Safety/Target Schools

College Search & Selection
1

Trying to help S20 who is finishing Jr. yr., select some safety/target STEM programs in Computer Science/Engineering (specific major not yet decided). Basically interested in solid schools that primarily admit based on academic achievement. S will apply to some T20 schools but obviously those are long shots for anyone.

Here is some basic info:

GPA: 4.0 (Unweighted)/4.9 (Weighted) [Pretty much all classes are either honor or APs]
Rank: Don’t know but likely top 1% of a competitive public high school
SAT I: 1590
PSAT: 1520
SAT II: 800 in both Math II/Physics.

Scored 5’s on 5 APs at the end of sophomore year

Overall will complete 16 APs with 8 STEM APs [Phy 1/2, Phy C [M/E&M], Chem, Calc BC and two Comp Sci APs

Race: Mixed [White and Asian]

EC’s:

  1. Varsity Athlete, Varsity team captain, All league and various other athletic awards
  1. Club Team Captain [Recruiting interest from some Div III colleges] [played for 11 years]
  1. Debate Club President/Has placed at various local tournaments [participated for 5 years]
  2. Volunteers to teach STEM related subjects/peer tutor
  3. Developed an app that had marginal traction
  4. Internship at a Fortune 100 company this summer, which was competitive to get

We understand that his EC’s are not STEM focused but we let him pick what he liked doing with his free time. He is a pretty well adjusted kid and hopefully, his essays would reflect his authentic self.

Awards: Scholar Athlete, AP scholar with distinction (and hopefully National AP Scholar once the results are out in July), NHS, National Merit Semifinalist (will find out in Sept but it is a given) and some other school/local academic awards

Hooks: May be athletics for a DIV III school (not interested in DIV I)

Financial aid: Not an issue

Geographical Location: Not a deal breaker, but would prefer warm weather with sunshine

School Size: Mid-size to large but no strong preference

Currently considering UC Santa Barbara Engineering as a safety and UC San Diego Engineering as a target but with yield protection just want to make sure that the safety/target list is solid.

Any suggestions are welcome?

2

He should apply to USC [ U of Southern Calif] by their Dec 1 merit scholarship deadline. With his stats he may have a very good chance at an early acceptance, in Feb, and if he is accepted and decides to enroll at USC he would receive a 1/2 tuition scholarship.

3

UT Dallas would be a safety and offers an awesome NMF scholarship with great STEM programs. Look at the threads for 2019 NMF to see a full list of great NMF scholarships. Most should be at least matches, if not safeties for your DS.

4

Thanks for the recommendation.

5

Carnegie Melon should also be on his list, along with Harvey Mudd- which is part of the 5000 student Claremont College consortium in SCal east of Pomona. Both should be considered match/ reaches.

He would be automatically accepted at University of Alabama, Huntsville, with a full tuition scholarship, plus 2 years of housing.
https://www.uah.edu/admissions/undergraduate/financial-aid/scholarships/merit-tuition-scholarships

HUntsville has a fantastic engineering program.

I encourage your DS to apply to his safety colleges FIRST.
there is nothing so comforting as having an early acceptance.
And if he applies early at U’s such as USC and U Alabama, for scholarship consideration, that will NOT prevent him from applying SCEA to Stanford or other U’s that allow it.

6

UCSB is a target school not a safety but he is a very competitive applicant. UCSB has a small Engineering Department in comparison to other UC’s, so I would suggest UC Santa Cruz and/or Riverside as solid safety schools.

UC GPA’s (Unweighted, Capped Weighted and Fully Weighted)? https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

7

Thanks menloparkmom; CMU is on the “reach” list, and will check Huntsville (DS is not thrilled to go to Alabama :)) Will do the safety schools first. One challenge with NMF is that you need to assign your number 1 choice, will sort that out.
Gumbymom, appreciate your insight. We have checked his UC GPA and he has the highest possible UC GPA.

8

Utah is a good safety for outdoors oriented Californian kids who don’t want to go as far as Alabama. He’d get at least full tuition there, potentially more.

When looking for “solid schools that primarily admit based on academic achievement” for a full pay student you might give some thought to Oxbridge, which would be more predictable than equivalently ranked schools in the US. The process is very different but I certainly wouldn’t regard it as a “long shot” with his stats.

9

Thanks Twoin18, will check Utah out. I have tried to have him look at Oxbridge but have not convinced him. Will give it another shot :slight_smile:

10

I would not put Mudd on anybody’s match list. It is a reach due to high number of very qualified applicants. But I agree that it seems like a good fit, just belongs more in the reach category.

11

Thanks, we consider Mudd as a reach.

12

“One challenge with NMF is that you need to assign your number 1 choice, will sort that out.”
You may have to do that early for some colleges, but NOT for USC.
As long as you let USC know by the NMSF mid May deadline that USC is your first choice AND you will be attending, you are guaranteed the 1/2 tuition NMF scholarship.
In other words, you can let NMSF know that you have changed your mind up until Mid May, if you did list another college as your “first choice” earlier.
That comes fro the Dean of Admissions himself.

Other colleges may ask or require you to designate that they be your “first choice”, as a way for you to show interest. USC does not take NMF status under consideration when making admissions decisions.

13

@menloparkmom We are not super familiar with the entire NMF process but our goal is to select 1-2 schools from the NMF bucket to be safety schools (except of course USC that IMHO is a reach school).

14

^ good idea!
Just be sure to follow any early application deadlines for NMF consideration.

15

Is he applying to Cal Poly San Luis Obsipo? if not, he should!
http://catalog.calpoly.edu/collegesandprograms/collegeofengineering/
http://admissions.calpoly.edu/

it would be a match, if not a safety.
And the weather cannot be beat!

16

We are looking into SLO. We found that some of the 2019 seniors from his school got into schools like Harvard etc. but were wait listed at SLO. Maybe yield protection.

17

^very possibly, but not a good enough reason not to apply, imho.

Do you know about colleges Common Data Sets?
They are institutionally required fact sheets that all colleges have to submit annually. Some try to make it hard or difficult to fine- I’m looking at you- U of Chicago- but they can be an extremely valuable source of information.

Here is a link to Stanford’s-
https://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/

And USC’s -
http://oir.usc.edu/common-data-set/

and Cal Poly
https://ir.calpoly.edu/content/publications_reports/cds/index

18

Thanks, I am familiar with the Common Data Sets.

19

Alabama Huntsville would definitely appear to be the best option where he could compete athletically, participate in a strong engineering program, and do it all if not for free then next to nothing.

20

USC: my son had an identical stat (like exactly the same, some different APs plus lots of university classes) but with a stronger EC (and his EC was a hook at USC). He was rejected at USC. We never visited so that may be a reason- and probably hook didn’t work because he didn’t even visit. In any case it seems like they do care about interest. We thought it can a safety for him, but no. He got into a first choice Ivy early so all is good (and he got into all the other schools).