TIME IS RUNNING OUT! PLEASE help me shorten my college list!

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Application deadlines are coming up and my college list is way too big. This post will be a bit long but I want to give as much information as possible. First, my stats:</p>

<p>Race: second-generation Hispanic (dad is Salvadorian, mom is Mexican. They immigrated in 1990 and became citizens in 2000.)</p>

<p>Gender: M</p>

<p>Location: Germantown, Tennessee (suburb of Memphis)</p>

<p>GPA: unweighted 3.42/4.0. My school uses a very tough grading system where 93-100 is an A and 85-92 is a B, however, 3 points are added to honors courses and 5 to AP courses, which sort of balances it out as far as those classes are concerned. Junior year my GPA was a 3.83, so my grades show a definite upward trend. If my GPA was on a 10-point scale it would be about a 3.7</p>

<p>Class Rank: 161/510 (31.6%...This is what kills me. I cringe every time I look at it.)</p>

<p>Avg. Grade: 91.68</p>

<p>Type of School: Competitive public school that is known statewide. Average ACT at my school is a 23.6.</p>

<p>Honors I've Taken: Honors Geometry, Honors English, Honors Biology, Honors Chemistry, Honors Spanish III, Honors Algebra II, Honors Pre-Calculus, Honors Spanish IV</p>

<p>APs I've Taken: AP Chem (4), AP Bio (5)</p>

<p>Senior Year Honors/AP: AP Calc BC, AP Physics C (both tests), AP Statistics</p>

<p>SAT: 800-M/640-R/740-W/10 essay. 2180 total/1440 M+R</p>

<p>PSAT: 206 overall</p>

<p>School-related ECs: </p>

<p>Varsity Bowling (9, 11, 12) [didn't do 10th grade year because it conflicted with Knowledge Bowl, and I didn't find out until it was too late]</p>

<p>Knowledge Bowl (10) [tried this club didn't really like it, but stuck with it the whole year anyway]</p>

<p>Science Bowl (10) [I liked this club but couldn't do it the other years because, again, it conflicted with bowling]</p>

<p>Key Club (12) [a service organization I just joined, plan to do some volunteer work at the local library]</p>

<p>Model United Nations (11, 12) [went to some conferences but no awards]</p>

<p>30+ Club (11) [we didn't do jack :/]</p>

<p>Non school-related ECs:</p>

<p>Bowling in general (I've been bowling in a Saturday morning league for 2 hours/week 30 weeks a year since 2000, and I think this represents my greatest commitment. I have won a scholarship and lots of tournaments, both statewide and citywide.)</p>

<p>I play tennis once or twice a week for fun.</p>

<p>Other:</p>

<p>I went to 2 engineering-related non-credit summer camps and spent a total of a month in them (2 weeks of general engineering, 1 week of chemical engineering, and 1 week of materials science).</p>

<p>2nd statewide in the National Spanish Exam (outside experience category) 2007</p>

<p>National Hispanic Scholar Finalist/National Commended Student (got confirmation from my guidance counselor)</p>

<p>Intended Major: materials science, possibly with a minor or double major in physics. I'm very interested in nanotechnology.</p>

<p>Now for what I'm looking for in a school...</p>

<p>I'm looking for a school that is strong in engineering but where I would at least have a decent shot at getting in. I want the students at the college to be intellectual but also know how to have fun. MOST OF ALL I want to be able to fit in well, as I am not an extremely social person by nature. I have 2 or 3 good friends, but I missed out on a lot of opportunities to make more in high school, so I want to go to a college where people are less cliquey and more accepting.</p>

<p>And here's the kicker, my parent's financial situation. They make about 150k/yr combined and have told me ahead of time that they are willing to give me a max of 28k for college. However, their EFC is something like 44k. I DO PLAN TO GO TO GRAD SCHOOL, so I don't want to get into massive amounts of debt. However, I would be willing to deal with a moderate amount of student loans as long as the education I was receiving was worth it.</p>

<p>And finally, the list...</p>

<pre><code>* Cornell U
* Georgia Tech (on the verge of taking this off my list, I've heard lots of things about the supposed terrible social life)
* Northwestern U IL
* Ohio SU Columbus (The Buckeye Scholarship gives 7.2k/yr to OOSers with a 1220+ SAT, I'm also eligible for their Hispanic national merit scholarship)
* Penn State U Park
* Purdue U
* U Florida (22:1 student/faculty ratio, yikes)
* U Illinois Urbana (Do I have a chance of getting into engineering with my class rank?)
* U Tenn Knoxville (safety school)
* U Wis Madison
* Virginia Tech (at the moment my #1 school, but that could change)
* CMU
* U Michigan
* U Minnesota
</code></pre>

<p>(Yeah, I admit, I have gone with the rankings a little. Curse you USNWR!!!)</p>

<p>Please suggest schools to add-subtract from the list, I really appreciate it!</p>

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<p>b u m p</p>

3

<p>ok your URM and SAT will help you but your GPA and Rank will hurt you a bit. I don’t think it will be overwhelming deciding factor. If you had a rough freshman year apply to some schools that do not care about freshman grades. I actually think you have a good list… a few high reaches and a few matches and one or two safeties. Maybe add one more safety. Nevertheless, if you messed up freshman year, apply to some UCs.</p>

4

<p>Drop Ohio State, Florida, Georgia Tech, and Minnesota. Various reasons: too far, too similar to other schools, too many safeties. That leaves 10, a good number.</p>

5

<p>I heard somewhere that georgia tech has some sort of scholarship for engineer majors..I might be wrong though, but if it saves you a lot of money, you should consider looking more into that.</p>

6

<p>Your list seems a little heavy with state schools at which you’d be OOS. My sense is that those schools do not typically offer a whole lot of $ to OOS, but that could be different for a URM. If you don’t get big aid, those schools could cost you more than some of the privates that are known to give lots of $ regardless of state of residence. Those schools may also do well by URM’s. This is admittedly conjecture on my part. Perhaps others with solid info will weigh in.</p>

<p>Have you considered Northeastern Univ. in Boston, Case Western in Cleveland, Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, or Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. They all give great merit aid and have very good-excellent engineering programs. Case is free to apply to online.</p>

7

<p>Well most of the private schools that are good in engineering are very difficult to get into (Caltech, MIT, Stanford, etc). I got rid of Minnesota and UF, due to being very far and big, per collegehelp’s suggestions. Also CMU, because of the high tuition and uber-competitive atmosphere, which is not something I am looking for. I still want to keep Ohio State due to the merit money and Georgia Tech because it is close and also my uncle is a professor there. Forgot to add that my sister applied to Northwestern with better grades and class rank than me and was accepted, but got less than 6k in finaid :/. I added RPI, but my friend that visited told me he absolutely hated it, and that Troy, NY is a dump.</p>

<p>So that makes the list:</p>

<ul>
<li>Cornell U</li>
<li>Georgia Tech </li>
<li>Northwestern U IL</li>
<li>Ohio SU Columbus </li>
<li>Penn State U Park</li>
<li>Purdue U</li>
<li>U Illinois Urbana </li>
<li>U Tenn Knoxville </li>
<li>U Wis Madison</li>
<li>Virginia Tech</li>
<li>U Michigan</li>
<li>RPI</li>
</ul>

<p>I still think it’s too many schools. Not counting freshman year grades will help me at Michigan, but the OOS cost is outrageous.</p>

8

<p>Although your class rank is low, I’d say you have good chance for UIUC engineering since you have good SAT and URM status.</p>

9

<p>That’s a pretty good list. If you must cut it, you could eliminate Cornell and Northwestern for being so improbable, but who knows, being a URM might do the trick. You could eliminate Michigan for the reason you stated, and replace RPI with Case Western.</p>

10

<p>Troy, NY isn’t as bad as that. It’s just an old manufacturing city (collar city-those old fashioned detachable collars). </p>

<p>It’s undergoing a renaissance. The River Street has become home to antique shops, art galleries, and restaurants. That area has been used in movies as a stand-in for 19th century New York City (Age of Innocence) and there is a concert hall (The Troy Music Hall) that is internationally renowned for it’s acoustics. They have a great concert series every year. </p>

<p>Kurt Vonnegut used Troy often in his books (he called it Illium). Uncle Sam came from Troy. During the Victorian era, many churches in Troy installed Tiffany windows, and many are still in use today.</p>

<p>I grant you , the section of Troy where RPI is a little run down. However, the school itself is fantastic. If you have a chance, visit it. And, give it a chance.</p>

11

<p>I’ve decided to eliminate private schools from my list (and Michigan), as my family’s EFC is just too high for it to be worth it for undergrad. In the end though I want to have enough money to be able to go to a top-tier grad school like MIT or Stanford.</p>

<ul>
<li>Georgia Tech </li>
<li>Ohio SU Columbus </li>
<li>Penn State U Park</li>
<li>Purdue U</li>
<li>U Illinois Urbana </li>
<li>U Tenn Knoxville </li>
<li>U Wis Madison</li>
<li>Virginia Tech</li>
</ul>

12

<p>You’ve got all the usual suspects. Just roll the dice. You’ll end up with a great education and a great job. If you’re really into engineering, ANY Big 10 school would be great, as well as any in the Southern technical belt (Virginia Tech, North Carolina State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Auburn).</p>

13

<p>I am surprised at your low class rank, even at a competitive school. Does your school give extra weight for the honors or AP classes? If not that might be why you have a low rank, and you will appear better to many colleges than you might think. FWIW we liked our visit to RPI, and they have received huge donations recently and are putting some of that into scholarships. Rochester might be another school for you to look at.</p>

14

<p>They do not add weight to GPA for honors classes, but they add 3 points on the grade for honors and 5 for AP.</p>

15

<p>“They do not add weight to GPA for honors classes, but they add 3 points on the grade for honors and 5 for AP.”</p>

<p>That reads as a weighting, but not as much for AP as many schools.</p>