Hello, I am a rising senior from New York. With college application deadlines just around the corner I was wondering if the college list I have made is a well-balanced one. I plan on majoring in computer science with a possible pre-med tract.
First, here are my “credentials”:
Weighted GPA: 99.86
Unweighted GPA: 96.33
Class Rank: 9 out of 390
Critical Reading: 560
Math: 630
Writing: 610
SAT: 1800
SAT Subject Test in Math II; 650
EC’s: Head Lighting Designer (Member of Drama Club for 4 years)
Secretary of Community Service Club (Member for 4 years)
Secretary of NHS (Member for 2 years)
Hospital Volunteer (Over 100 Hours)
Wind Ensemble (Throughout HS)
Math Team (2 Years)
Quiz Bowl (2 Years)
And here’s my potential college list:
CUNY Schools - Queens College, Hunter, City, Brooklyn
Manhattan College (any suggestions as to any other safeties?)
Binghamton University
Stony Brook University
Rutgers University or Penn State University
UM College Park or UMass Amherst
RPI or University of Rochester
Boston University or Northeastern
Wow nice credentials. I definitely think those are well balanced schools. Also, in my opinion, I could see you applying to Cornell and Boston U if you’re still unsure of which. Good luck!
TomSrOfBoston:
Thank you for your input. I was worried that my SAT scores were too low for a lot of the schools on my list. But hey, they don’t call them reach schools for nothing!
We’ve had similar “high GPA / low SAT” students get into U of Roch. & RPI, but they will still be a reach. A 1190 with no hook is going to be nearly impossible at Cornell. I am not as familiar with the other schools
Don’t waste money on the Cornell application. Northeastern is a very high reach; they value test scores highly and is likely not worth applying to either. You will need some seriously good essays for Rochester or RPI. Could you afford UCSD? Know that UCSD is not really worth applying to either, considering the caps placed this year on the numbers of OOS students that can attend UCs.
I’ve noticed that no one has really mentioned anything about Boston University? If anyone could offer any insight into this school I would really appreciate it!
@ceroca28, Your CR + M scores are on the low end of Stony Brook’s range and below Binghamton’s. I’d think about switching one of them out for Albany or New Paltz unless you have a couple of solid safeties already. If you can retake the SAT in the fall and raise your CR by even 50 or 60 points, you’ll stand a better chance at Stony Brook, but you’ll still be low for Binghamton.
Can your parents pay OOS rates? My son was accepted to Penn State (he’s a NYS student with similar stats), but they don’t give much aid to OOS students so he opted for a SUNY.
Unless you are an URM a 560 CR will not get you into Binghamton’s Watson Engineering school for computer science or Stony Brook Computer Science program. You would have a better chance of admission applying to the Harpur liberal arts colleges at Binghamton and a non CS major at Stony Brook. I recommend you take SAT again in October (or ACT in November) and try to get your CR score over 600 if you want to be a match for Binghamton and Stony Brook. Right now, even with your high gpa i think both of these SUNYs are low reaches for you. SUNY Buffalo has a strong computer science and pre-med program. Given your interest in CS or pre-med, I would add SUNY Buffalo instead of Albany and New Paltz. I think you are a match right now for Buffalo CS.
“Your CR + M scores are on the low end of Stony Brook’s range and below Binghamton’s. I’d think about switching one of them out for Albany or New Paltz unless you have a couple of solid safeties already. If you can retake the SAT in the fall and raise your CR by even 50 or 60 points, you’ll stand a better chance at Stony Brook, but you’ll still be low for Binghamton.”
I disagree about Binghamton. I believe Binghamton’s scores are actually quite a bit lower than they appear to be because Binghamton apparently leaves out the scores for a good number of students-where as other schools include scores for all the students. So what looks like the 25% to 75% spread really isn’t. The entire range would slide down. Uncertain by how much tho. At least this was true a couple of years ago. Apparently scores for EOP students, Advantage students, international students who do send scores are not included in the published spread. So the actual range is lower. And if so, the OP’s scores are probably very competitive for Binghamton.
If the OP isn’t applying via EOP it’s not going to help that EOP students can get in with lower stats.
The huge missing yet critical criterion missing from this list is: what’s your parents’ budget?
Right now, most of the schools are reaches or incredibly expensive (or both). If OP’s budget is 60K/year, then the discussion is different than if it is 35K/year.