<p>That’s an important question asked by Mom2Collegekids; what are you willing to pay? It’s seems that your daughter will likely be admitted to many places, but the cost of other states’ public universities will be high. Therefore, if she’s intending to leave California I would include a few privates on her list; schools which are trying to reduce the gender imbalance in STEM subjects particularly. RPI, WPI, and Case Western are good places to start. I’d also look at U of San Diego, the Catholic university.</p>
<p>Back to the original question, yes, she will enjoy an advantage being a girl, especially a girl with those stats. Let her apply to some big name engineering schools and see what happens. </p>
<p>I would caution having her also apply to some nonengineering schools, though, in case she changes her mind again. She should talk to some girls who attend the engineering schools and see what she thinks of the cultures. I will confess I was a girl like your daughter many years ago, and I lost my nerve about going to an engineering school because I thought 1) I might change my mind and 2) I wanted a broader variety of people at my school. My son just made a similar choice. He is a big STEM nerd, but decided he wanted to go to school with artists and poli sci majors as well.</p>
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<p>OP mentioned being California residents and applying to most of the UCs, which have plenty of non-engineering offerings and students.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus
Yes, we are California resident and D is more than happy to attend any of the UCs except Merced and Riverside. Her UC GPA is 4.31 (capped) and 4.81 (uncapped). </p>
<p>I think the strongest part of her resume is her rank/GPA and strength of the classes she took. She will finish HS with 12 APs and 3 honors. Her HS load is:<br>
AP Calc BC, AP Eng Lang, AP Physics B, AP US Gov, AP Econ Micro/Macro,HN Human Anatomy and Spanish III. </p>
<p>But like what I have said before, no awards outside of school except for AP Scholar with Distinction. </p>
<p>Her EC’s are pretty typical and nothing special either. Her strongest ECs are:
- Varsity Captain, Field Hockey (played for 3 years)
- Varsity Captain, Academic League/Quiz Bowl (was involved 4 years, Captain JV team Junior year)
- about 200 hours volunteer hours at a local hospital
- Vocalist, Church’s band (performs almost every Sunday)
- Student Leader, Church’s Youth Group
No research and other high-profile ECs that I see typical of students accepted at top colleges. So it might be hard for her to be accepted @HYPMS</p>
<p>The information you have access to is the acceptance rates for male and female. What you don’t have access to is the qualifications of the male and female applicant pools. I think there is consensus that the female pool in heavily male-dominated areas is more self-selecting (lower proportion of so-so candidates). I don’t deny there is probably an advantage for the techy girls at colleges which care about their student ratios, but I suspect it’s quite a bit lower than those numbers would seem to indicate.</p>
<p>2018dad - Don’t sweat the ECs. My D is a ChemE grad from Northwestern, and her EC’s were varsity softball, and a bunch of clubs - NO Engineering ECs. She did win some art & design awards, but not for anything STEM related. So, it can be done. Good luck to your D! And I say why not try MIT & CalTech?</p>
<p>@ucbalum
Do you know what happened to UC Statfinder? </p>
<p>Also why is it that UC penalizes kids that takes more A-G classes and then cap the numbers of Honors/AP on their UC GPA calculation? For example, my D took 26 semester classes between Sophomore and Junior(including summers). All A’s and her UC GPA is 4.31.</p>
<p>Compared this to a kid that only took 21 A-G semester classes, all A’s as well. Since this child took less classes, the UC GPA is higher, 4.38.</p>
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<p>I did a lot Net Cost calculations this weekend using our income estimate for this year. Few months ago I was using our last last year’s data. It seems that our income this year just exceed some threshold so only 4 schools (from the Top 20) are giving us 5k or more (Harvard/Princeton/UPenn/Chicago). </p>
<p>I also looked closely to our finances and we can afford about 45K a year from savings alone. With savings and current income, we can afford full pay. The question though is, is it worth it to pay full relative to a UC Berkeley or UCLA? My initial deal with my daughter is if she’s accepted to any HYPMS, then she can attend (full pay or not). If the school is Top 10 or Ivy League, I would consider it depending on her intended major. Outside of those schools, then she’ll go to any UC or to any school, as long as those schools are comparable cost wise and “quality/rank” wise to a UC school that she will get accepted (e.g. Case Western, RPI or any schools that give merit aid).</p>
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<p>They stopped maintaining it and removed it. Don’t know why. It was a useful tool in helping people estimate chance of admission and other things about UCs.</p>
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<p>There is UC research indicating that unweighted HS GPA predicts college GPA at UC better than weighted HS GPA. The concern was that AP/honors weighting mainly give advantage to students attending HSs where such courses are merely available.</p>
<p><a href=“Publications | Center for Studies in Higher Education”>Publications | Center for Studies in Higher Education; (note table on page 12)</p>
<p>Presumably, the 8 semester limitation on AP/honors points was to retain some incentive to take the most rigorous courses, without putting students at HSs with less availability of AP/honors courses at too big a disadvantage, given the finding that weighted HS GPA was not as good a predictor as unweighted HS GPA.</p>
<p>However, as you note, this has the side effect of penalizing someone who just takes more HS courses.</p>
<p>But the holistic review does show all HS grades, as well as unweighted, UC-weighted, and fully-weighted HS GPAs. 4.31 UC-weighted HS GPA is near the maximum possible anyway, and 4.0 unweighted appears to impress the admission readers.</p>
<p>One more thing to note: the CS courses/major offered via arts and sciences tend to be different from what’s offered in the major in an engineering school. The former tend to be more theoretical and in the view of some, less useful than the engineering courses in learning practical application and eventually securing employment. My nephew started out in arts and sciences at his university because originally he planned to double major in physics and computer science. He switched over to engineering after his first year so that he could complete the major in computer science there.</p>
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<p>Not true everywhere. At Berkeley, L&S CS and EECS majors select from the same CS courses.</p>
<p>That’s really good to know. How do the majors differ in that case?</p>
<p>Northwestern was very clear that the CS major in the engineering school is much more practical in nature than the CS major in the arts and sciences school. I do think there’s some crossover permitted but the courses required for the major are different and the focus is different. Tufts said the same thing.</p>
<p>At Berkeley, the L&S CS and EECS majors differ in that:</p>
<ul>
<li>EECS has additional math and physics requirements.</li>
<li>EECS is ABET-accredited.</li>
<li>EECS allows the student to concentrate on EE more than CS; students in either major can concentrate on CS. L&S CS has some specific upper division CS course requirements (both require the same lower division CS courses).</li>
<li>EECS and L&S CS have different breadth requirements to fulfill.</li>
<li>EECS grants a degree titled BS, while L&S CS grants a degree titled BA.</li>
</ul>
<p>But the CS courses that students in both majors choose from are the same courses.</p>
<p>Your daughter could also apply as a CS major to Scripps, and take classes at Harvey Mudd. She’d fit right in academically and she could double major.
With her stats, she would also be a natural for Harvey Mudd.
Run the NPCs though to see if it’d be affordable since the Claremont colleges are pricey.</p>
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<p>Oh well. The vast majority of practicing engineers in this country didn’t go to H,Y,P, M or S. </p>
<p>She sounds like a strong, interesting student. She will do FINE. As long as you don’t define success only in HYPSM, UCLA or Berkeley.</p>
<p>While it is technically possible to major in CS at Mudd while attending Scripps, I suspect most students trying to do so would have trouble. This is in the FAQs about doing that:</p>
<p>What are the prerequisites for the Computer Science at Harvey Mudd?
Because all Harvey Mudd students must fulfill the scientific core, the Computer Science Department assumes the science background, particularly mathematics, provided by the HMC scientific core. </p>
<p>The core at Mudd is grindingly difficult, and they would expect a Scripps student to have completed the equivalent mathematical content. If she wants to major in CS at Mudd, she should just apply to Mudd. They do have a 3/2 engineering program with Mudd – again, I suspect it is very, very difficult because they will be in classes with students who have been through the Mudd core.</p>
<p>^ I agree with pizza girl. There are plenty of great colleges that she could be successful at.
HPYSM,UCLA and Berkeley are only a handful of the colleges in the US…</p>
<p>Hi Intparent: actually, students at Scripps take classes at Harvey Mudd. They don’t major in CS at Harvey Mudd while attending Scripps, they major in CS at Scripps through HM or Pomona and take some 1st year CS classes with Harvey Mudd and/or POmona students. 
<a href=“http://www.scrippscollege.edu/academics/department/off-campus.php#computer-science[/url]”>http://www.scrippscollege.edu/academics/department/off-campus.php#computer-science</a></p>
<p>Thanks to all. This is really helpful info!</p>