Need help for creating school list for my son

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Demographics

  • US domestic * US citizen
  • State/Location of residency: California
  • Type of high school very compattive:
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): chinese Male
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): No

Intended Major(s) EE,CS, Aerospace engineering, math, economy, history

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: Acad GPA/3.9762, Total GPA/3.9783, 10-12 GPA/4.00
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): (W) Acad GPA/4.7381, (W) Total GPA/4.6739, (W) 10-12 GPA/4.80
  • College GPA (for transfers):none
  • Class Rank: don’t know
  • ACT/SAT Scores:34/1530

Coursework
9th: 4 AP/H courses
10th: 5 AP/H courses
11th: 7AP/H/IB courses
12th taking: 7AP/H/IB courses

So far, only one B+ on 9th Bio H due to Cov19.

AP-CompSciPrinc,AP-Eur Hist,AP-Comp Sci A,AP-US Hist,AP-Calculus BC,AP-Physics: 2,
taking now: AP_Eng Lang, AP-Gov US,Ap-economy

Awards
some state level Cyber Defense and some others.
QuizBowl, Robotics,Mun and Honorable Delegate.
nothing big
Extracurriculars
one school club funder and President, few other club’s leader positions.
Intern at multinational company
volunteering at musium/4hrs a week for 1+ year

Essays/LORs/Other
try to get letter for US history teacher and AP-Calculus BC teacher

Cost Constraints / Budget
need aid! if school is really good, i will get money for him
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)

  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)

  • Match

  • Reach

Thank you for your help him to create the list of Reach,Match and Likely schools!

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Your child has the stats to be competitive at almost any school in the US. Do you qualify for need based aid or are you looking solely for merit? If you aren’t sure, pick some schools that are being considered and run the Net Price Calculator and see what number they give you.

For a student wanting CS or engineering, please do not go into debt. More prestige won’t translate to better outcomes.

Does you child like bigger or smaller campuses? Urban or rural? Hands on or more theoretical? Any geographic limitations? Having a general sense of budget will also help people here give you some ideas.

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You listed a wide range of majors.

  • Is he undecided between these majors, and wants a school where he can choose later or easily switch?
  • Or does he really want to major in EE/CS, but would accept a different major for the right school (if he didn’t get in to EE/CS)?
  • Or does he want to study multiple things in college?
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thank you for your reply!
He do qualify for need based aid and He is NMSF.

Does you child like bigger or smaller campuses?
He doesn’t care bigger or small.

Urban or rural?
He doesn’t like rural.

Hands on or more theoretical?
I guess theoretical.

Any geographic limitations?
No

Having a general sense of budget will also help people here give you some ideas.
If he can go to good one, He and me will find a way to pay that.

5

I would also suggest looking through Gumbymom’s posts in the UC subform:

There is a pinned thread about CS admit rates at the various UC campuses that will give you a sense of what in state schools would be reach/match/safeties for your student: UC Computer Science admit rates

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He is well rounded kid. He just don’t like Chemistry even though he got a A on Chemistry Honor class. He likes history too.

7

Good, about qualifying for need based aid.

Run the NPC for some reach schools and see if they are affordable because sometimes the school’s definitely of need isn’t the families.

The reason the question was asked about major is that some schools you need to apply directly for CS or Engineering which can be more competitive. History and finance would be potentially different colleges within the university and then switching into CS or Engineering can be virtually impossible.

I’m going to make some recommendations assuming EE/CS/Engineering is the major of choice.

I’d recommend running the Net Price Calculator on:

AZ (safety)
RPI (match)
Carnegie Mellon (reach)

And then looking closely at the UC threads that I linked above.

8

You list AP / Honors classes.

Can you just list AP ? I know he hasn’t taken 23.

If he’s interested at all in engineering he should start there. It’s easier to swap out to other majors then swap in. .

Not sure who gives money to NMSF but you can go for inexpensive to fine schools like Alabama, Arizona, UAH, etc. under $20k. For under $50k Florida and Purdue. Obviously you’re looking at UCs and CP SLO.

Depending on what the net price calculator shows, schools like Princeton, Rice, Cornell, Duke, RPI, Miami Florida, etc.

Even if a school just has Mechanical, it’ll be ok

Wildcards that are aero focused as a school are Florida Tech and Embry Riddle. UAH - mentioned above - will be sub $20k and Huntsville is NASA’s second city. Lots of aero there.

When you say budget is limited - do you have a #?

If he can find a good one - we’ll find money is wrong. They are all good - all ABET accredited.

Live within your means.

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Sorry for the confusion! the following are classes.
9th: AP-CompSciPrinc, Algebra 2-H, Biology-H,World Hist-H
10th: AP-Comp Sci A, AP-Eur Hist, English 2-H, Pre-Calculus-H, Chemistry-H
11th: AP-Physics: 2, AP-Calculus BC,AP-US Hist, Comp Sci-IB SL, English 3-H, French-IB SL, NJROTC 3-H
12th taking: AP-Engl Lang, AP-GovPol US, AP-French,AP-Econ, Multivariable Cal, IB Comp Sci HL2, Njrotc4-H

Yes you are right. They are all good school. I just want find the school that my kid fits well. that is what i mean good one! My bad!

thanks

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To find a fit and no one truly knows til there, you should try to narrow on size, location, sports, etc vs saying wide open. A school with 300 in class is different than a school with 30.

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Your son is a strong student, and there are lots of great options for him out there. Which colleges are appealing to him right now and feel like a fit? Have you attended any college tours?

12

Congratulations to your student for an excellent academic record and I agree that they will be competitive at so many schools.

You state your student needs aid but how much are you willing to contribute each year towards his college costs?

As a California resident, your student should get decent aid if eligible through Federal, Cal Grants, Middle class scholarship etc……

Have you visited any schools and can you give posters an idea of what you are looking for in a college? A “Good” school is a personal preference.

If your student is focused on CS or Engineering, they need to apply to these majors as their 1st choice since switching into these majors can problematic and never guaranteed especially for the UC’s and CSU’s. Unfortunately, the excellent SAT score will not be considered in the admissions review for the UC’s or CSU’s.

Cal Poly SLO is the only California public school that I am aware of that offers some merit for NM. You can list the distinction on the UC applications but no scholarships are specific for being NMSF.
Cal Poly SLO also is the only CSU that uses 9-11th grades for the a-g courses with an 8 semester Honors point cap for UC approved Honors/AP/IB classes taken 10-11th grades.

For the UC’s, here are the admit rates based on the Capped Weighted UC GPA and not major specific so highly competitive majors will be much lower admit rates. GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

Campus 4.20+ 3.80-4.19 3.40-3.79 3.00-3.39
Berkeley 30% 11% 2% 1%
Davis 85% 55% 23% 10%
Irvine 60% 31% 14% 1%
Los Angeles 29% 6% 1% 0%
Merced 97% 98% 96% 89%
Riverside 97% 92% 62% 23%
San Diego 72% 25% 2% 0%
Santa Barbara 73% 28% 4% 1%
Santa Cruz 91% 81% 46% 9%

If you look at the link that @momofboiler1 posted for the UC CS admission rates, most would be in the Reach category which include UCB/UCLA/UCSD/UCI/UCSB/Cal Poly SLO. Target schools would be UCD, UCSC, UCR, San Diego State, Long Beach State and probably San Jose State. Very Likely schools can include UC Merced and any number of other Cal states.

Best of luck to your student, apply widely if Engineering/CS are the top choice for major and please run the Net Price calculators to check affordability.

Hard to make recommendations without knowing what your cost limitations are for college. Harvey Mudd and the Claremont Consortium, Cal Tech, Stanford, Santa Clara are several private universities worth a look if affordable.

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He’s certainly got the academic and scores to be a competitive candidate at almost any school. Is he currently a Senior? Does he have schools in mind? Have him look at the top UCs and see which ones interest him.

Outside of that have him research a couple of different types of schools to see if you can narrow the scope of what he’s looking for.

Look at a few large public research based universities, schools like VA Tech, Purdue, Mich, GA Tech
Look at some schools like WPI that focus on project based learning, Northeastern (Co-op program), Case Western (research focused)
Look at some traditionally undergraduate focused engineering schools like Lehigh. Rose Hullman, Harvey Mudd…

Keep in the back of your mind that you are looking for the best school for him, not necessarily a list of the best engineering schools.

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HOW? Either you have the resources to pay…or you don’t.

You are in CA where there are many great instate public universities. Is your income such that you qualify for the CalGrant? Find out.

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thumper1Senior Member

19h

HOW? Either you have the resources to pay…or you don’t.
I do have the resources to pay.

You are in CA where there are many great instate public universities. Is your income such that you qualify for the CalGrant? Find out.
Thank you and i will take a look at CalGrant.

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If you have the resources to pay out of pocket for schools that cost around $80,000 a YEAR….it’s not likely you are Calgrant eligible.

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I need to borrow money thought.

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My D is an sophomore EE major at University of Central Florida and it is a great fit for her. She has similar stats to your S except not an NMS. She has 2 roommates who are NMS and I believe their tuition/room/board is paid for by UCF scholarships. I don’t know if UCF is still that generous with NMS, but maybe worth checking into. There are internship opportunities available in the area including NASA, Lockheed Martin and the amusement parks. If he enjoys following football (my D does not) UCF joins the Big 12 next year.

I see UCF as a affordable potential fit for your s and his interests if he would be interested in going out of state.

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I think what people are trying to say is that for a student interested in engineering or CS, it’s completely unnecessary to borrow money or go in debt for a college education. You have a very strong student who is likely to see merit money at some of the schools previously mentioned.

These career fields are very egalitarian in that starting salaries are going to be very similar regardless of undergraduate university. My D has friends in engineering at all kinds of schools from small regional schools no one talks about to schools like Georgia Tech - their offers are all within $5k/year of each other.

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