<p>I am a rising high school senior who is probably going to apply to some subset of {Cornell, UCs, Caltech, Chicago, Cornell, CMU, MIT, HPY} next year. However, I would like to also apply to schools that have slightly lower admission rates, since I'm not counting on getting into any of the schools I already mentioned. Can anyone recommend some slightly less competitive schools that are strong particularly in math and/or computer science?</p>
<p>On a similar note, which schools do people usually refer when mentioning "second-tier" colleges?</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Tufts, WashU, UMichigan, Emory, Vanderbilt URochester, …to name a few offhand…Look at the USNWR list (not for the rankings as much as to get a list of colleges) and do some research on schools that appeal to you.</p>
<p>^ all those schools still only have like 20% admission rates
I think s/he is looking for lower ranked and less selective colleges that are still good.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech has a 50% acceptance rate, is an up & coming school.
I’m not sure if they’re good at comp sci specifically.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions! Is the admissions rate for CS at Carnegie Mellon not indicative of its admissions difficulty? The rate for admission to the School of Computer Science (admissions to different schools at CMU are separate) is under 10%…</p>
<p>I am mainly looking at colleges at the high 10s-low 30s% range.</p>
<p>I’m not only seeking colleges with low admissions rates. (And I didn’t mean really low, I just meant not at the level of some of the ones I mentioned. I guess Cornell and UC Berkley, among others are slightly more reasonable but I don’t know a whole lot about colleges outside the very top.) But I want to apply somewhat across the board. In particular, only applying to Ivies, MIT/Stanford could be a disaster. :D</p>
<p>Flyeagle was trying to see if you were going to be posting on the forum next spring about not getting into any of your schools. A safety school you would be happy attending is the most important one on your list. </p>
<p>Also, note that the OOS publics which were listed will cost ~ the same as a private U and there is a much lower chance you’ll get merit aid, even with your stats.</p>
<p>When you say it’s “pretty likely” that your parents will pay what is expected. You need to find out. You need to ask them how much they’ll pay each year and get a firm answer. Then have them run the Net Price Calculators on various websites. Don’t just use the NPCs on HYPS because those schools give super-aid and only using those will mislead you about aid at other schools.</p>
<p>Ah, thanks for the clarifications. My safety school is instate and my parents work there, so we’re pretty sure that I would get a lot of aid and the cost of attending would be very low for us. The school itself is not competitive at all, especially for those that live around there, but the undergraduate programs in engineering and CS are great and somewhat highly ranked (top 50ish for CS, higher for engineering). And thanks @mom2collegekids and Erin’s Dad for the information.</p>
<p>Though on my original question, I don’t know a lot about those colleges and had hoped to find out a lot and look at some of them individually myself. (finding them is hard online)</p>
<p>I asked all those questions just to make sure that your making reasonable choices during your college process. I’ve seen so many people just apply to selective schools, and they get in but they can’t afford to go, causing them to be stuck. Also, yes you may have a great SAT score but even the second tier schools your talking about are very competitive so there is no guarantee that you will get in, which is why I asked if you had a good safety school.</p>
<p>Regarding the Net Price Calculator…it can be way off sometimes. Boston College offered me 30k LESS than expected; Hamilton College offered 20k MORE than expected. That’s a lot of money. So don’t write off a school just because of a hypothetical figure - good luck!</p>
