My D selected UT Dallas as backup school in case she falls off all of these 7 schools:
MIT
Stanford
Rice
Northwestern
GA Tech
USC
UT Austin
She wants to do CS major. UT Dallas provides many good scholarships and in-state tuition.
Is UT Dallas good enough to be on the list?
Thanks!
So what I’m seeing here is a bunch of reaches and one safety. Get some match schools.
Is she auto admit to the UT schools?
Are they affordable? Are the others affordable?
I agree. You have four school that are very competitive, (two are uber competitive) and that’s a big drop-off to UT-Dallas. Get some middle schools.
My D has following stats:
SAT-2340
SAT subject Math II-750
going to re-take SAT Subject Chem in Oct
GPA: 4.0
Ranking: 1%
NMSC semi-finalist applying for finalist
She has auto-admission to UT Austin and hope she can get to CS major there.
I think she could have some better safety schools, unless she really likes UT-Dallas.
Any suggestion as to what schools are better safety schools?
Well, it appears UT-Austin will act as safety with auto-admit. Not sure what your ability to pay, but female STEMs are in high demand, so not exactly safety schools, I would consider Georgia Tech, UCs (UCLA n CAL), and U Washington. All have highly ranked CS departments.
If she’s an auto admit for UT Austin then that’s her safety. It’s a great school and very reputable. The only way I’d choose UTD over UT is if she was wanting to go to med school and was selected into the UTD/UTSW guaranteed admit program.
Oppos- I repeated Georgia Tech. I would actually consider adding Princeton, Yale and CMU. Although, you have several elite schools already listed, depending on your family income level, they could potentially make financial sense. Once they know her scores and interest in CS, they will make a strong recruitment drive towards her.
Assuming Texas residency…
Automatic admission to UT Austin does not mean automatic admission to a specific division or major. However, the student’s top 1% rank and very high SAT score make it rather unlikely that she will be rejected from any major.
https://cns.utexas.edu/students/future/freshmen#2015-freshmen-class-profile
So if UT Austin is affordable, then it is nearly a safety already. If it is not affordable, then it needs to be placed in the reach or match category depending on the likelihood of getting the necessary scholarships to make it affordable.
She can still use UT Dallas, Texas A&M, or some other affordable Texas public university as an additional safety for the small chance that she is not admitted to her desired major at UT Austin. It is possible for UT Austin students not in the CS major to internally transfer to the CS major, but that requires another competitive admission process.
For low cost big merit scholarship safeties, there are some lists here:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/ (if she gets National Merit)
Your “safeties” depend a lot on your finances.
Why is Texas A&M not on the list?
Most of the schools with great CS programs are OOS public universities, so it would be impractical to choose them over A&M/UT Dallas unless the student really wants to get out of Texas.
Additionally, if she applies to Yale and Princeton, she should send an app to Cornell as well.
If she would be happy to attend UTD then it’s fine to just have that as the only safety. Some students do want a choice, though.
She might also want to look at the McDermott Scholars program at UTD. Students forgo Ivies and other elite school admissions to enroll in that.
I think UTD is a great safety! Agree with @rout66. She should definitely apply to the McDermott Scholars program.
My son is a rising senior at MIT, but he was strongly considering UTD after he was offered the McDermott Scholarship.
I was very impressed with UTD. Dorms were great; people were nice; academics are excellent; honors program has a good reputation; and there seems to be unlimited money flowing through the McDermott Program.
OP, the other safeties my son had on his list were Baylor (check out their Invitation to Excellence program/scholarship) and University of Pittsburgh.
In the end, he got into all his schools including a couple of Ivies and some other STEM schools, but MIT was the best fit (and we are fortunate to get a ton of financial aid). UTD was definitely a school he was considering.
UTD is a great school and actually the top choice for both my older girls. Neither of them had any desire at all to go to UT Austin and take classes with several hundred other students being taught by TAs instead of professors.
The Collegium V Honors program at UTD is fabulous and is well-worth looking into. My oldest did not choose to apply for it, but my middle daughter has really enjoyed it. It has a lot of perks as well, like being first in line to register. She has really enjoyed the very small class size for the honors classes too (usually around 10 students).