DS is looking for matches and low reaches for a computer science major. He has two safeties. Cost and location are not important ( we are full pay). Size 2,000 to 10,000 students. No big state schools.
His ACT is 34, 35 super scored. UW GPA is 3.44, with an upward trend. Top 25% at a private Catholic school that sends 100% to 4 year colleges. Decent ECs, but hasn’t cured cancer. Will be National Merit commended but will probably just miss NMSF. Mostly honors/AP classes.
He doesn’t want a tech school, so no RPI, RIT, WPI etc. He wants a school with a broad range of majors in case he changes his mind.
Any ideas?
U Rochester comes to mind as well as Case Western
The problem is his GPA juxtaposed against his ACT. His ACT points to high stat schools but his GPA is pretty low for them. That said, if his lowest grades were in ninth grade, add a couple of lottery schools knowing that acceptances are highly unlikely.
This is from a couple of years back so the data may be old. But this is a fun way of coming up with names.Type in the name of a college and see what schools the college names as peers, see what schools name your school as a peer, and finally see the overlap, if any. It may help your son.
Bucknell, Colgate, Fordham, Holy Cross, Richmond, Rochester, Tulane, Wesleyan.
You need to be selective, since many smaller but generalized schools have small CS departments with limited CS offerings.
Of course, if he changes his mind, what other subjects might he be interested in? Checking the strength of departments in each of his other subjects of interest may be worth doing as well.
Some of these may have small or limited CS departments compared to others. The last time I looked, Richmond’s CS department appeared to be more complete than those at Holy Cross and Tulane, which appeared to be rather small and limited.
To check on the CS department, look up the catalogs and schedules for each school. Look for the following junior/senior level CS courses to see if they exist and are offered frequently:
algorithms and complexity
theory of computation, languages, and automata
operating systems
compilers
networks
databases
software engineering or project course or projects in other courses
computer architecture and other hardware courses
electives like artificial intelligence, graphics, etc.
I would second U of R and Case Western. I was looking at a lot of similar schools and chose Northeastern over WPI/RPI types for similar reasons, though I did apply. It’s a bit over the size range but worth considering IMO. He should get good scholarship there even without NMF and the department is extensive and a small community as its own entire college.
I’ve heard good things about Richmond but can’t give first hand experience. I would see if @guineagirl96 can give some info on their department.
As a reach school, though under 1k students, slightly under 2k, I would strongly suggest checking out Harvey Mudd. The Claremont Colleges are well over the student minimum you gave and the group will also provide academic diversity as well as gender diversity comparatively to other tech focused schools.
Other good high reaches would be Carnegie Mellon, Rice, and Brown, probably already on your radar.
A big +1 to ucb’s post about the departments. Check out how extensive they are first.
How about Santa Clara University ?