Help with cutting down my list..

College Search & Selection
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<p>I am a junior this year and am interested in majoring in either computer science or economics/finance (not sure which yet). I am just in the preliminary research stage so I won't bother listing my stats mostly because my SAT score is still a work in progress. I have a list of 18 schools and I would love for you to pick your top 10 based on their strength in the subjects I am interested in as well as overall student life. They are:</p>

<p>Columbia
Brown
Yale
Harvard
Stanford
Penn
UCLA
UCSD
UC-Berkley
UCSB
Michigan
University of Washington
Caltech
NYU
MIT
Carnegie Mellon
Duke
John Hopkins</p>

<p>Are Harvard and Yale even worth considering due to the fact that although they are fantastic schools, they are probably not as strong as some of these other schools in what I am interested in?</p>

<p>I know that some of these schools might be good in CS but not in finance or vice versa, but please just post your opinion of the top 10 schools from my list. Thanks in advance for your responses!</p>

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<p>Well what are your stats so far…that may cut your list down. Schools like H & Y accept tippy top students who rank very high in their classes.</p>

<p>what is your home state? you have some OOS publics on your list and they don’t give great aid.</p>

<p>Have you asked your parents how much they’ll pay? Have you had them run the NPCs? Doing that may end up cutting down your list a LOT.</p>

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<p>@mom2collegekids‌ My home state is Washington, but I am fortunate enough to have my parents willing to pay a large amount for my education. Also, I am not opposed to having some debt when I graduate if that means getting a world class education.</p>

<p>Also, I forgot to include Harvey Mudd as a possibility on my list.</p>

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<p>Anyone???</p>

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<p>okay, here is my top ten based on your academic interests</p>

<p>Columbia
Stanford
Penn
UCLA
UCSD
UC-Berkley
UCSB
Caltech
MIT
Carnegie Mellon</p>

<p>and if you want to cut down, you should ask yourself these questions?
If you got into ONLY ONE of those schools you applied to, would you be willing to go to that school?
Are you willing to PAY for all that tuition of the school?
How far are your willing to go away from home?
What are your must haves for your “dream college” (and you should look up if those schools have your must have items) </p>

<p>Hope this helps </p>

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<p>Thanks so much for your input! I really appreciate it…Any other opinions are welcome. </p>

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<p>With 5 exceptions your list reads much like the USNews top 25 list. With the possible exception of CMU and Caltech your “from” the top 25 universities have exceptional programs in both CS and economics and many will claim all of them have “excellent” student life. You need other criteria to make your choice. We also need a better sense of your stats to be helpful.</p>

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<p>Any one of these schools is going to give you an excellent education in either of your possible majors, so really it’s impossible to rank them as “the best” for your majors. You have basically posted a giant list of many of the top schools in the country, and you’re asking people to pick their “top 10.” This is a silly exercise. It’s like asking people to pick the top 10 greatest books of all time or something. </p>

<p>What you should be thinking about is what schools YOU like. For example, Harvey Mudd and University of Washington are total polar opposites of each other as far as your college experience goes. You’re not just choosing a name to put on your diploma; you’re choosing the environment where you’re going to live for 4 years. Do you like big or small schools? Is Greek life important to you? How about weather? Big city, small rural town, or suburb?</p>

<p>Ask your parents if you can visit a few campuses over spring break this year. That will give you a good start on figuring out what kind of school you really like. </p>

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<p>Caltech
Carnegie Mellon
Columbia
Harvard
MIT
Penn
Stanford
UC-Berkeley
UCLA
University of Washington</p>

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<p>I’m not sure where the idea came from that 17 and 18-year-old high school students need to be selecting colleges solely or primarily on the basis of the strength of their intended majors, but I wish it would go away. Of course, it is important to see that your future college/university has a reasonably quality program in your area(s) of interest, but it’s absurd to suggest that you shouldn’t apply to Harvard or Yale - two of the top undergrad schools in the nation - because of the lack of strength of one of their programs. (Not to mention that that’s silly anyway, given that Harvard and Yale’s graduate CS departments are ranked in the top 25 and their economics programs in the top 10. That’s graduate programs, not undergraduate, but ruling out Harvard and Yale because they aren’t “as strong” as, say, Duke or JHU in some of these areas is baffling.)</p>

<p>I think it would be a good idea to start by eliminating most or all of the public universities from states you are not from. Some debt is okay, but untenable debt is not, and I see no reason to keep an OOS public on the list if you might be eligible for more aid at different schools. The very tip-top schools like Harvard and Yale are also the most generous, and will offer you more aid on average even if your family is pretty wealthy relative to the U.S. population (although it depends on how wealthy, of course). Also, I am a bit curious about the omission of Princeton, which has top 5ish departments in both of these fields.</p>

<p>Also, this list is SUPER top-heavy. You have no safeties and no matches - they’re all reaches, no matter how strong your undergrad record is (unless you are in-state to the public schools with an above-average HS record). I think 10 schools is a lot, even these days, but 10 reach schools is far too many. IMO most students should probably select about 3-6 reach schools at most. You can only pick one in the end.</p>

<p>With that said, a lot of the schools on your list are wildly different. Michigan is a large public university in a small town in a suburban setting, whereas Columbia’s a medium-sized private university smack in the middle of New York. What do you want out of a college? Do you want to get really into Big Football and party on the weekends? Do you want to go to a college where people discuss Keynes on Friday evenings in the res halls? Do you want to be in a very large city, a smaller city, or a more suburban setting? Do you want to be able to go clubbing in a large city’s hottest nightclubs, or is your idea of fun more a raucous dorm party on campus? Do you want to go to a school where most everyone will be from the same state or a school where the student body is really from all over the place? Consider factors aside from just the department or major.</p>

<p>So were I making a list only based on your suggestions, I would actually only choose at most 6 of these schools (excluding UW - I would apply to UW either way, since you are from WA):</p>

<p>Penn, Stanford, and Duke, for the same general reasons: both the CS departments and the economics departments there are great, and the social life at these schools is also supposedly quite good.</p>

<p>And pick 2-3 from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, or Brown. There are no huge quality or prestige differences between these places (not big enough to matter, IMO). There’s also, as far as I am concerned, not a huge difference in student life funness (at least not from what I hear; I only have experience observing Columbia). So my selections would primarily be the kind of environment I wanted to have. If I wanted to have a residential college system, Harvard and Yale. If I wanted to be in a big city, Harvard and Columbia. If I wanted a smaller city, Brown and Yale. If I wanted more flexibility in my coursework and no GEs, then Brown. If we’re talking about my own personal preferences, I would select Harvard and Yale.</p>

<p>If I was allowed to embellish your list a little myself, and I was basing this on my personal preference (assuming an interest in CS and econ/finance), I would apply to Penn, Stanford, Duke, and Princeton as my reaches. Maybe Yale too. Then I would pick 3-4 matches and 2 safeties (UW being either in the match or safety bucket depending on your stats).</p>

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<p>Wow thanks @juillet‌! The main reason I took Princeton off my list was because it is in a small environment and I want to go to a big city. From what you’ve mentioned maybe I should look at taking off Brown and Yale as well…Also, for the rest of you who seem to be judging a bit harshly, this is a preliminary list. I will likely be picking 4-5 of these schools to apply to in addition to schools like UW, UCSD, and UCSB where I will be more of a match. </p>

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<p><<<
I scored a 1910 on the SAT and a 23 on the ACT. For the SAT I scored 670 on writing, 650 on math, and 590 on critical reading. </p>

<p>For the ACT I scored a 24 on English, a 26 on math, a 21 on reading, and a 22 on science. </p>

<p>The main reason I scored so low on the ACT is because I am a slow test taker and as a result left about 15 questions on each section blank because I ran out of time. </p>

<p>My goal is to get into a top computer science or business program </p>

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<p>Virtually no school cares about the Writing score on the SAT. You have a 1240 M+CR SAT. That combo is what is going to matter.</p>

<p>You ran out of time taking the ACT, but not the SAT? Your SAT is equivalent to almost an ACT 28. Looks like the SAT will be your better exam unless you’re able to improve your speed and improve in all sections.</p>

<p>I would think that a top CS program is going to look hard at your Math score. I’m guessing that section needs to be 700+ for the best programs, and your M+CR score needs to be at least 1400+ (maybe more like 1450+)</p>

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<p>Um thanks?? Not trying to make excuses, but its been three years since I have taken geometry. I think going back and reviewing some of the more basic concepts will give at least a 700 if not higher. </p>

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<p>For MOST students applying to the schools on your list, it’s been a long time since they’ve taken algebra and geometry. 1400/2100 for some of these would place you in the BOTTOM 25%. So, time to step up and see whether you can break that score or not. If not, recalibrate your list. If so, choose a few (based on the criteria you listed, I’d keep UCLA, Penn, MIT, CMU, NYU plus UWA obviously).
Don’t forget subject scores - for the schools you’re aiming for, I’d suggest taking the subject tests in 2 subjects once this Spring, and once again, in 1 new subject and one subject you want to improve (or, if you scored two 750s, in two new subjects).
Ask your parents how much, exactly, they’re willing to invest, each year, in your education. Don’t assume. Ask. Then, run your EFCtogether and see if that early investment estimation matches the EFC (they rarely do - if so: can your parents stretch to paying their full EFC? If not: alter your strategy).</p>

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<p>Definitely look at Wharton if you want to go into anything business</p>

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<p>If you’re thinking about econ then Uchicago is a good place to check out</p>

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<p>It is more commonly a concern in the case of smaller schools, where a department may have only a few faculty and few course offerings each semester, and/or less common majors (though CS seems to commonly be an area of weakness at smaller schools like Emory and Tulane). However, that does not necessarily apply to the OP’s list.</p>

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<p>Agreed that most or all of the schools on the OP’s list are at least decent in CS and economics.</p>

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<p>Actually, the University of Washington probably counts as a reach for everyone specifically for the CS major. Only a small number of applicants are admitted directly to the CS major as frosh; for the others who may be admitted undeclared (which is significantly less difficult), entering the CS major requires going through a highly competitive admissions process requiring a very high college GPA (including the introductory CS courses).</p>

<p><a href=“http://data.engr.washington.edu/pls/portal30/STUDENT_APPL.RPT_APPLICANT_STATISTICS_YEAR.SHOW_PARMS”>http://data.engr.washington.edu/pls/portal30/STUDENT_APPL.RPT_APPLICANT_STATISTICS_YEAR.SHOW_PARMS&lt;/a&gt; indicates that the average GPA of already enrolled students admitted to enter the CS major is around 3.7 most years.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/majors-and-minors/list-of-undergraduate-majors/”>http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/majors-and-minors/list-of-undergraduate-majors/&lt;/a&gt; indicates that economics and business are also competitive admission majors to declare.</p>

<p>The OP needs to start the list with a safety with assured admission, assured affordability, and without excessively high barriers to entry to the majors of interest.</p>

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@Hosley17‌ I don’t mean to sound unkind, but it’s been 3 years since almost everyone on CC has taken geometry. Don’t assume that just by reviewing it, you’re going to get into the 700’s. I can tell you from experience that making assumptions about SAT scores is a bad idea. Your list is too ambitious, and lacks direction. Why did you pick these universities? It seems like you just cherry picked universities that sound prestigious. I would advise you to take a step back and assess what you want from your college experience, and realistically what schools would line up with that. Make a new list, including maybe 3-4 of the schools you originally listed, along with some better safeties and some matches.

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OK, I don’t want to add to the pile on, but all of those schools are reaches given your current SAT scores. The CA schools especially won’t admit you with those scores as an out of state student–there are in-state kids with perfect stats that can’t get into UCLA or UCB. But you’re a junior! You have time to study and retake. If you can edge your scores in Math and CR between 50-100 each (or more), you’ll be in a much better position for elite schools… though all your schools will still be reaches. You should be looking at second tier elites which acceptance rates in the double digits–think 25%+. There are many of them with excellent CS, finance and econ programs… these schools will become your match schools, and then you’ll need a proper safety, too. It sounds like you want a big city, which is a good place to start–what else do you definitely want out of a school? That will help the community come up with some additional suggestions. (At the risk of being That Guy, you could check out my alma mater–Boston University. It’s a good school but less selective than most on your list (your SATs are on the low end of the range for them, but definitely put you in the running to get in), and it’s in a major city. That’s the caliber of school I have in mind for you to look into. Good schools but not the mega elites.)