Here are the colleges I am planning on applying to:
American Uni
Boston Uni
Caltech
Carnegie Mellon Uni
Drexel Uni
Georgia Institute of Technology
Haverford College
Johns Hopkins
Lafayette College
Lehigh Uni
Northeastern Uni
Northwestern Uni
Swarthmore
UMichigan
UPenn
Have I picked enough middle/lower selectivity schools? I am pretty smart, but I will probably not get into quite a few of the more selective schools I have chosen, so I am worried about having a few that I can “fall back” on. Thanks in advance for any responses.
Your list is very top-heavy. What is in your in-state public university? For someone interested in Michigan and GA Tech, your instate public is probably your true safety.
American, BU, Drexel, Lafayette and Lehigh seem to be the schools which might be “more likely but no guarantee” for someone with even the strongest record. With Michigan on your list, you might consider Wisconsin and Purdue, though for an out of state applicant, those are not auto admits, even for a very high achieving applicant. Rose Hulman is a smaller engineering school, if you are looking at engineering. Haverford seems the outlier, given its true liberal arts tradition, on a list which is heavy on engineering/tech/STEM schools.
Have you talked with your parents about finances? Run the Net Price Calculator to determine the cost of attending these schools for your family. Some families discover they are not eligible for financial aid, but cannot write $65,000 checks for 4 years. In that case, they identify schools with good merit-based awards, and/or lower price tags (Wisconsin and Purdue are cheaper for out of state students than, for instance, Michigan, though the gap is shrinking between Wisconsin and Michigan).
Talk finances with your family and add some true admission/financial safeties – schools you are certain to be admitted to and can afford to attend.
I thought that might be the case. I’m new to this site so I may be missing some of the stats people generally provide but here are some of my stats at least:
Cumulative GPA (Weighted): 3.95
Composite SAT Score (Old SAT): 2300
ACT Score: 33
Math II SAT Subject Test Score: 790
Chemistry SAT Subject Test Score: 720
From 9th grade to 11th grade inclusive I have taken 4 AP classes and 8 Honors classes, and this year will be taking 4 more AP and one more Honors. I have about 30 hours of community service in the last year, I don’t recall how much I had before that. I also played club soccer for 9th-11th grade but I tore my ACL so I’m taking some time off from athletics.
Again, I basically just created this account and I have no idea whether I have given too much or too little information, but thank you for your patience and your time.
Thank you, I was beginning to suspect that, as you said, my list was a bit topheavy. I haven’t heard of Rose Hulman, will look into it though. I was starting to gravitate towards Drexel because I would be a legacy student and I like the idea of co-ops, although I’ve heard they don’t provide much financial aid, which I’m realizing more and more will be an issue. My family could certainly afford to pay for my tuition at almost any of these schools, but they can’t afford to pay it twice, and I have a twin sister. I also have been toying with the idea that it doesn’t really matter where I go for undergrad, and that going somewhere slightly cheaper/less selective than many of the colleges on my list would be a better idea, better to hurt my pride than my bank account as it were.
With two in college at the same time, that could affect financial aid eligibility, since your “EFC” – Expected Family Contribution – is split to cover the two kids in college at the same time. But only you and your parents can sort that out, by entering the data in the Net Price Calculator.
What is your own state’s public university? That is almost certainly one you should have on your list.
What major? You can always apply to U Alabama, Temple, and/or Pitt (common safeties for high stat students - many end up with them as a first or second choice too) if you like them. They are rolling admissions, so you’d have your acceptance early and then can just apply to anywhere you think you’d rather go if it worked out.
Of course, this depends upon the finances working at these schools - though one often gets decent merit aid from them and they aren’t super costly to begin with on the scale of college costs. Still, run a NPC for each of them to be sure.
I live in Pennsylvania, so I guess somewhere like Pitt would qualify as a state school? I know of Temple and Penn State as well, but I’m pretty closed to the possibility of attending either of them for personal reasons.
I’m planning on majoring in Software Engineering or, if the school I attend doesn’t offer that, Comp Sci. I actually live somewhat near Pitt and visited it, but I don’t know anything about their Comp Sci programs.
My unweighted GPA is not easily accesible, so I had to calculate it myself, and it came out to be around 3.7 or 3.75 which is not great given some of the schools I’m applying to but I’d hoped my test scores would help make up for that. Perhaps that was overly optimistic of me but there’s still some time to change my mind I suppose.
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My family could certainly afford to pay for my tuition at almost any of these schools, but they can’t afford to pay it twice, and I have a twin sister.
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PLEASE have your parents run the NPCs on each schools’ website. UPitt and other publics may not give you ANY aid. The privates may not give you enough aid.
sk your parents how much they’ll pay each year FOR your education…then find some safeties that work with THAT budget.
What are your Math and CR SAT scores? There are several colleges on your list that are not good choices for software engineering. You need to work on your list. I do not think it is necessarily topheavy. In fact, you may have too many lower tier schools. Depends on your Math SATs. It is just that some of the schools do not fit your goals.