Hey everyone! I’m going to be a Senior this fall and I’m finalizing my college list and was hoping to get some insight. I finalized some schools and I was hoping you could let me know if it’s a good list.
Btw I’m applying as a Computer Science Major.
Here is my list:
Carnegie Mellon
Cornell University
Northwestern University
University of Michigan
Duke University
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of North Carolina
The University of Texas-Austin
Here are my stats:
SAT: 1520 (Superscore 1530)
GPA: 4.60 Weighted / 4.0 Unweighted
AP Scholar With Distinction
Dean’s Highest Honor Roll
Computer Science Internship in Chicago
National Community Service Honor Award
Non Profit Founder
Summer Job as a Math Tutor
4 Leadership Positions in School Clubs
Let me know if I should add or drop any colleges. Thank you!
That’s a pretty top-heavy list, especially in CS. You need something more modest so you don’t end up with no acceptances that you can afford. So find some less awesome places you can get into, and then have a talk with your parents about money. They’ll need to sit with the NPC calculator at a few schools to figure out what your budget looks like.
But while you’re doing that, maybe more important that that, make an effort to figure out what you want out of school. No offense, but your list is a third of the top 25 CS schools with nothing particular to indicate why you chose them (large/small, urban/rural, public/private, east/west, etc. Why not Rice, for example: USNWR #20 in CS.)
The challenge isn’t just to get into the “best” program on the list, but to find a school where you’ll bloom. Don’t settle for big names. Jobs will be out there no matter where you go, so think about what would be good or bad about getting into any of those versus, say, U of MN (#29) or RIT (#68) or RPI (# 55)? There are lots of tremendous schools out there, so figure out if you want to cheer for football or see snow or have a beach nearby or be in a huge city or out in the boonies. Take time to look around and you’ll find all sorts of cool stuff: Utah (#43) uses the old Olympic village as dorms these days and is magical if you want to be in the mountains. Open your eyes and dig around and have fun. Good luck.
I live in Illinois and was thinking of some more Target/Safety Schools. I was thinking about applying to Penn State, Ohio State, University of Wisconsin, University of Minnesota. Do these colleges give me a well balanced list?
Depends. Are you full pay? Or do you need financial assistance through need-based or merit aid? These are all public universities in states you don’t live in. You won’t get good or any financial aid.
Talk with your parents about how they expect you to pay for your education. Sit down with them, and run the Net Price Calculators at the websites of each of the places currently on your list. Have some adult beverages and soft tissues on hand in case your parents find a sudden need for those things.
You don’t have any dead-on admission safeties on your list, so look through the threads on automatic admission, and find one or two. You need at least one place on your list that guarantees admission for your stats. Even better if it has automatic merit for your stats that brings it clearly into the affordable range. For some IL students, that ends up being ISU, U of IA, or UNI, so don’t be scared of heading one state west.
The only near safety of these four is Minnesota. The rest are probably matches for CS.
Someone above suggested NC State which would be another reach, VT probably a high match.
Iowa, Iowa State and U Northern Iowa would be near safeties (if they are affordable), as admission is based on an admission index: https://admissions.uiowa.edu/rai
You do need to get a handle on your budget and run the net price calculators to determine if a school will be affordable.
What about DePaul or Illinois Tech for a near safeties? They have excellent CS programs, but you need to confirm affordability.
Does your HS use Naviance or Scoir? If so that might help you categorize schools, but CS can be a more difficult admit than those show. Also speak with your GC to get their thoughts.
Definitely apply to UIUC. It is superb for computer science – one of the very, very top schools. Since you are in-state it would be a bargain, but would still have as good a program as your will find anywhere.
Given the quality of your in-state choice, I cannot imagine paying out of state prices for a lesser or even equal program somewhere else (although the other schools you have mentioned are also all very good).
If you want to go out of state, after you graduate with a degree in CS from UIUC employers throughout the country will recognize the strength of the program you just came out of.