Help with college search for a student with 3.84 uw/1500 SAT for engineering/CS+X [CA resident, 4.1 UC weighted-capped GPA, no price limit]

Chance Me / Match Me!
, , ,
1

Demographics
US domestic : US citizen
State: California
Type of high school: public high School (Ranked top 20 STEM high School nationwide and ultra competitive)
Gender/Race/Ethnicity : Asian Male
Other special factors *(first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): None

**Intended Major(s): Mechanical Engineering/Economics/CS+X (does not want pure CS)

**GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.84
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): School does not weight
UC Weighted GPA: 4.33 (10 to 11 A to G)
UC Weighted Caped GPA: 4.1
Class Rank: School does not rank
ACT/SAT Scores: 1500 (790 Math and 710 English) Debating if he should take this again to increase his English

Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes):
10th Grade: AP CSP (4) ,Pre Cal honors
11th Grade: APCSA, AP CAL BC, AP US History, AP Physics 1 (waiting for scores), French 4 honor,
12th (planned) AP French, AP Stat, AP Physics C, AP US Gov , Multivariable calc ?? (not sure about this yet)

Awards
Some regional level debate awards
National Merit Commended (will miss the NMF based on last years cutoff)
Science fair reginal awards

Extracurriculars
• Debate club: 9,10,11
• Varsity Tennis/Tennis club 9,10 (Could not play in 11th grade as he got injured during the tryouts :frowning:)
• Varsity Soccer: 11th grade
• Work experience: Worked as assistant tennis coach in 10th grade and 10th summer. Could not continue in 11th due to schedule. Plans to resume
• Summer research at one of the recognized programs at one of the UC’s
• French Honor Society

Essays/LORs/Other
LoR: From AP Physics and AP US history teacher
Essays: I expect these to be around 7 out of 10

Cost Constraints / Budget
• Will Not qualify for Financial AID
• No Constraints on price ( Fit more important than price)

Schools
*
Safety
San Jose state University (Mechanical engineering)  Will qualify as local student to this school
ASU (Mechanical Engineering)

  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
    UC Riverside
    University of Colorado Boulder ( Mech engineering)

  • Match
    UC Santa Cruz
    UC Davis ??
    Purdue (around 60% acceptance rate and Avg GPA of admitter students is 3.76/1480 Sat)
    University of Wisconsin Madison (around 50% acceptance Per Naviance avg GPA of admitted students is 3.8 and 1490)
    UMD college park (50% acceptance rate and 3.81 and 1500 SAT)
    Santa Clara

  • Reach

UCSB
UCSD
Cal Poly Slo (not sure we should apply here as I head changing major seems to be hard incase, he does not want engineering)
University of Washington
UIUC
Northeastern (ED ??)
Boston University (ED ??)
Rice ( more like Dream )

Location preference: His preference is to be in a big city or close to big city if that not possible then college town (no rural) As parents we want him to be at place where there is direct flight if possible from SFO.
Major: He is not 100% sure about his major yet. He is leaning towards Mechanical Engineering but may also be interested in CS + Economics or CS + Political science. Since he is not sure about the major we want a school where changing major is easy enough.
Ideal school size. Around 10,000 (does not want lower than 5,000)

Based on the information provided can you suggest any additional colleges we should consider. For the colleges he is considering I have added Safety/match/reach based on CDS data and the data from our school Naviance. If I am being overly optimistic please let me know.

1 Like
2

Quite a few change majors at Cal Poly. It’s easy if you were accepted to a difficult admit like ME, CS, etc. It isn’t as easy as schools where you can freely change though.

3 Likes
3

Congratulations to your son on being a competitive applicant. I have complied some UC ME admit rates from 2022 data if available. I will also include CS admit rates for comparison. Extrapolated data is taken from the # enrolled and the overall campus yield since some campuses are not very transparent with admit rates.

Campus Mechanical Eng
UC Berkeley 7.3%
UC Davis Extrapolated <30%
UC Irvine 15%
UCLA 5.5%
UC Merced 90%
UC Riverside 56%
UC San Diego Extrapolated <20%
UC Santa Barbara Extrapolated <25%
UC Santa Cruz N/A
Cal Poly SLO 19%

2022 CS admit rates if available

Campus CS
UC Berkeley 2.9%-L&S EECS-4.5%
UC Davis No data but <20%
UC Irvine 5.8%
UCLA 3.8%
UC Merced 85%
UC Riverside 36%
UC San Diego No data but <10%
UC Santa Barbara No data Historically 5-6%
UC Santa Cruz 60%
Cal Poly SLO 9%
Cal State Long Beach 54%
San Diego State 40%
San Jose State 31%

2022 Admit rates based on the Capped weighted UC GPA and not major specific.

Campus 4.00+ 3.70-3.99 3.30-3.69 3.00-3.29
Berkeley 17% 3% 1% 0%
Davis 58% 20% 5% 2%
Irvine 35% 10% 3% 0%
Los Angeles 13% 2% 1% 0%
Merced 97% 97% 95% 85%
Riverside 95% 83% 42% 17%
San Diego 37% 8% 1% 0%
Santa Barbara 41% 8% 3% 0%
Santa Cruz 69% 45% 16% 4%

I would put UC Davis in the High Target/Low Reach category for ME/CS.

For the UC’s and as noted Cal Poly SLO, switching majors especially into CS even from ME may prove to be difficult to impossible for some of the campuses. If he is not sure of a major and CS remains a possibility, I would say apply for CS since switching out into ME is more of a possibility.

Best of luck to him and I am sure posters can give you some target schools where he would have more flexibility in declaring a major.

All the UC’s and CSU’s admit by major for Engineering/CS.

5 Likes
4

Cal Poly is not accepting any change of majors into CS, except those originally admitted as SE or CPE.

3 Likes
5

Seems like a fine list already - but if Rice is more like a dream, I’m not sure a lot of these schools work (size wise). Plus, you want non-stop -a nd you’re not going to get that to say - the Urbana/Champaign airport. And Purdue and city - well they aren’t that.

If you are happy with CU Boulder, UCR, and ASU - why go for reaches that won’t fit.

If you go for Rice, how about WUSTL or Vanderbilt? U of Denver or Colorado School of Mines as an easier get - in similar type size. These would all have city life and airport access/non stop flights possible to the Bay area. For big, a U of MN or Ohio State might fit better than UIUC (yes, it’s top rated) or Wisconsin - because both are in cities and certainly UMN will have non-stop flights and possibly Ohio State (on Southwest).

If you need another top notch safety (but you don’t), how about U of Arizona. It’s, to me, more manageable than ASU although I’m an ASU alum.

Best of luck.

2 Likes
6

My concern with Wisconsin is that they have a pretty high GPA requirement to get your major of choice.

1 Like
7

I think you have a very good list of safeties, likelies and matches (other than the size and location mismatches tsbna mentioned).

Regarding his reaches… if Rice is his dream school why ED to NEU or BU?

3 Likes
8

Pitt, CMU, Georgia Tech and maybe NC State? Also thinking CWRU. Maybe Lehigh but I doubt there are direct flights.

Large cities probably with direct flights to SF. Strong engineering and CS programs but offer other majors and minors.

Pitt and GT are about 18-20k undergrads. Not huge campuses.

1 Like
9

That’s fair too - but I was looking at it from there’s likely not a non-stop flight from Madison to the Bay area :slight_smile: That was a desired feature.

1 Like
10

Love Madison and the school!

1 Like
11

In looking at your list, I think they’re all fine schools. What struck me, like others, is that Rice is the dream school, yet the other schools on the list seem to bear little resemblance to Rice (which has about 4200 undergrads), from my perspective. Would your son be happy to attend any school on the list? If so, great. If not, they don’t belong on the list.

As your son is unsure about what major he wants, and that he might want to switch into a very popular major (like CS), I have some concerns about many of the California publics in this regard. Due to these observations, I’ve come up with some additional schools that your family may want to consider. There are direct flights from SFO to all of them, and changing major within the schools should be pretty painless as well. They are sorted by my very fallible sense of what I think your son’s chances might be at these schools.

Extremely Likely (80-99+%)

  • Montana State: About 14k undergrads at this school in Bozeman

  • Seattle (WA): About 4200 undergrads

  • U. of Denver (CO): About 5900 undergrads

  • U. of Louisville (KY): About 16k undergrads, and its engineering program is modeled after San Luis Obispo’s

  • U. of Nevada – Reno: About 17k undergrads

  • U. of New Mexico: About 16k undergrads at this school in Albuquerque

  • U. of Portland (OR): About 3600 undergrads

Likely (60-79%)

  • Southern Methodist (TX): About 6900 undergrads at this Dallas school

  • U. of San Diego (CA): About 5700 undergrads

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • George Washington (D.C.): About 12k undergrads. He will need to show lots of demonstrated interest if he wants an acceptance.

Lower Probability (20-39%)

  • Case Western (OH): About 5800 undergrads. He will need to show lots of demonstrated interest if he wants an acceptance.

  • U. of Miami (FL): About 12k undergrads

Low Probability (less than 20%)

  • Duke (NC): About 6900 undergrads at this Durham school

  • Johns Hopkins (MD): About 6100 undergrads at this Baltimore school

  • Northwestern (IL): About 8800 undergrads at this school just outside of Chicago

  • U. of Pennsylvania: About 11k undergrads at this Philadelphia school

  • Vanderbilt (TN): About 7100 undergrads at this Nashville school

  • Washington U. (MO): About 8k undergrads at this St. Louis school

Also, there are direct flights from SFO to Madison via United!

2 Likes
12

Wow - you got me there !! Although I’m running a 2 week search in august on United and nothing from sfo or Bay Area to Madison. Maybe it’s occasional ??

13

You should consider SJSU HEAVILY. It’s affordable, in the center of silicon valley, and has great graduate outcomes.
I think it’s location makes it a better school than more prestiguous mid-tier schools like Boston University.

2 Likes
14

Thanks for the info. Our school Counselor was saying that if you are not sure of the Major this was not a good choice. I guess if we apply here we will apply for the harder major.

1 Like
15

Thanks for the breakdown of the Various admit rates at various UC’s and CSU.
I know for the UC’s its better to apply to the CS but the admit rates are so low that I see many kids actually applying to the other majors in Letters and sciences and adding a minor or double major later. Since he is not interested in pure CS, we are thinking of we should do that.

16

Good to know. I was not aware of this.

2 Likes
17

Of all the things in his priority he is flexible on the size the most as long as it is not less than 2000 (his high school has 2000 kids and he does not want smaller than that). He is ok with large schools.

In regards to UIUC and Purdue you are 100% correct they would not be his preference but if he wants engineering and a good school we might have to be open. If for example he would get in purdue and an equivalent college in a city his preference would be that.

In terms of why not WUSTL and Vanderbilt my understanding is that RICE is better for STEM.
We are considering adding Colorado School of mines and it was on my list forgot to add it here.

Will look into U of Arizona vs ASU. I have hired and interviewed people from ASU so more familiar with that than U of Arizona.

18

Based on the Naviance data and the counselor she said he is right around the avg for the kids who get admitted from our high school.

UIUC and Wisconsin and purdue have become the go to schools for kids from our school with the UC’s getting harder every year and our admit rates to these universities is better than the National Avgs and this could be because the high school is considered very good for STEM.

19

I think based on Naviance data there is almost no chance to getting into rice. Where as BU and North eastern the chances are better. He also seems to like boston location but we have not gone for a visit so things may change once we go for a visit. He likes North easterns Co-OP program and study abroad.

20

You are correct there is no direct flight from Madison and I know someone who attends madison and that the biggest complaint the parents have.

The direct flight requirement is an ask from my side not from our Son.

1 Like