How's my college list looking?

College Search & Selection
1

The List Itself:

Reach: Amherst College , Carnegie Mellon, Northeastern, Tufts, JHU, UPenn, Cornell

Match:, Bucknell, Case Western, Lehigh, ,

Safety: U of Rochester (Would be match but its local and I’m in contact w/ coach)

For a little background I’m a rising senior that’s a white male with divorced parents, income is around $150,000 from mom and step-dad but I also have a sister going to college at same time.
Here’s my stats:

GPA: Upward trend:
HS Classes in Middle School: UW: 3.6 W: 3.98
Freshman: UW: 3.91 W: 4.20
Sophomore: UW: 3.96 W: 4.39
Junior: UW: 4.0 W: 4.47
Overall: UW: 3.91 W: 4.30

Class Rank: Not given, but I’d estimate top 10%

SAT: 1520 superscored (750 RW 770 M 17 Essay)

ACT: 34 (35R 35W 34S 31M) and then on other ACT got an 8 on the essay

APs: APWH (5), AP Lang (5) , APUSH (5), and AP Calc BC (5)

Senior Sched: AP Stats, AP Bio, AP Gov, Dual Enrollment Academic Writing and Calc III, then advanced band class.

SAT 2: Taking Physics and Math 2 in August, expecting 700+

Academic Awards: Chemistry Achievement Award, High Honor Roll all semesters of HS (so far), got some generic school award for course load, rigor, and school involvement. I think I got AP Scholar with Honor. NYS Scholar Athlete 3 years in a row

Major: Looking to go into Bioengineering or Biophysics

ECs:

Cross Country (1 year) Sprint coach told me to do it and I struggled.

Indoor Track and Field (3 years) Made all league team for two events and was honorable mention for my areas 1st team in the 2017-2018 season. No official captains appointed but I always played a leadership role, teaching the ropes to newer kids for handoffs, blocks, and form. Same could be said for outdoor.

Outdoor Track and Field (3 years) Made all league team for 3 events and was honorable mention for areas 1st team for the 2017 and 2018 seasons.

Summer Track (3 Years) Ran for a club, Qualified and ran in the Junior Olympics in Kansas.

Trumpet (3 years) Play in the honors wind ensemble, been playing since the 4th grade. The band meets every day during school but I also practice for about an hour a day.

Jazz Band (3 years) Was with normal jazz band freshman year then was accepted into the advanced jazz band for my sophomore and junior years. We meet twice a week for an hour all year.

I’ve done volunteer work here and there with cleaning up local parks or doing charity events with the track team and it probably adds up to around 50 hrs.

I should get into NHS in the fall and plan on joining math league or the trivia club since I’m not going to be doing cross country.

Essay: 8/10, I think I’m a pretty good writer, but the essay definitely won’t be perfect.

Recommendations: 7/10, Got one from my Physics teacher who loves me, another from my Anatomy teacher, and a final one from counselor that’ll be generic.

If these evaluations are way off please let me know. I don’t want to go into applications delusional! I’d also be open to any cuts/ additions too.

2

I think that you have a good list of schools.

The two things that I wonder about: If your are in-state for NY should you add a SUNY as an affordable safety (two safeties seems reasonable)? Will the schools on your list end up being affordable?

3

Congratulations on your hard work and success! It really does look like you genuinely work hard.

Great schools on your list. You are a very reasonable candidate at all of them. I agree that Rochester is a match (which is not a knock at all), except for your conversation with the coach, which might be a hook, and a great reward for hard work. Rochester is fantastic.

Two thoughts,

  1. You have a couple of really small-town schools (Amherst and Bucknell) and some of the most urban schools (JHU, Penn, CWRU, NU, Tufts). That’s perfectly fine. A person could be happy at these different type environments. Also the schools will have different strengths, i.e. very close connection to faculty v. research facilities. Just noting that they are very different, and wondering if, deep down, one appeals more to YOU than the other. If so, would you want to add one or two similar schools, and omit 1-2 from the other category? If not, then great.

  2. It seems like your family has financial resources AND you’ll want some aid. You might get in at any of these schools. But I’d personally suggest thinking about a safety that you’d be very confident would be affordable, like your state flagship, or other strong public, or a school that guarantees to meet full financial need. I’d think it’d be good to cover a situation where you got accepted to 3-4 of these very terrific schools but the costs were too high.

Just one more note, at least a couple of years ago Bucknell required students to submit an intended major. It did affect the admissions decision. I think bioengineering might be more competitive than if you were applying generically to Bucknell. Obviously you are a great candidate for Bucknell.

Good luck!

4

You’re right about having a good SUNY school as a safety. And based on the financial aid calculators I’ve done most of these schools will be in my budget range. Thanks for the advice!!!

5

Don’t forget that your non custodial parent’s income, in addition to your custodial parent and new spouse’s incomes, are used to calculate your financial aid at xss profile schools.
You’d get merit aid at many schools that award it but most of the colleges on our list don’t.

U Rochester is not a safety right now. If the coach officially accepts to support your application ok, but have you run the NPC to see if your parents can afford it?

You need another safety (any affordable university with a 35-40% admit rate that you like). RIT? What about SUNY Buffalo or Geneseo for instance?

6

RIT is rarely a good choice for a financial safety from what I’ve seen IRL with students heading there (aka - limited number from our school, but none had terrific finances from it). I don’t know if the OP’s stats give them more automatic merit though.

Kids with high stats here tend to use Pitt as their financial safety. This, of course, brings me to my thought to the OP. If you’re considering CMU, consider Pitt - literally, right next door and considered pretty darn good for what you are looking for, plus possibly some terrific merit aid.

Besides Bucknell being very rural (small town), they are very Greek. Be sure you like those environments. Some do, some don’t.

7

You should look closely at Bing and UBuffalo.

My understanding is UB is a bit stronger in engineering and has newer facilities and more engineering majors, but some people do prefer the size and location of Bing anyway.

8

Are you sure they are affordable when both bio parents and their spouses income & assets are considered? I can see where this has been brought up on several of your threads, just seems like now is the time to confirm that. We can advise on schools with merit aid if you need it, but some of the deadlines are fast approaching.

9

@intparent I’m pretty sure that they will be affordable. Running the NPCs with only my mom and step-dad’s information gives a really favorable price. My Dad does not want to give me his financial stuff, but it is a known fact that he is way less well off than my Mom and has considerable debt. Considering this I assumed that the final tuition will be at most double what the price was on the NPCs. Even with this into account most schools will still be in my range, and even if they aren’t I’m perfectly happy with attending my financial safety that only takes the FAFSA into account. Thank you for your concern!

10

The debt probably won’t matter, and he WILL need to provide financial info to pretty much any school that gives good aid. Unless he is really low income, it could very well reduce your aid. Make sure you have a couple of schools that you know you can afford with whatever money your parents have committed to pay for school plus your federal loans and a few thousand a year in summer earnings. I’d try to add one more besides your safety; it is nice to have choices in the spring.