Please help me make my list smaller!

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I, like many, have been trying to create my list of schools to apply to this fall. I would like to apply to no more than 6-7 schools, because I have some financial issues. </p>

<p>Here are my stats:</p>

<p>White male in Washington State
Electrical Engineering</p>

<p>SAT: 2190 (760 CR, 710 M, 720 W with 9 Essay)
ACT: May take this september
SAT II: Will most likely take Math II and Chemistry this fall</p>

<p>Course Load and GPA:
Cumulative GPA: Between 3.67 and 3.70
Class Rank: 53/365 (Will probably go up once we are ranked again, another 4.0 pulled up my GPA)</p>

<p>Freshman Year: 2.950/3.567
Communications Technology A/A
Adv. English 1-2 C+/B
French 1 B-/A
Geometry B/B
Honors Integrated Science B-/A-
Honors World History B / Health A-</p>

<p>Sophomore Year: 3.617/4.0
Adv. English 3-4 A-/A
French 2 B+/A
Digital Photography A/A
Algebra 2 A-/A
Honors Biology B+/A
AP World History A-/A</p>

<p>Junior Year 4.0/4.0</p>

<p>Adv. American Literature A/A
French 3 A/A
Pre-Calculus A/A
AP Statistics A/A
Chemistry A/A
AP US History A/A</p>

<p>Senior Year
AP Literature and Composition
AP Physics I
AP Calculus AB
AP Government
Art
Electronics</p>

<p>I would say my schedule is one of the more rigorous at my school. The only AP classes I will not be taking are AP Chemistry (Requires normal chemistry to be taken first), AP Calculus BC (Only students from one particular middle school that lets students take Algebra 2 in 8th grade are on track to take, I am already 1 year ahead), and AP English Language and Composition (Just didn't think to take for some reason). I can explain my poor performance freshman year on an application. </p>

<p>ECs:
-100 Hours of Volunteering at local children's museum (may be getting job there soon)
-20-30 Hours of volunteering through service club (officer of club)
-National Honor Society next year
-Leadership club that puts on several events throughout the school year including freshman orientation
-Robotics class this summer
-4 Years of private lessons for drums and saxophone
-Volunteering at library this summer
-French Club member
-Math department award</p>

<p>Financial Need:
I have a sibling in college and a retired parent on only social security. My parents will have around 20k saved for me upon graduation and I'm not sure if they will be able to pay each year while I'm in school. One parent makes 70k a year and the other makes 14k due to social security. I would really rather not have more than 30k in debt and I am willing to go to CC if I can't get into any school that I like and graduate with less than 40k or so. </p>

<p>My list right now is:</p>

<p>Safety:
Rochester Institute of Technology
University of Portland
Illinois Institute of Technology
Washington State University (In-State)</p>

<p>Match/High Match:
University of Southern California
University of Washington (In-state, Definitely going to apply)
Boston University (Most likely applying. If net price calculator stays relatively true, definitely affordable).
University of Rochester
Case Western Reserve University</p>

<p>Reach:
Carnegie Mellon University
Johns Hopkins University
Cornell University
Tufts University
Northwestern University</p>

<p>Obviously this is a pretty large list and I would like to cut it at least in half. I know a lot of these schools are a long shot but I would like to have a couple reaches just in case there is a chance I can get in. I want to know what reach schools I have the best chances at though, because I don't want it to be entirely wasted money. I know someone will suggest U. Alabama to me but I ran the net price calculator and it will still be out of my range, unless there is something I'm missing. Anyway, I know this is a lot to read, but I would really appreciate if someone could tell me where I could cut some schools. Ideally it would be about 1-2 Safeties, 2-3 Matches, 2-3 Reaches, so I would like to see where I might have the highest chances of receiving aid or getting in. Thanks!</p>

2

<p>Is your income low enough for you to get a full ride/near-full ride if you get into a safety? If so, then maybe you can cut down the list to two safeties (just to be financially safe + have a choice next semester). I don’t know which ones I’d cut out; Washington State University seems like it’s worth keeping since it’s in-state.</p>

<p>Where do you see yourself working? There’s some variation in the EE programs you’re bringing up in your match/reach range.</p>

<p>CWRU looks like it’s worth keeping since they have good funding and should be able to provide a decent amount of aid. UWash and BU both make sense financially and in terms of opportunity and program strength.</p>

<p>Your reach list is where it gets tough, of course. Johns Hopkins is great if you get in- financially, their Bloomberg Scholarship lowered the cost to $3k/yr for one of my friends. But the issue is that they’re not as good at EE as your other reaches- of that list, I’d say Cornell and CMU are the best ones for ECE; CMU is kind of the opposite of JHU- financially, they’re not as nice but program-wise they’re super-strong and very rigorous. Maybe I’d tier the list so you have one low-reach and one high-reach- how about taking Tufts as your low-reach and Cornell as your high-reach (since they’re the ones that make the most sense financially and program-wise).</p>

<p>So here’s what I’d go with off that list:</p>

<p>Safety: Washington State, RIT (since they’re a peer institution of a couple of your reaches)
Match: UWash, Boston University, CWRU
Reach: Tufts, Cornell</p>

<p>But of course this is pending your career goals and EFC.</p>

<p>Oh, btw, I don’t think your reaches are too far out of reach given your upward trend (although maybe that’s not going to count as much at Cornell). I’m heading into CMU ECE next year and we have many people with GPA/test scores like yours; I think it’s around or slightly below average.</p>

3

<p>It’s a good list. I wouldn’t cut it.</p>

4

<p>Ask for fee waivers? </p>

<p>People mention U of Alabama because it offers great merit aid. It costs around 10k/year for an engineering major with a 1400 CR+Math and 3.5 GPA.</p>

5

<p>@dividerofzero I’m not sure how financially safe the safeties are, I need to look into it more.
I would like to work with medical devices, which is why I include JHU. I figured it might make that career a little more accessible even for an EE due to the strength of the medical program there. How would you list the reaches from “Low Reach” to “High Reach”? I’m glad my freshman year grades aren’t completely locking me out. Thanks!</p>

<p>@fogcity I wish I didn’t have to think about that, but $1000+ in application fees is not realistic for my family right now.</p>

<p>@International95 Are fee waivers that common? And oops I was looking at it wrong, I will probably add UA to the list then. Thanks for the info!</p>

6

<p>Ask your guidance counselor about NACAC fee waivers. I got them because we qualified for free and reduced lunch in my state which I never thought I would. Worth asking. </p>

7

<p>@brm114341 I don’t think I qualify for reduced lunch, but I will check when school starts. Thanks!</p>

8

<p>I think I will actually be taking Tufts off my list, but I would still like to have 2 reaches at least. Can anyone else chime in?</p>

9

<p>I don’t know which one of Northwestern/CMU/JHU will fit you best, then- but Cornell should definitely stay. I calculated the average “real” cost of attendance (stated COA - (% receiving financial aid)(average financial aid package)) and Cornell comes out on top- and ofc their engineering is very strong so they stay on the list. I don’t know how these schools vary in terms of admissions philosophy, although perhaps CMU CIT might be less selective than I suspect (since we’re the biggest college at CMU). From what I know, it doesn’t matter whether you get admitted to ECE (CIT admits either with or without the option to major in ECE) because the option to major in ECE just means some of us have priority; there’s always enough room and it’s never been an issue, according to the upperclassmen I’ve talked to. The only issue is that, in terms of cost, it’ll probably be Cornell as the cheapest, Johns Hopkins very narrowly beating Northwestern, and then CMU as the most expensive (I haven’t looked at it across financial tiers; you might want to use the Times Higher Education comparison tool to do that- although CMU is $20k/yr at the lowest tier since CMU doesn’t have that much money).</p>

<p>I think at this point it’s just going to be odds of getting in vs. quality. If you want to check odds, you could mess around on Parchment for a rough idea since it’s tough to just compare admission rates without accounting for the variation in applicant strength.</p>

<p>As for going to JHU just to work on medical devices, I’m not sure how much of an advantage that would give you. One upperclassman I’ve gotten to know (I believe he’s a rising junior) was conducting research at CMU during spring 2014 to develop and test devices to administer medication with lower rates of error than nurses. I didn’t get to talk to him about it yet, but ECE departments are definitely very aware of the importance of the area you want to work on.</p>

<p>Your odds of getting in might possibly be the highest at CMU (and our program is high-quality) but finances might be an issue.</p>

10

<p>@dividerofzero‌
Yes, Cornell is definitely on the list to stay, as long as it’s not impossible for me to get in. It seems like Cornell is the most affordable (as predicted) and then Northwestern is cheaper than Carnegie Mellon. The net price calculator is down for JHU but I think I remember it being just a little bit more expensive than Cornell. On parchment it has CMU with 41%, JHU with 24%, NU with 23%, and Cornell with 22%. As you said, it seems like I have the best chances at CMU, but if they don’t give enough aid, it would be a wasted application. Is JHU really that weak with EE? I appreciate the response!</p>

11

<p>@Fobonicus‌ JHU isn’t weak with EE. They’re an excellent engineering school but I don’t think they approach the caliber of CMU and Cornell when it comes to EE. Then again, that’s something you can personally judge by looking at the curricula, professors, etc. It’s probably going to fit your goals very well if you’re interested in the medical side of EE.</p>