need help with match/safety schools - 1550 SAT, 3.98 GPA, engineering with bio minor

College Search & Selection
1

Hi,

My son is entering senior year and we’re having a hard time narrowing down his college list and settling on a list of match and safety schools.

He’s looking for schools with strong engineering and computer science programs, where he could also minor or double major in biology. He wants to make his academic home in computer science or an engineering field (either robotics or mechanical engineering), but learn to develop biology-related applications. He doesn’t want to major in biomedical engineering (from what we’ve read, the degree focuses on breadth rather than depth in engineering at the undergraduate level, and he wants to start by going deep into CS or an engineering field so he has more flexibility later). He also doesn’t want a bioinformatics program.

Here are his stats:

3.98 GPA unweighted, out of 4.0 (all AP or honors courses, with college chem, at a public science-focused school)

1550 SAT (780 reading, 770 math); 770 SAT Biology (waiting on Math 2 score)

5’s in AP Computer Science, AP Statistics, AP Calculus BC (still waiting on spring scores; he’ll have 9 AP’s in all)

2 research internships in university biology labs; 1 summer in a computing program at Carnegie Mellon.

extracurriculars: 2 robotics teams, regional science fairs, National Honor Society, school’s math and data competition teams, volunteers at charity shop and church, serves as a mentor/teacher for Hour of Code and for middle school robotics.

He’s visited and plans to apply to MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Cornell, and is looking at a couple of ivies - but those are a reach for everyone. We have two possible in-state safeties (Pitt and Penn State), but we’re having a problem figuring out where other engineering schools (like Northwestern, Michigan, Case Western, Georgia Tech) fit in terms of reach / match / safety for him.

Anywhere in the country is fine, private or public. He’d love places that have a mix of programs (so it’s not only science/technology-focused on campus), and especially places that have good opportunities for undergraduate research with mentoring by faculty, and will let him cross disciplines the way he hopes to.

Thanks in advance for your help! We’d welcome any suggestions you might have, either for schools or for questions we should be asking to sort all this out.

2

Northwestern’s low acceptance rate makes it a reach, but Michigan, CW, and Georgia Tech look like matches to me. Has he looked at Purdue? Purdue and Texas A&M would be great match/safeties for him.

I know that they’re more in the high match/reach category, but he may like the University of Southern California and Rice University. USC is definitely on the diverse interests side and the Viterbi school of engineering is great. They mentioned a number of interesting options for engineering students when I toured!

3

Incoming Cornell freshman here, non-engineering major but STEM oriented. My stats were 1500 SAT and 33 ACT. I applied to GT, UMichigan, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, UColorado Boulder, IU, UChicago, and Cornell. Rejected from NW, UChicago, and Johns Hopkins. Great offers from GT, Colorado, and IU. Not a dime from Michigan and $2000 from Cornell which may as well be nothing at 70k a year. I said no to GT because while I’m STEM I also love the liberal arts and I did not think it could offer me the breadth of education I want. No to Michigan because I did not like the campus - didn’t feel like a cohesive campus to me. No to Boulder because after researching it further I did not feel like it was the right fit for me. Came down to IU Bloomington that offered me a sweet deal and has a great campus with wonderful staff and Cornell. Visited Cornell and that was it for me! Done deal! GT=Engineer in my mind. It is a beautiful campus but very urban being in the heart of Atlanta. Definitely have solid safety schools. My only safeties were IU and Colorado. I did not get into my top school, UChicago and was ready to put my deposit in to IU when I found out I got into Cornell. I applied regular decision. If he applies to Cornell I suggest applying to at least one other Ivy. They will match other Ivy offers but not offers from non-Ivy schools which was a bummer for me. Good luck!

4

@newkidnewtrix - Thanks for the suggestions! We’ll definitely check them out. Purdue’s a great idea for him to look at more closely – from the website it looks like there are some amazing programs there.

5

How about UIUC? My nephew just graduated from there with a CS degree and had several job offers from which to choose. He seemed to enjoy his time there.

6

@STEM2021 – Thanks for sharing your experience! How many safeties would you have applied for if you could do it again? We’re still figuring out how many applications in total makes sense (he’s the oldest child, so we’re learning as we go…)

I didn’t realize about the policy of matching Ivy financial aid offers, so we’ll definitely look at adding at least another to his list; thanks for the warning.

7

Is cost a factor?

8

Bucknell offers $10,000 renewable scholarships for students who were on FIRST robotics teams in high school. http://www.bucknell.edu/FIRSTScholarship

Lehigh and WPI also have reputations for favoring applicants with FIRST experience. WPI has historically collaborated closely with FIRST.

9

I would have had 4 solid safeties. GT, Michigan are super competitive and don’t qualify as safeties in my opinion. There were some with perfect SATs/ACTs that didn’t get in. GT is also a bit rigid on major and whatever you list you have to start out in but can change I think at the end of your first year. That might be something you want to look into, flexibility of changing majors. I applied earlier to all but UChicago and Cornell because they were binding. I think applying early helps your chances. Oh, U of I - Champaign Urbana, IL is a great school as is Rose Hulman, IN. Those may be 2 schools not on your radar.

10

@Corbett – thanks for the heads up about the FIRST robotics connection for those schools! We’d already started to think about WPI because of its project emphasis, and I’ll look into Bucknell.

@ucbalumnus – cost is a factor. We estimate that we can handle about $30K / yr. The net price calculators we’ve used for various schools range really widely (the Ivies and MIT estimate around $15K, CMU says $30K, Michigan and Illinois estimate it in the low $40s…).

From what I’m seeing, he may end up priced out of public schools where we’d pay out of state tuition (we’re in PA), and end up looking for private match / safety schools that offer a chance at merit aid.

@STEM2021 – thanks for the advice re: flexibility in changing majors! I think that will be a big factor in his selection process.

11

He should get into one of his matches. However, I agree that having a safety, or even two, is necessary.

The most obvious choice is your local state university. I missed what state you are in so how good this is I don’t know (and if you are in California the first two might be matches or reaches, and number 3 or 4 the safety).

A slightly odd thought as a safety: McGill. For most of the top Canadian schools you get in based on grades and SAT. He has the grades and SAT. McGill is a great university and I think that it probably is a legitimate safety for him (as well as being one of the top 30 or 40 schools in the world, and relatively reasonably priced).

12

A double major won’t likely be possible with the ridgid requirements of an ABET curriculum.

If he knows he wants ME of CS, Cal Poly is a worthy consideration. It’s a great value from OOS, at $36k total yearly COA. Those are both large, strong programs, but VERY competitive. They admit by objective algorithm though, and it pits all OOS students in a separate pool from CA students. It is probably a slight advantage to be OOS.

They do not offer doctorates, so they are highly undergrad focussed. They have very strong engineering facilities with over 80 labs in the College of Engineering alone. What sets them apart us their Learn by Doing motto. Nearly every class has a lab. They have lots of clubs that are 100% student driven. They have multiple incubators. Classes are small and 100% professor taught including labs.

Check out Axon VR. It’s a business incubated at Poly developing a full body haptic suit. Look at PROVE Lab. They’re developing a solar car that will break the world land speed record for it’s category. There’s also CubeSat. It was developed at Cal Poly, the standard is maintained there for both satellites and the launcher. It’s where Bill Nye decided to have Light Sail tested and ultimately launched.

What they lack is big time athletics (unless he’s into the best soccer rivalry in the NCAA) and Nobel level research. The latter isn’t usually accessible by UGs anyway.

Lastly, the location is beautiful.

Full disclosure, my similar stats son chose Cal Poly from out of state.

Good luck!

P.S. Case would be a match and will likely come with merit to bring the total COA near Cal Poly ($100k). WPI and RPI would be good match programs for his interests.

13

Northeastern sounds like a good fit if he’s into co-op. There’s a combined CS and Biology degree, good engineering with lots of research available on campus, lots of class flexibility across departments, and has more than just tech majors. Would be a match with a good chance of scholarship (up to about 30K), so a decent chance of affordability even before financial aid. Of course, run the NPC as well. Boston is also a great place to be for medical tech.

14

For CS also look at U-Waterloo. Total costs are around $44K Canadian, roughly $33K USD

15

the posts have given you a lot of good choices, what you and your son need to figure out is how many reaches to apply since you had five coming in and given Northwestern and JHU may be really good colleges to consider, you may want to swap out one of the other ivy’s you were considering for one of NU or JHU. Al the other colleges mentioned are matches and safeties.

16

Thanks, everyone! I’ve added all these schools to our list and am running the Net Price Calculator for each.



On the Canadian schools - are there any potential professional issues with doing engineering training outside of the US, if you’re planning to work in the US? (I can’t think of any, but better to investigate now than find out later…)

17

Those schools which are not affordable at list price or need-based aid should have reach/match/safety assessed on whether he can get enough merit scholarships to make them affordable, not admission. Unless the needed merit scholarship is automatic-for-stats, it should generally be assessed as a reach.

18

@ucbalumnus - That’s a really helpful way to think about assigning schools to the reach category; you’ve made sorting the OOS schools much simpler for us! There are a few schools that he likes but aren’t his top choices, ones that don’t offer much or any OOS merit, that will get cut from his list on that basis, I think. Thanks for the idea.

19

“On the Canadian schools - are there any potential professional issues with doing engineering training outside of the US, if you’re planning to work in the US? (I can’t think of any, but better to investigate now than find out later…)”

I know several people who got at least one degree in Canada and at least one in the US with no problems. I also know people with PhD’s from one country who teach in the other country, and I know of doctors in the US who got their MD degree in Canada.

However, I don’t know anything about either ABET or Engineers Canada. I agree that this is something that a potential engineering student needs to check out if they are considering university outside of their home country.

20

Here is ABET’s page on mutual recognition agreements with similar organizations in other countries:
http://www.abet.org/global-presence/mutual-recognition-agreements/