lot great CS colleges I heard about to just a few that I can afford (according to their calculators). If you think some my targets or safeties are too ambitious or I’m focusing too much on the high end, please tell me because I’m very open to changing this list. I mostly made this off of US News, but I’m not sure if they are 100% accurate.

Super Reaches:
MIT
Carnegie Mellon
Princeton
Harvard

Reaches:
UIllinois Urbana-Champaign
Cornell

Target:
UMichigan

Safety:
UMD (In-state, scholarship possible)
Purdue

Schools considered but cut out:
All the California State Schools (No out of state financial aid)
UT Austin (Financial Aid)
UWashington Seattle (Financial Aid)
UWisconsin Madison (Financial Aid)
Harvey Mudd (Don’t want a ton of hard humanities courses in curriculum)

Schools I might add on:
Georgia Tech (Cut out for financial Aid, but it wasn’t too far above what I was looking for)
Columbia (Good financial aid, but I don’t know if a big city like NYC suits me)

I don’t have that many safeties, but that’s mostly because I have UMD in-state. According to Naviance, they haven’t denied anyone at all even near my stats (the best kid they denied was 1420 SAT, 4.4 WGPA out of a very large data set). So I think the main focus is on schools besides UMD is places I’d consider attending if I got into. I think I’d have to get a bit lucky to get into any of my non-safeties, but my safety is pretty good.

2

@prezbucky is a professional list builder. If you want something more specific. But you will get plenty of good ideas here on CC too.

3

U.S. News does not evaluate undergraduate CS programs in any capacity.

4

Purdue is not a safety for an OOS applicant.

GA Tech would be a reach, maybe a Super Reach, for OOS student.

5

@merc81 I made the list off of their graduate rankings because I heard that the undergraduate and graduate rankings were somewhat similar (at least I hope, lol).

@TomSrOfBoston People mostly got in from my school on Naviance, though it could be that they weren’t applying for engineering or CS. I can cross that out and put in UMBC or another school as an extra safety.

6

If you’d like a school at which you could concentrate on computer science while choosing your out-of-major electives at your discretion, consider Hamilton.

https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/comp-sci-department-hosts-college-computing-conference

https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/departments/Home?dept=computer%20science

7

As an opinion, with this approach you might risk sacrificing the overall quality of your undergraduate experience (e.g., class sizes potentially near one thousand, in contrast to available programs in which two dozen or so would be common) based on a an assessment of graduate departments in which you would not be enrolled, @dreamerbeaner.

8

OOS Mich and Purdue are reaches for students wanting to study CS, so I would adjust that.

Because you took Mudd off the list due to its HSA requirements, you might drill down deeper into the core requirements of other schools on your list…for example, MIT requires 8 humanities courses and CMU 9. OTOH, HSA type classes will provide a balance to your CS studies, and every CS major/future employee needs solid writing, critical thinking and speaking skills.

This thread has some good information, and potentially some ideas for matches and safeties for you.http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/2100728-chance-me-for-top-cs-schools-p1.html

9

UMDCP CS is now a restricted major due to popularity overflowing the CS courses. Expect admission to be more competitive than the school overall.

10

URochester is another that has a very flexible approach to distribution requirements; virtually anyone could find topics of interest for the two required course “clusters” outside of their major area. Also has D3 track & cross country. And decent need-based aid. If you considered Texas enough to look at UT Austin then you might consider adding Rice to your super-reaches (or substituting it for one that’s even reachier and has even more distribution requirements). Great CS, great financial aid, great undergrad experience.

11

@merc81 That’s a really good point. I’d much rather be at a smaller school where I can talk to the professors rather than a larger one with huge class sizes.

@Mwfan1921 I guess I was under the impression that Mudd was the only place with hard humanities courses. If that’s not the case, then I guess I can put Mudd back on the list.

@ucbalumnus Oh my god right before the year I start applying. Thanks for the info, I should definitely keep another safety for security.

@aquapt I took a look at their financial aid calculator and it looks really good. Definitely a good addition to my list, thanks. Rochester looked pretty good but their financial aid calculator didn’t offer that much.

Wow! I guess Naviance and US News doesn’t really tell you everything you need to know about colleges. I think I probably will add some more colleges I didn’t think of before (UMD CS Graduate was ranked really high in US News), because I think when considering sheer class size, taking a look at some other colleges would be nice.

I think I’m going to look over some other colleges, picking by financial aid, quality of education, and then the location.

Making a slight update, I’m now thinking of:

Super Reaches:
MIT
Carnegie Mellon
Princeton
Rice

Reaches:
Harvey Mudd
UIllinois Urbana-Champaign
Cornell
UMichigan

Safety:
UMD (Still, unless the restricted major boosts its difficulty by a huge amount)

Super Safety:
UMaryland Baltimore County

More schools I cut out:
Stanford (Nobody in my school has been accepted for a years long time despite many great students applying)
Harvard (Same deal)
Purdue (Have no interest in the actual school besides just being a safety)

I think now I should cut off some schools from Super Reaches and add to reaches. I still don’t see a ton of great ‘target’ schools I’d be willing to take over UMD between UMD and the reaches, so taking down some super reaches could help me get a more balanced application.

I think it’s quite possible I get 8 rejections but have UMD and UMBC still standing on the list, and maybe taking down 1 or 2 super reaches could minimize that possibility.

12

UMD is a highly selective school, but it nonetheless seems as if you could find a few targets between it and your super reaches.

https://amp.businessinsider.com/the-610-smartest-colleges-in-america-2015-9

13

@dreamerbeaner Son went to a highly competitive public (ranked #1 in the country by WSJ a few years back) that was ~ 50% Asian. Based on experience at school, Asian STEM males without national level credentials (olympiads, science fairs, RSI, recruited athlete) had virtually no shot at super reachy schools like MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale).

Much better shot at some other super reachy schools like Stanford (athletics - even if not recruitable - help a lot) UPenn (ED only), Brown, Dartmouth, Williams, Cornell and Carnegie Mellon - provided high 1500’s or above on SAT, 780- 800’s on SATII, 5 on BC calc with great recs, and very well written essays.

14

UMD-CP has a fabulous Engineering and CS program. I would choose MIT, Mudd, and maybe CMU over Maryland, but unless you feel the prestige of the name is really important, the Maryland CS program matches or exceeds all of the Ivy programs, and the cost will be a lot less if your great stats qualify you for scholarships.