Academics:
99.36/100 weighted GPA
2300 SAT superscore (750 CR / 800 M / 750 W) in 2 sittings. 2250 highest single sitting.
35 ACT w/ writing. It’s a 33 including the writing score.
800 SAT II Chemistry, 800 SAT II Math I, 800 SAT II Math II
3 on AP World History.
4 on AP Chemistry and AP Physics I.
5 on AP Language and Composition and AP US History.
Currently taking AP Calculus BC, AP Music Theory, AP Physics II, AP Literature and Composition, and AP Macroeconomics. Self-studying AP Physics C: Mechanics as well.
Extracurriculars:
Boy Scouts of America, Life Scout (almost Eagle, lol) since 4th grade
Varsity Winter Track in 2014/15 school year, Varsity Soccer and Varsity Spring Track in 2015/16 school year
Competitive Marching Band, 2015 season. Winter Percussion Ensemble, 2016 season. Also play cello for my school’s orchestra and piano. I want to teach myself guitar!
National Honor Society volunteer tutor for anyone who needs help with math/science classes at my school. Spend about an hour a week tutoring afterschool.
With the help of my AP Chemistry teacher, established a Mu Alpha Theta (Math National Honor Society) chapter at my school. President both last year and this year.
Had a job as a Math Tutor for Kumon over the summer. Would have liked to do a summer program at a math camp or something, but family/financial problems + soccer preseason + marching band practices + a job meant it would be very difficult for me to attend pretty much any program I wanted to go to.
Class Officer in both 9th and 10th grade. Helped organize my school’s “spirit night” and a Thanksgiving Food Drive that each grade does.
Robotics Club, 9th and 10th grade. Built robots for VEX competitions. Never actually got to compete in one though!
Self-taught programming and some basic computer science concepts. I have all my projects on Github if needed. Nothing to brag about, though.
Colleges I’m currently applying to:
Stanford
MIT
UC Berkeley
Princeton
Yale
UC Irvine
UC Santa Barbara
UC Los Angeles
California Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University
Columbia University (maybe)
Brown University (maybe)
I’m based in Long Island, NY. Applying to a bunch of California schools because I think I could afford them with financial aid. I also had the application fee waived for the UC schools which meant I was allowed to apply to 4 for free, so I thought I might as well apply to 4.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. If anyone needs more information, please ask. Thanks!
That sucks to hear, but I appreciate the honesty. I honestly wasn’t made aware of this by my guidance counselor or anyone I’ve talked to about it. My family is quite poor so I’ll see what I can get from federal aid. The application fees were waived anyways and the apps are already sent in; I guess I’ll see what happens.
I don’t think you understand what fed aid is for poor students. Fed aid is:
Pell Grant $5700
maybe $1000 SEOG (if lucky)
maybe $2000 work study
5500 student loan
UCs cost $52k for OOS (with an 8% increase next year)
You’d only get $14k max in fed aid.
I realize that GCs don’t know everything about every school, but they should understand that OOS publics aren’t generous to OOS students unless they’re UVA or UNC.
Thanks for replying!
My dad was non-custodial before he passed away.
I believe my mom’s income is all reported as part of her business (she’s a legal assistant).
Nope. =/ I was a National Merit Commended Scholar, but I don’t think that means anything in this context.
@mom2collegekids I can confirm as another NY State kid that our guidance counselors know everything about SUNYs, less about schools outside of the East Coast, and essentially nothing about UCs. In fact, I only learned about this OOS FA issue from you and the other California School commenters. I would think that our GCs would know this just from kids applying to other OOS publics closer to home, but apparently they don’t…Or at least they don’t tell us. The only advice that gets close is when they tell us to run NPCs on our school selections.
I mean, a stupid number of kids stay in state/very close, so I wouldn’t blame the counselors too much, but still…
I agree with xraymancs. Stony has one of the best undergrad CS departments in NY and is relatively easy to get into. Also, with your academics you’re a very strong candidate for a scholarship.
RPI (expensive but they have good aid) and GaTech.
I would also highly recommend Rice - not a “safety” but possibly a “match” for you (certainly easier than most of the ones on your list). Excellent school and they have very generous aid (tuition waved if your family income below $80K).
Forget the UCs - they don’t even have money for Californians, much less OOS
Little to no financial aid for anyone from OOS or international candidates. (At the most, maybe $2K per year-but it generally doesn’t happen since California wants the OOS dollars).
Also, trying to become a resident in California, to save on tuition dollars, won’t happen since your HS diploma will be from OOS and you will be considered as coming for “educational purposes”.
You won’t get much from federal funds towards the $55K per year. At best, maybe $10K and then you would be responsible for the rest $45K per year. If you are “poor”, then the UC’s won’t make sense.
If you really need aid, and want to come to California, you need to apply to the privates. Yes, they are more expensive, but they have more dollars and give out more in scholarships. You may still have time to apply to some.
USC, Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara, USD, Chapman, Pepperdine, Claremont colleges, etc.
Don’t forget it also costs airfare to get out to CA schools. My older son with similar stats used RPI and WPI as safeties and got merit awards from both. They can be unpredictable though. RIT and Rochester are also possibilities. I agree with everyone that SUNY Stonybrook is the obvious safety for you.
No way is Rice a safety, but it IS a great school. It ended up offering the best package of aid and merit to my nephew and he had fabulous opportunities there. The residential college system is also a big plus.
Thanks for all the replies! My Stony Brook app is pretty much good to go and I think I’ll end up applying to RPI (I’m an RPI medalist, so I would get a scholarship there) and maybe Rice (but I haven’t researched it myself yet. I’ll be doing that soon!)
As for the UCs, I’ve pretty much given up on going - thanks for all the information; I was totally clueless beforehand.
Is applying to just Stony Brook and RPI good for safeties, or should I apply to more just in case?
