I am a HS junior looking primarily at California colleges. I have 3.98 UW GPA. Probably about 4.8 WGPA. Took 9 APS as junior. Will take 6 more next year. I attend competitive California HS and rank in the top 3%. Here are my EC: competitive athlete in individual sport for 7 years with regional awards and attended Junior Olympics few times. Had to retire from sport this year due to the injury. I am a president of 2 club at school, officer of another school organization. I have been holding a part time job for almost a year now. Now when I have more free time since I do not do sport any more, I became interested in Debate competitions and do fairly well in them.
I want to major in Engineering. Probably EE or EECS or ME. Family income ~225k. Please help me with the list.
Are you considering the UC’s or other schools in California? Stanford, California Institute of Technology and UC Berkeley are some good options that fit within your stats.
Thank you @TheDidactic. Stanford is my dream school, but it is unrealistic dream so I am trying to find something realistic. UCLA is very unpredictable for non-minority middle class applicants. UCB is a great school but lately been in the news for some students movements I do not support. I love Harvey Mudd, but it will be difficult for my parents since I will probably be a full pay.
Yes, you’re likely to be full pay everywhere.
Look into https://www.ccs.ucsb.edu/
McKenna wouldn’t be a good choice for EE/Stem, it’s very social-science centered like Pitzer, but on the opposite side of the political spectrum.
OP: is it engineering for sure or would CS or other STEM areas be interesting to you?
Run the Net Price Calculator on UCSB, HarveyMudd, UMinnesota Twin Cities, Olin. Show the results to your parents.
Discuss whether they want you within 6 hours (driving distance) or if a plane ride away is fine, and most importanly have them indicate what their budget for your college will be. They’ll be expected to pay up to 65k: will they? can they?
(Are you a boy or a girl?)
Right now, you’re in the enviable position of being able to have many “dream schools” as reaches. I agree that Stanford is unlikely based on what you said above, but you can throw that in if you really want to.
What matters if for you to find colleges you like that are “matches” and “safeties”. As you know UCs have become very very selective and many kids with your stats were Wait Listed or flat out turned down (except from UCR and UCM, so you’d always have the 9% pathway if all fails).
For Engineering specialites, look into UCSC’s College of Engineering and Honors Program as a good “match”/safety.
Another good safety with guaranteed merit aid is college of engineering at UAlabama. Check it out on the UA forum on this website. Another safety for you is likely Barrett at ASU or Commonwealth College at UMass Amherst.
Will you be NMSF? That would open more possibilities.
Thank you everyone. @MYOS1634 i hope to be NMSF in California. Also can you please tell me what is that my resume is lucking now so maybe I can improve it between now and next year?
Your resume isn’t “lacking”, it’s just that any school with acceptance rates below 30% is a lottery AND UCs have become very difficult to get into. If the UC chancelor manages to get the per-student funding restored to what it used to be pre-crisis, things might get easier, but just read the “denied everywhere” threads (many UC unlucky applicants) and the UC result threads to understand that only UCR and UCM are “safe” right now.
So you need a bunch of colleges which are either guaranteed or non-UC/More than 30% selectivity.
NMSF will open a lot of possibilities which will be absolute safeties (= guaranteed admissions), look at the “financial aid forum” and the pinned thread called “links to popular links about FA” or sth like that.