<p>Hey guys, so here's my info. Could you please tell me which of these schools are safeties, which are matches and which are reaches:Carnegie Mellon, UMichigan-Ann Arbor, Duke Engineering, Princeton Engineering, NYU Stern, UPenn, UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech, and UCLA.
Also, if you could please suggest other safety and match schools that you feel would be good for computer science/engineering and finance.
Thanks in advance!:</p>
<p>GPA:3.8UW 4.34W</p>
<p>Class Rank: 3/300</p>
<p>Senior Year Courses: AP European History, AP Chinese, AP Chemistry, AP Computer Science A, Math course at Princeton University</p>
<p>APs: Calc AB:5 BC:5 Physics B:5 Macroeconomics:5 Microeconomics:5 US History:5 Statistics:5 Environmental Science:5</p>
<p>ACT:35(35E 36M 34R 34S 10W)</p>
<p>SAT II: Physics: 800 Math Level 2: 800 US History: 760</p>
<p>Awards:
-National AP Scholar
-At least National Merit Commended award</p>
<p>ECs: Governor's School summer program where I had a research paper published
-Comp sci summer program at an ivy league institution
- 5th in state and 4th in region awards for Science Olympiad
- FBLA member where I got a state award
-volunteered at a cultural organization's summer camp for 70 hours
- tutored kids at the library for 30 hours
-Science and Engineering Club member
- tennis team member</p>
<p>Recs: Great Recs </p>
<p>Essays: Decent essays</p>
<p>I can only give you my opinion about Duke, I can say that you have all the requirements, and you exceed them, you would be a really strong candidate. But you should consider applying ED since Pratt accepts way less students than Trinity. Btw all your Ap classes are basically what you need to do well in your engineering classes in Duke, my roommate is doing engineering (Pratt) and he took classes really similar to those you have taken…</p>
<p>Thanks for the info Deterrance! Great to hear, Duke is definitely one of my top choices, I visited the campus and loved it there</p>
<p>UMichigan-Ann Arbor, UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech, and UCLA.</p>
<p>Are you instate for any of these schools? Would your parents be willing to pay the high OOS costs for these publics?</p>
<p>Yes, you need to run net price calculators on all of the schools to determine if they are affordable. If not affordable on need-based aid alone, you need to make the reach/match/safety assessment based on getting a merit scholarship large enough to make the school affordable (e.g. the Georgia Tech President’s Scholarship) rather than merely admission. If there is no such merit scholarship, the school would be out of reach if you cannot afford it.</p>
<p>No one else can suggest safeties or matches for you without knowing your cost constraint and state of residency.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon - match
UMichigan-Ann Arbor - match
Duke Engineering - match
Princeton Engineering - reach
NYU Stern - I don’t know
UPenn - reach
UC Berkeley/UCLA - depends if in-state or OOS. If OOS safety (they want your money, for sure!), otherwise match.
Georgia Tech - safety</p>
<p>Berkeley and UCLA are not safeties for anyone, although they may be considered match level for admission (not necessarily for cost) for the OP. However, their engineering divisions are generally regarded as being more selective.</p>
<p>One of my teammates was applying for engineering last year, he is at RPI now . You might think about Drexel, DePaul, WPI or RPI for schools closer to safeties.</p>
<p>Unless the OP is from GA (or comes from a wealthy family), I don’t see a safety on the list.</p>
<p>Good safeties are available on the stickied threads in the Financial Aid forum.</p>
<p>yeah definitely agreed, I’m going to run the numbers through financial aid calculators. But for now, Im just looking at safety, match or reach purely from an admissions standpoint. Financial aid is only really a worry after I’m admitted. Thank you everyone!</p>
<p>
Uh, not if your “safeties” are financially out of reach, in which case they weren’t really safeties. Make sure you have at least one safety that you can afford.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And then you’ll be back here in April wondering what to do after all your admission letters are from schools you cannot afford.</p>
<p>Safeties must be affordable.</p>
<p>yeah that’s probably right. Didn’t know that about safeties before. I have one assured safety Rutgers which Im in-state for. GT also seems to offer really good value from what I heard and is generally affordable even oos, not as expensive as the UCs out of state. But for the the others, are my chances good for them or are there any major weak spots I have? Thanks for the advice!</p>
<p>Spending the equivalent of private school $$ to attend budget strapped UCs with impacted departments makes zero sense to me. Why pay so much for so little.</p>
<p>Yeah I definitely agree. I’m just applying off the slight chance that I get a decent scholarship or financial aid. Really think UC Berkeley is especially great.</p>
<p>So what’s the weakest part of my application assuming good essays that I should try to improve on to turn some reaches into matches?</p>
<p>Perhaps do even better (national level instead of state level awards) in the ECs this year? Pretty hard to improve upon the grades/rank (most of which are already “baked in”) or test scores (ACT 35, a bunch of AP 5 scores, and top end SAT-S scores), so an even higher level of achievement in ECs may improve chances at the super-selective schools (or getting the big merit scholarships like President’s at Georgia Tech).</p>
<p>Re: costs at Berkeley</p>
<p>Normal Berkeley financial aid meets in-state need with a student contribution of about $8,500, but does not cover the $23,000 additional out of state tuition. So in-state net price will be approximately FAFSA<em>EFC + $8,500, while out-of-state net price will be that plus $23,000 (check the net price calculator). Regents’ scholarships are available to top end in-state and out-of-state students. For in-state students, the student contribution is replaced with additional scholarship, giving a net price of FAFSA</em>EFC; it is not clear from the web site whether they cover the additional out-of-state tuition (non-need students get an honorarium of $2,500).</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice ucbalumnus, but yeah, UCs definitely don’t seem great with financial aid. Also, any CC’ers please post tell me your opinion on my chances. I’d greatly appreciate it!</p>