US domestic (US citizen or permanent resident) or international student: US Citizen, immigrated 12 years ago
State/Location of residency: (state is important if you apply to any state universities) Texas
Type of high school (current college for transfers): Public Magnet Early College Highschool
Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): Male, African American
Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): First generation in the USA, low income (35,000 for a family of 8)
Intended Major(s)
Computer Science
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.94
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.55/5.00 I think. This number is pretty useless, bc school only has 2 ap classes, and it’s low because I only took 1 of them.
College GPA (for transfers):
Class Rank: 12/97 W, 10/97 UW
ACT/SAT Scores: 1400 first attempt at SAT (680 reading, 720 math) 1530 second attempt at SAT(750 reading, 780 math)
Coursework (AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))
1 AP class out of 2 offered, AP Human Geography, scored a 4.
Tons of dual enrollment courses, all As except in College Algebra, where I got a B.
I will reach dual credit precal by first semester this upcoming year. (My senior year) may take calc 1 second semester.
Awards
School district SAT scholar
Potential national merit scholar, definite National merit commended student
Questbridge College Prep Scholar
Gold key scholastic art and writing competition if that counts
Extracurriculars (Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
designed, programmed, bug tested, and altogether fully created a game on Roblox. (Yes I’m including that)
National Science Honor society member
Vice President of school coding Club
Co-founded a club at my school that does peer reviews and editing suggestions for volunteer hours.
Mentor in schools mentorship program
Tons and tons of family responsibilities.
Essays/LORs/Other (Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)
Let’s assume they are about average. I don’t know how good they really are.
Cost Constraints / Budget (High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)
I’d prefer no more than around 7,000 final cost to me per year, so I can realistically pay it back.
Schools (List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)
Safety (certain admission and affordability)
Texas Tech
Texas A&M
UT Dallas
Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
Match
UT Austin
Reach
Boston University
NYU
Columbia university (dream school)
Princeton university
University of Pennsylvania
Yale
Stanford
Have you considered Questbridge? That would probably be a great option for you to apply to those reaches.
Are you planning to pay for college through student loans? Keep in mind that $7000 is over the amount you will be allowed to borrow in your first two years. Or perhaps you could do work study or get a part time job? But really you need to be focused on universities that match need and provide significant financial aid, imo.
Have you checked whether they are all affordable? (under $7k net price after financial aid grants and scholarships)
Of the above, only Texas Tech has assured admission for your stats (but check if the computer science major has more difficult or competitive criteria). Texas A&M (College Station) and UT Dallas assure admission only for top 10% rank in Texas, and your rank is just outside of the top 10% (again, the caution about computer science applies; Texas A&M also has competitive secondary admission to the computer science major if you do not earn a 3.75 college GPA in your first few semesters).
UT Austin is a reach for any applicant outside of the top 6% in Texas (its automatic admission threshold), and the computer science major is an additional reach.
Congratulations on your excellent high school achievements. Consider looking at Vanderbilt for their very good financial aid. Once you are sure that you have a solid safety that you can afford, I’m guessing most of the rest of your list will be reaches in terms of admission and affordability. Questbridge sounds like a great option. Do you have someone you trust to review your essays and give feedback? Best of luck!
It sounds like you are already a Questbridge College Prep Scholar. Do the prep scholars get automatically admitted into the match program? If you are not automatically eligible for Questbridge, you could look at the Gates Scholarship or the Jack Kent Cooke College Scholarship or one of the Ron Brown scholarships. I think your family income, gpa, and test scores would make you a serious candidate for all of them. Actually, I don’t believe that Jack Kent Cooke looks at test scores but you have fantastic grades and they look for low-income students with high achievement and strong academics. I am not sure if you have as much community service or leadership type service as those scholarships seem to want. You can research more on their web sites, but if you have tons of family responsibilities --sounds like you might be a caretaker for siblings or extended family, I would think that you could discuss those on your applications in addition to your extracurriculars.
Note that there are different definitions of “first generation to college”. A broader one is “neither parent has a bachelor’s degree or equivalent (from a college or university in any country)”. A narrower one is “neither parent has attended any college or university (in any country)”.
Yes I don’t fall under the traditional first generation definition, but I am in the first generation of my family to go to college in the United States. My parents went to college in Nigeria, and both got bachelor’s degrees, but I still lack support in my own application process, since they’re not familiar with it. I plan to detail this precisely in the additional information section, and briefly explain that I’ve had many of the same difficulties as others who fit the more conventional definition.
You will not be considered first gen by the vast majority of schools. Plenty of parents aren’t familiar with the current college application process - even parents who went to college here in America.
But you have plenty of other things in your favor so it’s not a big deal to not be considered first gen.
NYU, BU, UPenn, Yale et Al are not particularly great for CS. So why these schools? Given your cost constraints, you need to find some likelies and safeties within budget and limit reaches to just the schools like Stanford where a student like you should be able to go for free, if admitted.
UPenn NYU and BU are because I like the location. I like urban areas with snow basically. Yale, if I’m being honest, I included to sort of hedge my chances. I really hope to be admitted to a top school, because I ran the net price calculators and I’d be able to afford most of them, with the amount of aid they give.
Are there any less selective schools you would suggest that would support me financially?
I think you will be a strong candidate to many colleges, and I wish you the very best of luck during your college search process.
I agree with others that Texas A&M is not a safety and that UT-Austin is a reach, due to the auto admit policies they have in place. Additionally, at Texas A&M, computer science is in the engineering school which requires a student to earn a 3.75 GPA in their first year in order to qualify for the major of their choice. So it’s definitely a gamble if you want to study CS there. I think your chances at BU are better than those of a “reach” school, too.
Will you feel compelled to assist/come home with any of these family responsibilities while in college? The more frequently you think you might come home, the more important the ease of transportation is in getting home.
One school that I would strongly consider is Rice, which is also a QuestBridge school. Strong academic schools often give students from their own state (or local area) extra consideration.
You may also want to familiarize yourself with some of the data in Washington Monthly’s college rankings (they allow you to download their full data set, so you can sort schools by the metrics that are most important to you). One of the unique things about these rankings is that they have a social mobility ranking, showing how schools perform with the Pell grant recipients in comparison with the rest of their population. Schools that perform well on these metrics might have better supports for a FGLI student (regardless of the definition of first generation).
Some QuestBridge schools that rank well on social mobility are already on your list, but include:
Needing basically a full ride, your college application list needs to be aimed at the following:
Safeties: automatic full ride merit scholarships for your stats.
Safeties: automatic admission to colleges where need-based aid will be enough (check whether Texas public universities other than UT Austin, Texas A&M College Station, and UT Dallas would offer enough need-based aid).
Reaches: competitive full ride merit scholarships at colleges where you are at the higher end of their admit class.
Reaches: colleges with enough need-based aid (but these tend to be highly competitive for admission).
If you are eligible for QuestBridge match, I would definitely use that to the fullest, as if you are matched, that will cover all of your costs. UT-Dallas is a great safety because it does a good job of graduating its Pell recipients, if you’re a National Merit/Achievement scholar then you would also get nearly a full ride (I think you now might need to cover your food?).
One school you may want to consider is New Jersey Institute of Technology: If you’re a National Merit Scholar then you would get full tuition and fees. Alternatively, if you’re accepted into their honors program (good shot) then you would be eligible for a scholarship up to full tuition and fees, too. There’s also the Honors Residential Scholarship for honors students living on-campus which grants up to full room & board. So this school would definitely have lots of potential for getting a full ride (source). And as Sen. Cory Booker likes to attest, Newark is definitely urban, and in 35m via public transportation you’re in NYC.
First time I have heard of Yale being considered an admissions hedge! I actually think you have as good of a chance to get in your top reaches as about any candidate. Make sure you develop a good thesis on “why” XYZ.
I’m not sure that not having parents who can guide you through the application process is something to put into your application. I think first gen is sort of a stand-in for less socio-economic opportunities, not college application opportunities. Your other stats etc are good – I’m not sure that the extra information you are thinking of providing will help you and I fear it might hurt you by seeming to make excuses when you have already done so well.