There are no guarantees. This year it seems as if many students who applied only to target or reach schools came here to say they were shut out. CMU is certainly in the selective category. Admission - Undergraduate Admission - Carnegie Mellon University
Your son sounds lovely and everything about his stats are strong. At this point start focusing on his essay and personal statements because thatās what will put him over the top. He checks the boxes on everything so now itās time to tell his story and make him come to life on paper. Itās a lot about fit and if he matches the schools mission.
We had a WILD ride this year, couldnāt be happier with the result but itās a crazy list:
My S21 ME
GPA 3.9/4.4 10 APās, 2 dual enrollment classes his senior year
ACT: 36
EC: Robotics club 4 years, president for 2, Varsity and club swimmer, drummer some volunteer work/community service. Not a ton. He didnāt start anything. Heās a very sweet hard working boy and his LIR were strong.
MIT, Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd rejected all with Swim coach support (ouch)
Brown, Harvard rejected
CMU, JHU, Cornell, Columbia Waitlisted
Georgia tech (OOS), NYU, UCSD ( in state), UCSC, CalPoly accepted.
Princeton accepted and enrolled! The swim coach just offered him a walk on spot.
Good luck, itās stressful but youāre off to a great start!!
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DCk2a, Thanks for the feedback on your sonās experience at CMU. Out of curiosity, what is his major? I was BS Econ/PPM in the early 1980s and the workload and stress for humanities students was much lower than for the engineers and juried fine arts majors (Architecture, Design, Drama, etc.). I have spoken with a current Physics major and Graphic Design major within the last year. The Physics major reported that, while there was a lot of work, it was manageable and there were resources like tutors available to help. This sounds like it jibes with your sonās experience. The Design major, on the other hand, complained about the massive workload in his studio classes and he looked like he was going to collapse.
Methinks I should find a couple current Mech E students to see how they are doing.
Attempted to PM you - havenāt tried that before so hopefully you get it!
This will be my last post on this as itās a bit off-topic. But at our school you get a 4.0 for an A+ in a standard course, a 4.5 in an advanced course and a 5.0 in a Honors/AP course. One way to achieve a 4.4 GPA is to take an all Honors/AP track and get a bit more than half As and the rest Bs.
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WOW! Your son sounds incredible! How lucky he was to attend a high school that offered such advanced classes.
Of course. Everything is individual student dependent. No one can generalize about anything, or give any advice based upon past experience or knowledge, because everything is individual to every student. All I know is that having been through it, everyone that I knew at my Ivy avoided taking two pre-med sciences simultaneously, and no one in my kidsā competitive public high school ever takes two AP sciences of the three basics (Chem, Bio, and Physics) concurrently. Taking AP Chem and AP Bio in the same year of high school, especially if one already has a full plate of other AP classes and extracurriculars in addition to college applications, is a really BAD idea, for mortal high school students. But then again, some are not mortal, so of course, no one should generalize.
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Just wanted to add that, just because a school is a āreachā for admissions, it does not mean your son would be at the bottom of the heap or have a tough time. I think many of the reach schools are reach schools only because they have so many similarly qualified candidates so the final decision is kind of a crap shoot and comes down to a subjective evaluation of essays and āfit.ā You canāt easily predict which students will get the nod and which wonāt. Thatās why there doesnāt seem to be a very reliable way to determine how good a particular applicantās chances are.
In many cases, the rejected students would do as well or better than the selected students if they switched places.
I think the more useful question is how stressful the school environment is. For instance, University of Washington is not the most selective school, but can be very stressful for STEM majors because there is so much competition to survive weed-out classes and get accepted into a desired major by junior year. Other schools are harder to get into, but once you are in, youāre in ā no secondary application to get into your major and you can just focus on being a student. So I donāt think students with stats like your sonās should rule out ANY school as being too stressful based on its acceptance rate. Pick the ones that sound like a learning environment he would enjoy.
On that note, definitely look into the Honors programs at some of the larger schools. They may give you what you like about Rose-Hulman (smaller classes, more contact with professors, etc.), but at a school with higher numbers of alumni and greater national name recognition.
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He would deny the former and affirm the latter. 
Although he was the Rensselaer Medalist in his class (top math/science student), the 2 science AP thing was pretty common for students who ultimately wanted STEM careers or who were premed.
Yes, agree that stressfulness in college is likely to be more related to continuing high levels of competition, either for secondary admission to major, or for goals like pre-med or pre-top-14-law, once the student is in college.
Iāve been thinking about your post for a few days and wanted to share our experience in case it might be helpful. My S21 is graduating this month and went through the process this year. I have two primary suggestions.
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As long as you are able to be fairly objective in assessing your kidās strengths and weaknesses (which it sounds like you are), then trust your instincts. For schools that are always tough to gain acceptance, that will continue to be the case. For your son with high stats and depth in his ECs, heās likely to have a lot of success with his applications. Make sure to apply early to schools that have rolling admissions.
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Let him be himself. As you suggested, donāt try to keep up with the next kid when it comes to āresume paddingā and ācreating a narrative.ā Yes, itās important for him to be able to articulate whatās important to him and why heās involved in the things that he does with his time, but he doesnāt need to check every box.
For context, Iāll share a bit about my sonās experience. He applied to 10 schools, was accepted to 9, and of those had 8 merit scholarship offers. His one decline came from Rice; the highlight of his acceptances was U Chicago, with merit money, in RD after an initial deferral in the EA round. NC State was the school that did not give him a scholarship offer. Other offers came from Texas A&M, U Iowa, Wooster, Kenyon, UofSC, UGA, U Tulsa. We had no expectations from Rice or U Chicago, were surprised he was initially deferred from UGA, but everything else shook about pretty much as expected. He would have been happy at any one of these schools and wasnāt chasing prestige. Reasonable expectations is key. He did not apply Early Decision anywhere. We werenāt prepared to make any commitments without all the offers on the table.
His basic profile: 3.6 UW GPA, 1580 SAT, NMF, AP Scholar with Distinction, 13 APs. Key ECs: Marching band (lots of depth here, 2 time All State band member, several marching and concert band awards for the program during his tenure, joined the local youth orchestra this year); Speech/debate team (several awards and a good amount of success over 4 years, but no state or national level recognition as of college application time); creative writing (informal, in his own time but went to multiple summer camps for writing). He did NOT join NHS, did NOT have significant leadership positions, did NOT do very much community service, was barely in the top quarter of his class by rank. What he WAS was authentic. His applications exposed his intelligence, creativity, and passions. His skill at writing was a huge asset. And heās planning to pursue studies in biology/biotechnology, so his ECs did not directly relate to his proposed major.
We do know students who had less success than I would have expected. Some reached too high, thinking that having a high class rank, perfect SAT scores, and a record number of APs would guarantee acceptance. The #2 ranked kid in the class has only one option, the in state flagship which was his last choice, because he only applied to 1 school that wasnāt a super reach, and in our highly educated community someone should have warned him that was a bad strategy. It did seem like applications at state flagships were way up and there were some surprises at the ones that are highly sought after (NC State, UofSC, and UGA are a few Iām thinking of).
I think the high school years should be about getting a strong High School education, exploring new interests, growing up, gaining independence, and enjoying life. We shouldnāt rob our teens of the chance to just be kids in pursuit of college admissions and the perfect resume, when just about all of them will have the opportunity to go somewhere great (defined as a solid college education, not some ātop tierā school as defined by rankings). FWIW.
Your son sounds like a wonderful young man and Iām sure he will have multiple great options when itās all said and done.
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A good friend of ours has a son with about a 3.8UW and 33 ACT, played a couple sports but no other notable ECs, decent essays, and was admitted āpre-engineeringā at UIUC (and heās in-state).
As a generalization, from what Iāve heard from kids in my area (where lots of kids apply and go to midwest big 10 schools) it seems like kids who were admitted pre-engineering at UIUC were accepted outright at Purdue and Wisconsin (and Minnesota, even TO), def accepted to Michigan State, but mostly not accepted at Michigan. I think Rose Hulman would be easier to gain admission to than any of those schools. Plus RH is a much smaller school and different environment, and if thatās the right fit for him, thatās great!
Fwiw, my friendās son chose the University of Dayton, where he was awarded very substantial merit aid and directly admitted to engineering. He also did a program with UD last summer that gave him extra merit. If you want a bigger school than RH but still much smaller than the big ten schools, you might look at it.
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The barrier to moving forward into engineering is apparently very high.
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yes, thatās the main reason he decided not to roll the dice and attend there. what if it didnāt work out??
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Depends on the desired engineering major. If you go to the bottom of https://dgs.illinois.edu/current-pre-engineering and click āMAJOR CAPACITIESā, you will see the criteria for each major.
| Students Enrolled in PREP Starting Fall 2018 and after | |
|---|---|
| Competitive Review 3.75 overall & sGPA + competitive review | Bioengineering, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering |
| Restricted Capacity 3.75 overall & sGPA | Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering |
| Limited Capacity 3.50 overall & sGPA | Aerospace Engineering |
| Moderate Capacity 3.25 overall & sGPA | Civil and Environmental Engineering, Industrial Engineering |
| Open Capacity 3.0 overall & sGPA | Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Engineering Mechanics, Engineering Physics, Materials Science and Engineering, Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering, Systems Engineering and Design |
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Well, we just returned from Catapult STEM camp at RHIT and a campus visit to Purdue, and here are my thoughts.
Jack was disappointed in Catapult, mainly because he spent most of the week watching algae grow and recording the daily progress (his project was generating bio-diesel). I think he expected to be in a shop designing and building a robotic arm or hovercraft. Frankly, most of the projects were underwhelming. On the plus side, the professors were great - engaged, supportive and approachable. During downtime Jack assisted one of the professors extracting small organisms from pond water. Really, the self selection of the professors to be at a school where the focus is on undergraduate teaching makes all the difference. The campus was small, but well maintained and there appeared to be adequate resources.
Purdue was very impressive. The campus was beautiful and there was a good deal of new construction. We did a bootleg tour on a Sunday, and were able to get into several of the engineering and science buildings, which were in great condition and obviously well resourced.
From a physical plant standpoint, Purdue is what UIUC dreams of being. (If accepted to Purdue and UIUC, I would steer Jack to Purdue.) I did not know before the engineering info session that Purdue has a co-op program where you study for a semester, then work for a semester and graduate in five years with two years work experience and almost a guaranteed job. This is similar to Kettering, except Purdue has far greater resources and doesnāt track into the auto industry. On the down side, freshman and sophomore classes will have 200 students, professors may be more interested in research than teaching, and you donāt get your desired major on application.
Short answer, both schools are still on the list and weāll start making decisions after Jack sees mid-sized schools like CMU and Case Western.
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My D is a co-op student at Purdue. If you have any specific questions, please feel free to send me a private message. Sheās doing her last rotation this Fall. Itās been nothing short of an AMAZING experience for her. The co-op program is very well supported and going back and forth between school and work has been seamless. She has a co-op specific advisor that makes sure her classes are sequenced to graduate in 8 semesters.
In terms of class size, my D only had two classes freshmen year over 200 and all the big courses have mandatory recitations with 25 students. The rest of her classes averaged 20-80 students tops.
Sophomore year she had no classes that large (sheās a chem e). Sheās found professors to be very engaged and approachable.
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Momofboiler,
Itās funny that you mention approachable Purdue professorsā¦
While walking the campus, we were looking at a map and obviously a bit disoriented, and an older gentleman in shorts and a t-shirt offers to help us with directions. It turned out, he was the assistant dept. head for the CivE department. He then spent 20 minutes telling us about Purdue, discussing other schools we were considering, and answering our questions. If he is representative of the professors there, that speaks well for the school.
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Momofboiler,
I have tried to send PMs on collegeconfidential in the past, and failed miserably. At the risk of being high maintenance, can you either 1. school me on how to send a PM, or 2. send me a PM, to which I could simply reply?
Thanks,
J
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I will PM you now!
Tsbna44,
We did not have Northwestern on the list because we did not think of it as an engineering school. After diving a bit deeper I see that it does have a strong engineering program. Like UofM, NU is strong in just about everything.
We do have a legacy play at NU: Jackās aunt, cousin and two of his grandparents went there. I am not sure how much weight they place on legacies, but we would want Jack to be admitted on merit and attend a school that was appropriate for his academic record.
Oddly, the Lovely and Talented (aka, the wife), is down on NU because she considers it a school for entitled preppy kids. While she ran a business she had 23 year old NU alums with no work experience ask when their first raise would be, and when they would get on the management team during interviews. She started hiring first generation immigrant kids from DePaul and loved them. During a Summer internship at Ford while at UIUC I went into the office on weekends to train the newly hired MBA from NU on how to do financial pro-formas, because he didnāt learn it at school. Not impressed. His hair looked great though, and he knew how to schmooze management.
I know NU is a great school, but I think my wife and I are - fairly or not - prejudiced against the school because of experiences we have had with their alumni.