Need help figuring out reach/target/safety schools

College Search & Selection
1

Hi,

I am going into my junior year next year and am looking for schools to apply to.
My field of interest is engineering.

3.8 UWGPA /4.86W (out of 5.25)
Not in top 10% and my school doesn’t rank those below top 10%.

APs for all of high school:
Freshman:
AP Human Geography
Sophomore:
AP World History
Junior:
AP Physics 1
AP Chemistry
AP Computer Science
AP English III
AP US History

1800+ SAT (no prep), hoping for a 2100 (with studying)

ECs:

80+ volunteer hours

Starting a technology club next year, I will be president

I play euphonium in band/marching band. I will continue band till I graduate.

Member of Science Olympiad team, go to state each year.

I live in Texas if that makes a difference for anything and am also Hispanic.

I have been looking at the following schools but they aren’t in any particular order:

Alabama
Texas
Texas A&M
Cornell
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Rice
Stanford

I need some help figuring out what schools are good reach, target, and safety schools. I also am looking for more schools to apply to.

2

bump

3

Thanks for saying your home state. It does make a difference for public university tuition. Do you have any stipulations in regards to location or weather? The University of Michigan, Case Western Reserve, and Carnegie Mellon are fairly well-renowned for engineering but are in rather cold climates. There aren’t many Hispanics in the state of Michigan, but last I checked (it’s changed a few times), affirmative action is banned for our public universities.

Your GPA seems high, but that stat’s strength is somewhat dependent on the school (which is why class rank is a factor).

I think in order to give better suggestions, CC could use some more characteristics that you are looking for, such as financial aid, the size of the school, and location/setting.

4

Location and weather isn’t much of a factor. I am looking for schools that give some financial aid but are fairly reputable. I think the size of school I am looking for is not small but not super big either; I want to get some individual attention but I also don’t want the school to be some no-name small school out in the middle of nowhere. What is affirmative action? My school is ranked in the top 60 of high school in Texas.

5

You will be full pay at UIUC. They don’t offer aid to out of state students. Alabama offers some merit aid but your scores may not be high enough. A safety is a school you can definitely get into, can definitely afford, and would be happy to attend. Hot about UTD?

6

I’m not too keen on UT Dallas. I am mainly trying to compile a list of colleges to apply to. I’m not sure how many to apply to and I don’t know which schools could be considered reach/target/safety schools either. A list would be cool, even one that has other schools that I didn’t put in the OP.

7

Affirmative action in a nutshell is the policy of giving preference to historically discriminated against group for college admissions, in which case being a Hispanic would be a boost.

I would recommend applying to somewhere from 6 to 10 schools, though it seems some people do apply to more schools than that.

Do you have any strong preference for urban/suburban/rural? I think most great engineering schools are urban, but I do know some exceptions such as Michigan Tech

As far as safety schools go, you may have some luck in the Texas Colleges forum (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/texas-colleges/) .

8

Thank you. I am mainly looking for an urban setting with lots of shops and restaurants. How do teacher recommendations work with applying to schools? Do all schools require them?

9

Teacher recommendation policy varies from school to school (some even want guidance counselor recommendations), but you should note that whatever you use for the Common App is good for every school that uses it.

10

What do you think a good list of schools that I should apply to would be?

11

Well 4 schools I would recommend looking into would be University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), Carnegie Mellon, Case Western Reserve, and the University of Rochester. These are all very prestigious schools, but their acceptance rates aren’t awfully low (25%-42%)

12

The OP is looking for FA and UMich will offer some but not much to an out of state student. That would leave about $50K/year to pay.

OP, run the Net Price Calculators on each school’s web site to get an idea of how much your FAMILY will have to pay. Don’t think you can just get loans. You are limited to a loan of $5500 as a freshman (not a typo).

13

What are your parents saying about how much they’ll pay? Don’t guess…ask them!

Take the ACT a couple of times, also take the SAT… AND STUDY both exams! (why do kids take these exams w/o practice/studying!)

14

Not having a rank means that some Texas public universities may not be assured admission safety options that they otherwise could be (e.g. Texas A&M with top 25% and 1300 SAT CR+M (with 600 or higher in each section) according to http://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/admitted ).

Here is a list of automatic admission criteria for Texas public universities for applicants for fall 2015 (criteria may change, check school web sites): http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/texas-colleges/1677484-texas-public-universities-requirements-for-guaranteed-admission-2015.html

For automatic large merit scholarships that could make schools into potential safeties, see http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/ . Remember, safeties must be affordable, so be sure to talk to your parents about what their contribution will be before you make your application list.

15

Look into the smaller [url="<a href=“http://theaitu.org%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org]AITU[/url] schools if you are interested in engineering. That is what they specialize in. Since they are all private, you will find that some of them give quite generous merit aid and even have some full ride scholarships that you can be nominated for. Most of them are in the colder climates though…

16

If you’re not ranked, you’re at a disadvantage in Texas, because public universities’ admission goes by top 7%/top 10% then top 25% as you must know.
This still leaves St Edward’s (in Austin), Southwestern, Austin College, and Trinity Texas.
Any school that admits 30% or fewer of its applicants is an automatic reach.
Since you’re not top 10%/7%, it means that right now you have a list made of reaches plus one match.
Alabama => match (honors college possible if you manage to pull 1370 CR+M)
Texas => basically not possible if you’re not top 10%. Apply “just to see” but don’t expect anything.
Texas A&M => same thing.
Cornell=> high reach as of now
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign => do your parents have 50K? Ask them. Very selective for engineering.
Rice => reach
Stanford => out of reach, apply “just to see” but don’t expect anything.
You’ll have to choose between UT, A&M, Cornell, and Stanford for that, since it’s almost impossible for you to get in (based on what you’ve said so far).

Most students on this website “plan” to get a 2100 but far fewer get that. Study hard and try to stick to the ACT because for juniors the “new” SAT (and its scoring) may be a complete surprise. In addition, their reaction to the June fiasco (ie? problems on a large scale) makes it unlikely they’ll handle problems with their new SAT well.

Going from 1 to 5 APs is not wise, especially since your junior schedule includes 2 lab sciences plus CS - those are intellectually challenging and very time consuming. Choose between either Chem or Physics

Keep in mind that top schools want to see four years of each: English, Math, Science, Social Science, Foreign language (for FL, level reached “counts”, so that if you have Level4 or AP faster than in 4 years, you’re good.) They also want to see one each of bio, chem, physics, plus one of those at the AP level. AP CS or APES can be added as a complement, or, if science isn’t your thing, can be used as your senior science, but you need to “double up” with a core class to compensate. Schools such as Harvard want to see 4-8 Aps, total (after 8, a law of diminishing returns applies). More than 10 and it become a mere strategy - you’re better off taking a college class in the subject you love rather than taking every AP under the sun. 1 freshman year, 1 sophomore year 3 junior year, 3 senior year is a good schedule. If you want to do 1,1, 4, 4, you can, too.