I just realized that parks was some kind of scholarship program, not a specific campus. I misunderstood because I assumed you were specifying between campuses like umd college park or smth. NC state actually sounds really good if I have a chance at a scholarship, thanks for the info.
This has been useful for creating a preliminary college list. Thank you everyone! These are most of the schools rn that I am now considering
Safety: Pitt, Psu
Target and hard targets: Purdue, NC State, UMD, URochester, Wesleyan
Reaches: UVA, GaTech, UIUC
Big Reaches: Swarthmore, WashU, Chicago, UPenn, Brown, Princeton, Northwestern
This is of course not the final list, but these are all great schools that I may very well include in my final list.
Iâm trying to be pretty top heavy with reaches because I would be perfectly happy with penn state or pitt, so I think I can apply to many top programs in case I maybe get into one of them.
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Based on your profile Iâd move UIUC to hard target along with Purdue and UMD. At all three, itâs critical that you apply EA. Theyâre all reaches for CS in RD.
Thank you for sharing your current preliminary list. Out of curiosity, what factors helped you winnow down to these schools?
Oh ok, for purdue and umd, I did not think it was that difficult just based off of my schoolâs naviance, but you may be right. I was planning to apply to every school ea possible anyway, so ig it worked out.
Well, reaches in RD because they admit most of their students in EA. UMD admits 94%, UIUC over 90%. Not sure about Purdueâs number but I believe itâs pretty high up there.
So youâre competing for a very limited number of seats in RD.
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I really just wanted schools that have a lot of academic freedom, some research opportunities, and access to top faculty.
I realized I preferred mid-size to larger schools, generally 3k+ undergrad population.
I ran the npc for most recommended universities, and schools over 55k I took off the list (namely UCLA and HMC). Schools that were on the higher end I compared to other schools on the list that I had a high chance of acceptance and were lower cost and decided many were not worth the extra cost compared to those programs.
I also only picked OOS public schools that had programs that I really liked, eg (UVA echols scholars, UMD gems honors program, etc)
Picking reaches was honestly the hardest part because I didnât want to just throw a ton of schools, so I decided to put schools that are known for being interdisciplinary like Chicago, Brown, and Northwestern.
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How did you decide which schools are interdisciplinary? Most of them make such claims.
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From your list, Brown, the University of Rochester and Wesleyan most match this criterion.
Northwestern uses a quarter system and encourages secondary majors. I also looked at the website for the requirements for this, the program was actually reasonably doable.
Brown and Rochester have very few non major requirements which make it easy to explore different subjects, I am not aware of how bad scheduling the classes would be, but fitting them on a schedule to study 2 subjects is incredibly simple. Brown also has pass/fail for many courses, although I forgot what the conditions were for this.
Chicago has a lot of overlap among math related majors (like cs or phys) and math. There is also a core that covers a wide variety of courses in differing subjects which is not my favorite thing, but is not awful as far as completing two majors. It also works on a quarter system which is supposedly better for scheduling different classes like Northwestern.
I think your strategy is sound. Pitt or PSU are great safeties. Apply early and put some effort into essays. Especially Honors essays. I recommend visiting your safeties. Visit CMU too. Then move on to your reaches. You have a solid list.
The next step would be to work out a budget with your parents. Youâll get different opinions but going into debt for an undergraduate degree doesnât make sense. Good luck.
Thank you for sharing your rationale. With the prep youâre doing this early, you should be well-situated for all the early apps next fall.
Quarter system does allow you to take (or sample) more courses, but if you annualize/normalize them, their requirements, ease of scheduling, etc. tend to be about the same. Open curriculum obviously gives you more flexibility. However, Iâm not sure either has anything to do with interdisciplinary studies.
The areas youâre interested in are highly connected. CS spans a wide spectrum. Math is integral to a significant part of that spectrum. Some of it requires more abstract math and some of it requires more applied math. Interactions between the two are common and expected on most campuses. Thereâre some interdisciplinary majors (e.g. CS+X) that some colleges offer, but I donât think youâd be interested in those.
Sorry, interdisciplinary was a bit misleading, I just mean schools where a double majors/minors are popular and encouraged.
Most universities allow you to double major in CS and math (other than a few that limit you to a single major, or the ones that house the two departments in different schools/colleges and donât allow students to double major from two different schools/colleges). For these universities, double major in CS and math is relatively easily achievable because some of required and elective math courses for the CS major can satisfy some of the requirements for the math major. If you pick a CS discipline that requires a lot of math and do well, no one (graduate schools or employers) will care whether you have a secondary math major/minor.
In a practical sense, you are right in that there is no significant need of a double major. I just happen to enjoy both subjects and want to explore them even if it might not be the most efficient route.
I donât think this is an issue at most any college.
Since your list remains tentative, Iâll say that you seem more like a UChicago type than a Northwestern type.
Thank you everyone for all of your help. After talking to my counselor, visiting colleges, looking at various statistics, and talking to alumni and students of several colleges, I have come to a list that is or strongly resembles my final college list:
UPitt
PSU
GaTech
NYU
UIUC
JHU
CMU
Cornell
UPenn
MIT
Chicago
Rice
Reasoning: my counselor actually suggested not having target schools, and after thinking about it I thought it made sense. I would likely prefer penn state over most of the schools I had considered matches and penn state would also most likely cost less than them. I also realized that I would prefer a medium to larger college as well, so I removed the smaller schools. The others were chosen based on costs from net price calculators as well as schools I thought I might have a shot at based on our schoolâs Naviance.
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