Need Help Narrowing List for CS/Engineering/Math

College Search & Selection
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<p>Sooo, summer's almost over and my list of colleges is still scattered around the place. I only know a few colleges that I definitely know I want to go to, but my chances there aren't very high. I also happen to have a huge list of at-my-level/backups, which is unusual. I'd like some help narrowing this list down to the ones with the BEST CS, Engineering, and Math program overall. (I'm not sure exactly what major I'll be, but it'll be somewhere in that area.) I'm still unsure whether I want to get my Ph. D or go straight into the industry after getting my Master's, but it would be nice if the college area has a good economy. </p>

<p>Places I'll definitely apply to:
- MIT
- Harvey Mudd
- Carnegie Mellon (free app)
- UT Austin (Turing Scholars Program)
- Florida Tech (free application/backup)</p>

<p>Needs narrowing down:
- UC Berkeley
- Stanford
- Caltech
- Harvard
- Cornell
- Duke
- Rice University
- UIUC
- Georgia Tech
- Rensselaer (Candidate's Choice App)
- NC State (in-state)
- U Michigan at Ann Arbor</p>

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<p>Well, if you’re applying to MIT, Caltech is sort of identical as far as the strength of their programs. Different environments though. </p>

<p>Berkeley, Stanford, Cornell, Georgia Tech, UIUC and UMich are all top engineering schools, and the others aren’t far behind. </p>

<p>Not sure Harvard fits in with your list, same with Duke to a point. Both more liberal arts based.</p>

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<p>Cost considerations?</p>

<p>State residency?</p>

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<p>You’ve made an interesting distinction between must-apply and probably-apply - what’s important to you?</p>

<p>If tossing a few extra $100 around is not that big a problem for your family, I’d move anything on the maybe list that has Early Action up to the definitely pile. I don’t know which schools that includes other than Caltech (as of two years ago, Stanford was SCEA, Rice didn’t have it, and I have no clue about the rest). When my son applied to many of those schools, good EA and rolling results enabled him to delete four schools off the list in late December RD.</p>

<p>Congrats on looking at safeties instead of ONLY the best CS/math/eng - so many people don’t do that part and suffer terribly in spring. :)</p>

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<p>Looks like his state residency is NC.</p>

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<p>how do you get free app to cmu?</p>

<p>is fin aid a consideration at all? you should expect next to nothing from cal, u mich, duke etc.</p>

<p>hmc is a cal tech clone, sort of. so picking either one is fine. you have too many schools on your list.
you can remove ultra safeties</p>

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<p>Mudd is not a Caltech clone. Both schools:[ul][<em>]small[</em>]close to each other[<em>]really really good[</em>]tech schools[<em>]very low grade inflation[</em>]significant core requirements across the sciences[<em>]full of really good students[</em>]have heavy workloads requiring collaboration to survive[<em>]have excellent honor codes allowing take-home, closed-book, timed tests[/ul], but there are significant differences. [ul][*]Mudd has a general engineering degree, and Caltech has flavors. Plenty of pros and cons to both, but it is a significant difference.[</em>]At Mudd, you get profs whose main job is teaching, and at Caltech, their main job is often/always research, and the teaching quality can suffer. [<em>]Although there is more than enough research at Mudd, there is more cutting edge and better-funded research at Caltech. [</em>]For Mudd’s research, the undergrads don’t have to compete with more qualified grad students because there are no grad students at all. [<em>]Caltech is more famous to the general public, but both are famous to those in the know. [</em>]Caltech requires 12 QUARTERS of humanities, and Mudd requires 11.5 SEMESTERS of humanities.[<em>]Caltech’s food may be better; Mudd gives more choices of food (in the consortium) when you get bored.[</em>]Caltech has lower tuition and slightly better need-based aid, and Mudd still has a very few merit scholarships available.[/ul]</p>

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<p>@GeekMom63, Thank you for such a detailed comparison! Also, I’m not sure if I’m THAT qualified to apply early… I took a SAT prep course over the summer and increased my score a lot, so I’d need time to take that again officially. </p>

<p>I qualify for a ton of need-based aid (parents make less than 20,000 a year), so I don’t think financial aid could be a big determining factor? (I’ve been told not to worry since my parent’s income is so low, I can pretty much get money from anywhere.)</p>

<p>I get the free app to CMU from a summer program I attended there. I think I’m a pretty good student (above average test scores, great extracurriculars, research/mentorship experience, good summer program, first-gen, etc), so my chances at any of those are not impossible, but I think perhaps the public schools might be easier to get in (correct me if I’m wrong). </p>

<p>I’ve eliminated Rice because I heard it’s very conservative. I’ve also eliminated Duke because it doesn’t seem like the place for me…Could someone give me some opinions about Cal, Stanford, Harvard, Cornell, Georgia Tech, U Michigan, and NC State? Almost every college website says they support undergrad research; I’m not sure what to believe. I think some important determining factors for me are the social environment (friendly, enthusiastic(!), quirky, excited to work hard at anything), surrounding area (preferably a big city with lots of things going on and lots of job/mentorship opportunities), and general administration (student support, are the professors excited to teach, and how much does the school care about the students). All of these factors look positive from each school’s website, but I’d like to know more specifics if possible :stuck_out_tongue: Or if anyone could direct me to a place I can find those would be awesome too!</p>

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<p>Need-based financial aid generosity varies considerably between different schools. Do not assume that your net cost after non-loan financial aid will be the same at every school that accepts you. Most public universities give very little financial aid to out of state students.</p>

<p>However, if your parents’ income is under $20,000, you probably qualify for the full rides at Stanford and Harvard (and perhaps a few other super-selective schools) if you get in.</p>

<p>Berkeley will probably be unaffordable as an out of state student unless you decide to major in mechanical engineering and manage to get the full ride Drake Scholarship. There is also the Regents’ Scholarship, with a variable award amount based on need, but you should find out first if it is possible to get it from out of state and that the variable award amount can cover the out of state tuition.</p>

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<p>Schools are NOT obligated to pay the difference between what you can afford and what they cost, and most schools don’t. </p>

<p>I wouldn’t eliminate Rice just because it’s conservative. 1) it’s good to know different kinds of people. 2) Almost all schools are pretty liberal. 3) the Rice kids were the happiest we saw anywhere, with research all over the place.</p>

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<p>In another thread, someone said that Rice was moderately liberal (a parent of a Rice student). Does anybody know for sure?</p>

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<p>When you gave your college list, I assumed you had researched the types of students who are typically accepted at those schools. But you said

If you’re being shy and modest, and you really have stellar test scores and stellar GPA and stellar recommendations, then these schools are reasonable as long as you can, in your essays, speak up for yourself a bit better. </p>

<p>If this is an accurate assessment (600s in SATs, etc.), then MIT and many of the others on your list are not very likely unless you can write astounding essays that show how you’ve done this well despite really bad circumstances, and make the schools believe you could do even better with the support you deserve.</p>

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<p>UIUC has excellent CS, physics, and engineering programs, but its math program is not as renown. For math, in terms of actually learning things, it is unlikely that that would limit you unless you were extremely, extremely talented (if you were, you’d know it) because there are a bunch of graduate courses that you could take, but for prestige purposes, it may not look as good. I don’t really know how math works though.</p>

<p>I’d actually recommend striking UIUC from your list because it is not too cheap to go to if you are out of state, and they don’t give any financial aid.</p>

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<p>The main difference of course is that Caltech’s faculty is far more qualified than Mudd’s, precisely because Caltech professors are professional scientists/researchers, and not professional “teachers” as Mudd’s.</p>

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<p>^ just what I was about to say</p>

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<p>So at Mudd you get professors who are better teachers but poorer researchers, and the opposite is true at Caltech. (I don’t necessarily agree, but just saying that if you’re going to make that distinction, then be explicit about each school’s shortcoming in professors.)</p>

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<p>Far more qualified? Alright, but for what?</p>

<p>Yes, Caltech’s faculty may be more qualified… for research. Because they are professional researchers. Mudd’s faculty, on the other hand, may be more qualified for teaching, because that’s the basis on which they are hired.</p>

<p>Both these things are good things. It simply depends on what you’re going for in your school and professors.</p>

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<p>If you want the best engineering and the best pure math, the strongest schools on your list would be MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Caltech, and Michigan, which are among the very best in both. I guess I’d also place Harvey Mudd somewhere in that group, but it’s a very different kind of school. Cornell is definitely in that group on the engineering side, maybe just a shade lower in math. UT Austin is very strong but a shade below the top group in both math and engineering. Harvard is among the best in math, a bit less well regarded in engineering (US News ranks it #26 for undergrad engineering, the same as NC State and RPI). Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, and UIUC are the opposite, among the very best in engineering but not quite as strong in math; still very good, though. Duke and Rice are great schools but not among the very best in either engineering or math; but they have good, strong programs in both fields. RPI’s good but another notch down. NC State is a good option as an in-state safety, pretty strong in engineering, less so in math. (I assume it’s a safety; I don’t know your stats, but if they’re not high enough to make NC State a safety then you have little chance of getting into most of these schools).</p>

<p>Given your family income I think financial aid needs to be a serious consideration. MIT, Harvey Mudd, Stanford, Caltech, Harvard, Cornell, Duke and Rice all met 100% of need, though they may define your need somewhat differently, and some will include loans and work-study in your FA package. Carnegie Mellon and RPI don’t meet 100% of need, and the out-of-state publics (UC Berkeley, Michigan, UIUC, Georgia Tech, UT Austin) don’t meet 100% of need for OOS students (that means you). That’s not to say you shouldn’t apply to some of these schools; some people do get a lot of aid at some of these schools, and you won’t know until you see the FA package they offer.</p>

<p>Problem: the only schools on your list that meet 100% of need are “reaches”; they’re so selective that they’re reaches for pretty much everyone. So what should you do? Well, definitely apply to NC State, a very respectable engineering school, in-state (i.e., cheap), and the easiest to get into. Maybe also RPI as probably the next easiest to get into; FA there is a crapshoot, see what happens. Definitely apply to some of your private reaches that meet 100% of need, but I’d say not more than 3 or 4. Apply to 1 or 2 OOS publics and see what happens; I’d suggest Michigan (stats say it gives more OOS FA than Berkeley, the other public in the top group in both math and engineering, though lots of OOS students at Michigan complain about FA) and maybe Georgia Tech or Texas; see what happens. But I really think you need more schools in the “match” range that meet 100% of need, or as close to it as you can get. One thought: UVA. It’s not as good an engineering school as NC State or Va Tech, but it’s one of the few public universities that meets 100% of need for all students, in-state or OOS (NC State and Va Tech don’t come close to meeting 100% of need, so your FA award from UVA might actually make it more affordable than your in-state option). Another thought: Johns Hopkins, quite strong in both math and engineering. Their 27% acceptance rate is low, but not as low as the other top privates on your list, and their ED acceptance rate is 50%, if you’re willing to go that route. They also meet virtually 100% of need; actually 99% is what they report, but they’re probably just being more honest than other schools. </p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>Be careful about the RPI selectivity. The student caliber at RPI is on par with Georgia Tech and Michigan and the acceptance rate is about 38% which is lower than those two so it’s at least as competitive. </p>

<p>RPI is pretty awesome but tends to be underrated simply because it not a huge program like some of the top publics.</p>

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<p>I’m an alum of Rice and I would not consider it conservative. If tends to lean more toward the liberal side. One of the many things I loved about Rice was its diversity. Not only do you meet people from all different races, cultures,political affiliation, backgrounds, etc., but all these people get along with one another. This is why Rice has been ranked numerous times for “Happiest Students”, "Best Quality of Life, and "Lots of Race/Class Interaction.</p>

<p>Also, Rice is in Houston, a very diverse city. Heck, even the mayor is openly gay women, and a Rice alum!</p>

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<p>You may want to consider travel costs in your budget as well. Some schools may give you an allowance for that, but I think it’s quite rare. (However, if you want to visit and can’t sometimes you can wrangle money , particularly if you are invited to some special event - for example, I believe Mudd flies out those who are finalists for the big merit scholarship.)
And, yes, ‘meeting need’ varies - it can involve on campus jobs and loans.
MIT and Caltech are similar on paper, but the feel is different. Both are big reaches for just about everyone, so if you like both, apply to both and deal with the results when they come.
Harvey Mudd is very different from MIT/Caltech. You really should visit or , at least, talk to a rep. [Office</a> of Admission Staff](<a href=“http://www.hmc.edu/admission1/contactadmission1/staff.html]Office”>http://www.hmc.edu/admission1/contactadmission1/staff.html) shows you what areas the reps cover. Find yours and send an email.
Rice is not conservative.</p>