High School Junior a Little Overwhelemed by College Search Process--Wanna Help?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi people of the internet! </p>

<p>(I have no clue how to start these things, so I figure a standard greeting is as good as anything else.)</p>

<p>Anyway, I'm a first-generation Asian girl trying to wade through the oceans and oceans of college stuff and trying not to completely drown within all of the information. My parents, while they do attempt to be helpful, get most of their information off of random Chinese blogs, and their perception of colleges is relatively limited to a few "name brand" places.</p>

<p>My resume:</p>

<p>Basic Info:
State: Illinois
Graduation year: 2011
Class Rank: Top 10% (out of class of ~340)
Unweighted GPA: 4 out of 4.0
Weighted GPA: 4.5 out of 5 (This actually ought to be slightly higher due to a mistake on my records)</p>

<p>Tests:
PSAT: 222 as a sophomore, 211 as a junior :( (Gah.. Bad day. Oh well.)
SAT: Haven't taken yet, but will in January
ACT: Math 36; English 36; Science 35 (Got one question wrong..); Reading 36; Essay 8 (I was getting kind of out of it by the end...) ; Composite 36
^First try. xP Makes up for the PSAT...</p>

<p>APs: Biology 5; Music Theory 5
Will be taking Physics B, Chem, APUSH, Language & Comp, and <em>maybe</em> Calc B (depending on how much I manage to self-teach myself; calc isn't offered to juniors at my school) this year.
Will be taking Physics C, Gov, Literature & Comp, Psychology (probably), and some combination of Calc B/Stats/Comp Sci senior year.</p>

<p>138 on AMC 10 sophomore year, 6 on AIME in same year (if only I hadn't gotten the first question wrong...)</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Math team: Have gotten awards at state level every year (since joining in 7th grade), including 1st place individual in 9th grade and 3rd place individual in 10th grade. Took part in initiating year of summer math team at our school; likely to get leadership position next year.
Junior State of America: Member since freshman year; probably will get leadership position next year.
Academic Bowl: Member since freshman year; leadership position already
Band: Flute all 4 years
Robotics: I'm not quite sure what the competition is called exactly, but it's with Lego Mindstorms and highly localized. Member since sophomore year.</p>

<p>I'm pretty well rounded overall, but with a definite lean towards math/science. I have basically no clue what I want to do as far as majors are concerned, but I'm probably going to end up in some sort of engineering, followed by probably grad school.</p>

<p>Colleges that I already have in mind:
MIT
University of Illinois (backup since it's instate, but I'd really rather not go there)
Caltech (#1 at the moment from the forays into the college search process)</p>

<p>So.. Any advice? Especially in regards to pro/cons of the above and other colleges and chances?</p>

<p>Oh, and thanks in advance to anyone who decides to respond. xP</p>

2

<p>you sound like you will have great chances anywhere
I suggest looking into the best financial aid for you. You could get lots of merit from smaller name schools or full need from higher up schools.
I would run an EFC estimator and see if that’s possible for you/your family to pay. If it’s not, look into schools with merit aid</p>

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<p>Hmm… I don’t really think I’m going to get any need based aid (at least, if the things from other people in a similar situation hold up). My family isn’t crazy rich or anything, but we’re on sort of the lower-end of the upper-middle class (if that makes sense at all).</p>

4

<p>As suggested above, have the money conversation with your parents first. How much can they afford each year? How much debt are they comfortable assuming? Under what circumstances would they be willing to pay more/less? Every family is different. Then find out what other parameters they want to set-can you apply anywhere in the country or are there geographic (or other) constraints. </p>

<p>The next step is for you to identify the kind of learning situation that suits you best: size of school, tech vs. non-tech, culture (frats, religious, artsy, granola, single-sex, quirky, intellectual, etc…), weather, distance from home, etc…</p>

<p>Once you have those parameters, you can post them on CC and get a lot of useful suggestions.</p>

5

<p>I don’t understand what you wrote above about money. Have you specifically asked your parents how much they will pay each year for your education? If not, you need to ask for a specific budget. Because, what you think can afford, and what they will pay may be two different things. </p>

<p>congrats on your fab ACT!!! :)</p>

<p>BTW…what was the NMSF cutoff for Illinois last Sept???</p>

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<p>It looks like Ill PSAT cutoff was around 213 last year, so with a 221, you’ll likely make NMSF :slight_smile: </p>

<p>If you do make NMSF, your PSAT score no longer matters, at that point, all that counts is doing the paperwork/essay on time, getting a good SAT score, sending score to NM corp, having a strong GPA, and getting your school rec. :)</p>

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<p>214 ish was the cut off. Thanks on the ACT. xP</p>

<p>My parents have essentially given me a “it doesn’t matter where you’ll apply, we’ll pay for it all”, but I’m pretty well aware that it’s not very realistic. My dad (the one who handles all of the financial stuff) refuses to give me any information on money stuff, mostly because he doesn’t want me to worry about it (despite the fact that I can tell it’s obviously worrying him; I saw him looking at the MIT financial aid calculator after my PSAT scores came in). I do know though that the household income is from about 170k-210k before taxes via a conversation from a year or two ago with my mom. My family’s actually in sort of a precocious financial situation; both my parents work for the same company that has been downsizing for the past couple of years (my mom was actually unemployed for about 6 months a while ago).</p>

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<p>Oh… No… the 222 was my sophomore year score. I don’t believe that actually counts for anything, does it?</p>

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<p>^^did you take PSATs your junior year?
If you were a NMF you could get a full ride to several schools</p>

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<p>I took them, but as I listed above… Only got 211. Really sort of sucks.</p>

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<p>Take a look at the following schools, some of which would probably give you significant merit scholarships:</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon University
Case Western Reserve
Georgia Institute of Technology
Lehigh University
University of Rochester
Rensselaer Polytech Institute</p>

<p>In addition, University of Michigan would probably be a relatively safe school for someone with your statistics and while it is quite expensive for out-of-state students, it would still be cheaper than some of the private schools you’re considering.</p>

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<p>Hmm… I’ve heard of most of those universities in passing, but what are they good at in particular? (This is also the first time I’ve even heard of Lehigh)</p>

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<p>^They all have very solid engineering programs. </p>

<p>You obviously are an excellent math and science student. Being a girl in engineering can really help you at some schools. There are some schools where it will help a lot, some not as much - but it’s a factor you can play to your (often considerable) advantage at some places. </p>

<p>Other schools that might be of interest:
*Harvey Mudd (really excellent, amazing math/science/engineering school; it’s one of the Claremont Colleges so you have the whole consortium there. Always looking for more females)
*I second the recommendation of Carnegie Mellon
*Cornell University
*Johns Hopkins</p>

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<p>Since your top two choices are Caltech and MIT you should apply EA to both :). </p>

<p>On the list midatlmom gave, CWRU and RPI would award you their top automatic merit scholarships which are stats-based. I know last year those awards at Case were $27,500/yr and it was a similar amount for RPI. GT I know also gives a lot of merit aid but I’m not familiar with them. </p>

<p>With your 36 ACT and 4.0 with a challenging curriculum you’ve maxed out the numbers arena. There really isn’t a need to take the SAT, though if you can do amazing on it, why not :D.</p>

<p>It’s also pretty rare for an Asian kid with your stats to come on here and not mention any Ivies…</p>

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<p>I know that the female thing is an advantage–it’s what probably got two girls from my school off of the waitlist and into MIT this year–but it’s something that I really <em>don’t</em> want to play up, just for reasons of integrity, I guess. (It’s one of the reasons why Caltech is listed as #1 above MIT in my first post.)</p>

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<p>IMO Caltech is much more starved for girls than MIT is…</p>

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<p>I haven’t really looked into Ivies all that much at all.</p>

<p>There was a conversation last year that I overheard between a couple of seniors that I respected about the difference between West coast and East coast schools, and they all came to the consensus that East coast was a lot more “stuck up” (to use their words). </p>

<p>I’m not saying that I would be completely opposed to going to an Ivy, but the whole “name brand” thing sort makes me wonder if it’s actually the schools themselves that are good or their larger application pool. For example, I come from a relatively mid-sized high school with about 1300 people. There’s another one nearby with over 5000 people, and while they have a higher number of talented people, it seems more due to the larger choosing pool than anything that I can obviously see with faculty. Even though my school is smaller, we do far better overall than the other school in science competitions.</p>

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<p>Heh… I don’t doubt that Caltech is more girl starved. But at the same time (at least, as far as I’ve read), they don’t seem to be actively trying to even out the gender ratio.</p>

<p>Plus, I work better with guys than with girls for some reason. o_0 I like blunt reality, and girls can get a bit too chatty sometimes (not always, but sometimes).</p>

<p>Oh, by the way… do any of these colleges have sort of a blunt reality to them?</p>

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<p>Perhaps WashU in St. Louis.</p>

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<p>That would be a silly reason to not look into Ivies or East coast schools in general. Did any of these seniors have in-depth visits to East and West coast schools that would make them form this opinion? There are tons of conversations that include stereotypes or inaccurate information even amongst the most intelligent and well-meaning.</p>