<p>Hey,
I need some help looking for/figuring out what schools would be good "matches" and/or a few possible safeties for my list. I have pretty strong stats, which has tended to skew my list towards highly selective colleges, and I want to try to find some more "match" colleges - I really don't want to get screwed because I got too cocky. Help is greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>General/Academic Info
GPA: 4.0 (UW). School doesn't weight, but it should be around 4.6 (Dual Enrollment and Honors are worth 5.0?)
Schedule - toughest possible without skipping levels.
SAT: 2360 (800M 800CR 760W-all essay)
SATII- awaiting (US, Math2, Lit)
PSAT: 231, should be NMF
APs: Euro - 5, awaiting Calc AB, USH, Japanese, and Lang&Comp
Will take classes in Lit, US Gov, Stats, Comp Sci, and EITHER Calc BC OR Chem</p>
<p>Race: Chinese/Filipino/Caucasian mix
HS considered strong public school in WA</p>
<p>Extracurriculars
Bassoonist in a strong Symphony Orchestra
Leadership in debate club (except we got screwed over by district budget issues - attended very few tournaments)
Junior State of America
Several other minor academic/community service clubs - nothing major, but respectable.</p>
<p>Preferences
Possibly interested in Computer Science as a major. Definitely want to go for Math/Science/Engineering areas, hopefully study in multiple areas.
Geography: Leave WA, avoid the South. Prefer inside a city, will settle for near a city.
Size: Medium - I won't discount small schools out of hand, but I'd prefer something around 2000 students or larger.
Prefer Universities to LAC, but I don't mind LA as long as I can get a good strong focus on math/science/engineering.
I really want to be around intelligent people. I want a school to have all or mostly strong, intelligent students, which is part of why this part of my search is so difficult. </p>
<p>I would say it looks like all options are open so reach could be something like MIT, Mudd, Caltech or Carnegie Melon. For match schools I would say consider Georgia Tech, University of Michigan, Rice, Bucknell, Cooper Union, and University of Texas. For safeties consider Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (This is a very good school but they seem to have a fairly high admit rate.), University of Washington, and perhaps Rochester Institute of Technology. Keep in mind that most state schools are taking budget cuts and raising tuition for the next few years so the quality of their programs will probably change by the time you graduate from college.</p>
<p>But, will your parents pay for wherever you want to go? If not, then many OOS publics won’t work unless you get merit money. Most OOS publics won’t give their FA to OOS students.</p>
<p>You need to sit down with your parents and run the EFC calculators at [FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org%5DFinAid”>http://www.finaid.org) and [College</a> Calculators - savings calculators - college costs, loans](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>Calculate Your Cost – BigFuture | College Board) Talk with them about how your family can meet that EFC. Can your family pay more than that EFC each year if the college/university you choose gaps you for financial aid? How much debt is your family willing for you to take on in order to pay for your education? How much money does your family expect you to earn during the summer vacations and during the school year?</p>
<p>Every applicant, even the strongest and the richest, should take the time to identify a rock-solid True Safety. This institution is one where you are guaranteed admission based on your stats (many public institutions post this information right on their websites), that you can pay for with no aid other than federally determined financial aid (FAFSA), that offers your major(s), and that you are happy to attend if all else goes wrong in the admission process. Right now you want to get out of your home state, I can respect that because that is exactly how I felt when I was in HS! However, for most students the True Safety (or the Nearest Thing To A True Safety) is a home-state public community college or university. Once you identify one or two institutions that meet (or come close to meeting) these criteria, apply early to get in line for any goodies that may be on offer (preferred enrollment, scholarship money, etc.). Knowing that you do have a place to go if none of the other institutions works out will make the whole year a lot less stressful.</p>
<p>Financial Aid-wise: For reference, we checked out financial aid from Yale and Princeton a few months ago, and would receive between 20-30K from them.
My brother is looking at entering college a few years behind me, and my parents are nearing retirement age, so we really can’t afford to pay 50k a year, would need some type of aid to top schools.
On the other hand, we do have a decent amount of savings specifically set aside for my education (my father planned well), so I don’t need a full ride or anything. My parents want me to have a good education - my mom has promised that she would pay for an 20-30k Ivy education should I get accepted, for example. That is, however, about the upper limit of what we can afford.
Will look into Collegeboard’s EFC, thanks for the link.</p>
<p>Your suggestions:
CMU, Mudd, MIT, Caltech are definitely on my list for possible reaches. I’m also looking at Ivies, Ivy-levels like Stanford, etc.
UW is certainly going to be one of my safeties.
I really don’t want to go to Texas or Georgia, which is the only thing keeping me from seriously considering Rice.
I’ve noticed that OOS publics are going to be difficult for me to pay for, and that has already affected my search.
Case Western and Bucknell sound interesting, thanks.
Are there any top-level schools that I can consider to be high match or low reach? I have plenty of top schools on my potential list, but I’m having trouble figuring out which ones (besides Ivies/Stanford) are true reaches and which ones are lower reaches.</p>
<p>You may consider the top Canadian schools such as Waterloo, UBC, Toronto & McGill. Also UNC, UVa, Vanderbilt, Minnesota (Chem E, lower OOS tuition) & Cooper Union are good choices.</p>
<p>Did you include the savings in your figures for aid at the ivies? </p>
<p>You’re in the position that if you get accepted to ivies/elites with about $25k in aid, you’ll be ok. :)</p>
<p>The problem will be match/safeties which typically aren’t good with aid with families who don’t have low EFCs. </p>
<p>So, you have to carefully select some match/safeties that will give you good merit.</p>
<p>A school like Purdue, doesn’t guarantee/assure scholarships, but you’d be a likely good contender for its Trustee scholarship (between $10k - 16k per year). That might bring the cost down to your parents’ budgeted amount.</p>
<p>However, what is your parents EXACT position? Are they ONLY willing to pay $20k-30k per year if you get into an ivy/similar, but will only pay XX (a lower amount) if you go elsewhere? My parents want me to have a good education - my mom has promised that she would pay for an $20-30k Ivy education should I get accepted,</p>
<p>However, if your parents’ position is that they will only pay - say up to $20k/yr - for a school that is not tippy-top tier, then your strategy for financial matches and financial safeties must include schools that will give you BIG merit for your stats. You’ll also need to apply to a couple that will give you ASSURED big merit for your stats.</p>
<p>What is your parents position?</p>
<p>You should apply to </p>
<p>USC - half tuition for NMFs…(perhaps full scholarship - competitive) - match</p>
<p>Santa Clara - will likely give you a good scholarship - match</p>
<p>Purdue - safety (but may not give you enough money)</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, Princeton and Yale grant financial aid that’s well above average, even compared to the other Ivies. It might not be the best plan to assume that this is what you’d get from similar schools other than Harvard.</p>
<p>After a long discussion, we’ve concluded that my family can probably afford up to 30K for any school, but for a school that isn’t top tier (not just HYP, but I’ve got plenty of schools on my top-tier list already), it would preferable if I went somewhere like UW, especially considering that I’m likely to want to go to graduate school, at which point my undergraduate school is less important. Another school I have been considering as a safety is Northeastern, which offers full tuition for NMFs, even if it’s not as selective as I’d like</p>
<p>University of Rochester - some good merit aid
Wash U (St. Louis) - ditto, although the merit aid applic. process seems more daunting
Reconsider Rice - it’s different from the rest of the South, tuition is meaningfully cheaper than it’s peers
Emory - also not a typically southern institution (please don’t sic hawkette on me, it’s just my opinion), some good merit aid available.</p>