https://www3.sunysuffolk.edu/Students/TransferOpps.asp
Direct transfer admission to Stony Brook in Comp Sci. Double major in math, too. Done in two to three years, save your family a bundle of money, go straight on to your master’s if you feel too young to go straight to work.
If you want CS, then why the strong desire for Harvard and Princeton? Did you apply to any tech schools?
It’s good your essays were proof-read and your letters of rec are well-written. Note that I asked whether you school is used to sending students to top schools because while some letters may be nasty (they wouldn’t say things outright in the way I did, but any adcom can decipher some words, especially ig the GC has checked “school policy prevents me from discussing this further”) there are far more that are unhelpful and do not reflect well upon both the writer and the student (the “nice, raises hand” letters), which is more common from schools not used to writing such letters and not knowing what is expected in this type of letters.
Would you be interested in CS at SUNY Buffalo, SB, or Bing?
Would you like that better than a gap year?
While it’s too early to be sure you won’t get into any of the colleges left on your list, thinking about what you’d do during a gap year would be a productive way for you to use the next 2 weeks: is there a place where you could have an internship? do research? Would you be interested in spending a year abroad, perhaps in a school that focuses on the subjects you are interested in? What about finding and holding a job?
What can your parents afford, without debt?
The fact they agree on taking on debt… is meaningless, since they need to qualify for ParentPlus every year, and even if they do, do you really want to do that?
You’re better off knowing exactly how much they can afford from their current income and their savings, and if anyone else can pitch in.
Did you apply for financial aid? For merit aid?
(Or did you apply as a “full pay” applicant?)
Associate’s Degree in computer science engineering from Suffolk County Community College.
Lastly, the JHU credits were paid but I had to apply. It really baffled me when I got rejected for the sheer fact that I have multiple credits from them already.
^This may be an issue with why you weren’t accepted at a number of the schools. It’s a guess on my part.
You have good EC’s but it looked to me as if you were trying to appease the universities to fit and impress them, and not to appease or show your passions and needs.
They may have assumed that you would only to be there for 2 years and it may not have been the “fit” that they needed or wanted for the current class. Those types of universities have the 4-year clubs; some carried over from prestigious prep schools. No one knows why you weren’t admitted but you have to fit the school’s needs.
The ivies are building the current classes for “fit”. The seats are finite. Most of the spots are already “taken” by athletic recruits, URM’s, traditional large donors’ heirs, and international celebrity students-(think: Olympians, daughters/sons of Presidents, Malala/Greta types, artists, poet laureates), etc.
Your EC’s are not supposed to be a “grocery” list of everything under the sun. They are supposed to show who your are and how you will fit. You have music clubs, a few math/engineering clubs, too many “honor” society references (considered “fillers” if too many), camps, but no tutoring for CS. I had to look back to derive what your major could be because I couldn’t tell what was supposed to be your “passion”.
This is all conjecture on my part, but the fact that you didn’t even consider adding a safety school, shows that you didn’t even think about the “what if?”
No. I thought 8 very good schools was enough to be accepted by at least one.
(No safeties in the 8 applications, and with hundreds of thousands of applicants, from around the world, competing for a seat, at these prestigious colleges and universities, you were very misguided with your chances.)
My eldest daughter was accepted at JHU. She found out from her counselor that they liked the biotech diabetes lab work that she was completing, as a HS senior student at UCSD, with a neighbor who was a researcher.
Some of the best CS schools weren’t even in your list of 8. The ivies know where they rank in the areas of CS expertise.
I do recommend you follow the advice here and apply to a rolling admissions school ASAP. It’s not impossible you would get merit still. You didn’t mention your state? In any case, I had a similar story “back in the day”-- applied to only Duke and Johns Hopkins. Accepted to both but ZERO financial aid (this was way before online NetPrice calculators ad other guides.) They might as well have rejected me. I ended up applying in May to a mid-tier LAC with 50% merit. Not what I wanted initially, but worked out ok.
You make some very good points here. Vandy is not at all known for CS. CMU, GT, and MIT are but none of those are Ivies. If you want an Ivy for CS that’s Cornell which is Top 5 in the country and in NY so it’s a little odd the OP didn’t apply there.
I have 3 kids in CS and there was a lot the OP listed and I didn’t even catch that she/he was interested in CS until someone commented on it later. A college reader may have gotten the same impression. There’s nothing about coding experience, just some small robotics and one other thing I believe. Lots of music stuff which is great, but not going help a ton unfortunately. The OP it sounds like needs someone to help with their application and highlight what their passion really is so that it shines out and so it is not so busy because I can see why someone reading it might find it a little all over the place.
Hopefully in the GT LOCI @jdemat you can focus on what you really want so they can decipher what that is and get a spot off that waitlist.
addendum…
Stories that can be of use to you - let me introduce you to Andison and Kimpossible.
although they’re not alone…
Didnt get in any this year, need recommendations for next year - #3 by nngmm
Advice
https://insights.collegeconfidential.com/no-college-has-accepted-me-what-now
If you want to know what happened to Andison…
aunt-bea makes very good and valid points. When I looked at your list of accomplishments, which are very impressive, I wondered how many hours in the day you must devote to all of your activities and academics. It doesn’t seem humanly possible- or you are stretched so thin that you don’t allow much time for yourself, friendships, etc. Admissions offices have an uncanny way of sniffing out the true essence of a candidate, not just academically, but how they view them as fitting into the community of students attending their schools.
Best of luck to you and your college journey!
idk dude. theres no point in stressing tho ur app is already in. tbh i kinda skimmed because this a stupid amount of stuff and is literally just trying to find validation on the internet since you obvi didnt put all this on ur common app. stop stressing, go hang w ur friends, what happens happens at this point.