Help with My College List?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>So here is my college list:
Definitely apply-MIT, CMU, U Michigan, Washington U in St Louis, RPI, and a bunch of UCs (many of which will be my safeties)
Possibly apply-U of Pennsylvania, Cornell, CMC, Northwestern, Stanford, Harvey Mudd</p>

<p>What I want to do: Business and Engineering or Computer Science. I plan on eventually doing business, but I know I can major in Engineering or Computer Science now and get an MBA in Business later, so I don't need to take Business, but I don't know exactly what I want yet.</p>

<p>My mom is letting me pick 2 or 3 schools from my possibilities list, and I'm leaning towards UPenn, CMC and Northwestern.
Problems: UPenn doesn't like to accept people from my school and is generally just hard to get into making it nearly impossible for me, and CMC and Northwestern are very social and partylike and I would much rather have a quiet, nerdy yet not completely antisocial atmosphere.</p>

<p>My GPA: 3.95 (unweighted, assuming A-s are like As, also I pretty much decked out my schedule with all the hardest classes, so if they take that into account that's helpful)
SAT: 2210 superscore, 2180 in 1 sitting
Math II SAT: 800
I plan on taking Physics and should be able to get a high score, and I will see if I can get a better score on the ACT because I don't like my SAT score.</p>

<p>And btw, MIT is pretty much my dream school. I acknowledge my chances of getting in are minimal, but just to give you a reference of what kind of school fits me... I like the nerdy atmosphere, the slight level of social activity, how much people focus on work, the classes offered, etc.</p>

<p>Thoughts?</p>

2

<p>You have a pretty good list so far.
A few other “nerdy” possibilities - Case Western, Lehigh, perhaps WPI.</p>

3

<p>As a parent of a son who will be attending WUSTL this fall, I think your stats look pretty good. As you may or may not know WUSTL really takes demonstrated interest seriously. </p>

<p>If you are serious about Engineering, have you considered UIUC? It is also pretty strong in business and better than almost all the other schools you mentioned, other than MIT. As an alum of UIUC, I had to throw that in, although I was a French major.</p>

4

<p>I’m more looking for input on if I have a good balance of safeties, matches and reaches, particularly the former 2. Safeties I feel are good (RPI + a bunch of UCs) but matches… I really only have Michigan (which is a low match, I believe), and maybe some of the higher UCs. Is that fine? Or am I overloaded with reaches?
Because the ones I want to add are mostly reaches if not all reaches… is that okay?</p>

5

<p>I don’t see engineering, computer science, or business as a “native” major at Claremont McKenna: [academic</a> - programs](<a href=“http://www.cmc.edu/academic/programs.php]academic”>http://www.cmc.edu/academic/programs.php)</p>

<p>If you want to apply to one of the Claremont colleges, Harvey Mudd is the obvious choice for engineering or computer science. What about Stanford and Cornell for your other two out of that list of possibilities?</p>

<p>Make sure that your safeties really are safeties. Although your stats are high, the consideration of essays makes UC admissions not something that can be easily counted on for certain, particularly if you apply to the generally-more-selective engineering divisions of Berkeley and UCLA.</p>

<p>Also, have your parents told you that they are willing to pay for any of the schools, including the expensive private schools and out-of-state public schools? If not, have they given you a price limit, and information to put in the net price calculators at the various schools?</p>

6

<p>No, they can afford these colleges. They cut NYU from the list because they say it doesn’t have good enough education for the price, and my mom wants to do the same with RPI. I mean with the 60k and over ones I’ll certainly be digging into my own pocket, but that’s fine, I know people who have it worse.</p>

<p>And because I’m nervous about not being accepted into anything, I will certainly apply to schools like UCSB and UCSC and stuff like that. So those are my ultimate safeties.</p>

<p>My plan with CMC was to do business there (which it does have a good business program) and take engineering and computer science courses at Harvey Mudd. The problem with just going to Harvey Mudd is that I’ll be stuck in engineering and computer science because there’s not much schedule flexibility there. It’s possible I’ll end up changing my mind and go all-out business. I don’t want to be trapped at Harvey Mudd like that. But other than that I found Harvey Mudd awesome, so it’s sad that I have to cut it from the list. That’s another reason why I’m leaning towards keeping CMC on the list, because then when I take classes at Harvey Mudd, I get a little bit out of it.</p>

7

<p>Where is the business major in the CMC list of majors?</p>

<p>Note that the “Management - Engineering” program is a 3+2 program, not a “native” four year program.</p>

8

<p>

If you are perfectly happy attending one of your safeties then there’s nothing wrong with just having reaches beyond that.</p>

9

<p>Well, there are multiple economics and business-related opportunities at CMC. I don’t know what I’d choose, but I think I’d be able to find one program that I like. The biggest CMC problem is that it’s a social, jocky school, when I’m more of the nerdy, MIT kind of person. I don’t know where I’d fit in.</p>

10

<p>I don’t think RPI should be dropped from your list since it is a solid match to what you are looking for in a school. And your odds of getting in a pretty good for you, better than most of the other privates on your list.</p>

11

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<p>Would you fit in better at HMC than CMC? (both academically and socially)</p>

12

<p>Academically-CMC (because I feel like I’d have more freedom, and I suppose I overall prefer business to engineering and computer science slightly anyways)
Socially-HMC by far (because it’s a nerdy, hard working environment, not a jocky, social school like CMC)</p>

<p>But for the social aspect, would it be unreasonable to say I could go to CMC and hang out with HMC students mostly? I don’t know if that’s hard or not… Also, when I visited HMC, I liked how involved teachers were with students. I don’t know if it’s like that at CMC.</p>