<p>Hello:
My daughter is in senior year of very competitive HS in San Jose bayarea. She has always pushed herself, took mostly APs in her entire sophomore, junior, and now in senior as well.
Due to that her course load has been very rigorous.
Her current GPA stands at: 3.78 UW, 4.25 W, with SAT at: 2260 [710(Reading), 750(Math), 800(writing)].
She did decent in her subject tests as well:
Chem: 760,US hist: 730,Literature:710,Math: 760
She worked both sophomore, junior summers in start-ups, gained incredible experience.
She got DECA international finalist, plays piano, junior tennis, but not much to elevate her.</p>
<p>Here are my couple of questions:
I think my daughter is in top 30% of high school, considering ONLY UW GPA, does colleges look at student rigor, which is not visible through UW GPAs?</p>
<p>Which colleges is best match for her profile, for engineering. We are open to both private, out of state as well.</p>
<p>I think its best for the college admissions section of the forum. But yes, they do look at rigor. It would be outrageous for someone who took mostly academic classes with a 4.0 to get in over someone like your daughter but the 30% doesn’t look very good. I would suggest looking at publics such as University of Illinois, Berkeley, Purdue, Georgia Tech…etc and privates such as RPI, WPI, Case Western, and definitely Carnegie Mellon University. I think she would have a decent chance anywhere other than the top ones such as MIT/Caltech.</p>
<p>UCs and Cal Poly SLO would be obvious schools to consider as a California resident. Out of state schools with relatively low list prices include Minnesota, Virginia Tech, NCSU, and Stony Brook.</p>
<p>Note that UCs and CSUs do not consider current class rank, although “achievement in context with opportunity” may indirectly correlate to class rank. The UC ELC calculation is not based on the high school’s notion of class rank, but is likely to have some correlation to it.</p>
<p>Her stats look very good for lots of schools. Post #2 had a lot of good suggestions. Cornell, Rice also come to mind. She should be sure to pick a range of safety, match and reach schools to apply to.</p>
<p>Does she know what kind of school she wants to attend - large or small, urban or rural location, distance from home, tech school or not, etc.? At tech schools, she might have some advantages in admissions.</p>
<p>Thanks for encouraging note.
She is considering both out of state & private, but LACs.
CMU is in her list of colleges, but she doubt she can fit for Rice & Cornell.
If not Rice, what would be good equivalents that can be suggested, thanks!</p>
<p>If she wants engineering, our GC suggested that Math2 subject test be taken. The curve on it is more generous and its higher level math than math1. Not clear from your post that she’s taken this. </p>
<p>She may wish to consider USC, especially if she’s a NMF. They have a lot of support for their female engineers in their WISE program. The year S graduated in 2010, the women won all the engineering awards!</p>
<p>Even tho USoCal is large, there were only 200 freshman engineers, which is not so large. The engineering school gets pretty close and they encourage students to take a variety of courses (as they can fit them into their schedules). </p>
<p>Our S was only in the top half of his HS by GPA, even tho he took more AO exams than anyone in the state. He was happy at USC engineering and we appreciated the significant merit award he received from USC as a NMF.</p>
<p>My daughter took Math 2 in SAT subject tests, not Math1.
Unfortunately, she missed PSAT cut off of California by 3 points. ( 217 vs 220).
Do you guys have any opinion on RICE, particularly if we go through ED route?
thanks!</p>
<p>If your competitive HS has Naviance, and it probably does, you can get an assessment of her chances at various colleges which will take into consideration the competitiveness of her HS. I don’t think the 30% is a big deal in a school like that. The rest of the speculation is pure folly and may lead her to make a decision that is less competitive than it could be. </p>
<p>I’ve been on CC for 7 years, and I can tell you most chances threads underestimate a student’s chances. I think that post #2 is way too conservative. Most of those schools are safeties. </p>
<p>I will say that very few engineering schools would not seriously consider a female engineer with your D’s stats. If Rice is her first choice, I would do ED in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>Schools with mismatched male/female ratios frequently advantage the underrepresented gender in admissions, in order to try to keep the mismatch not so high. Men have advantages applying to LACs, and women have advantages applying to tech schools. You can find the male vs female acceptance rate data at [College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics) </p>
<p>I don’t know the ED vs RD breakdowns of these particular schools, but applying ED as a female at a tech school that is a reasonable reach is probably a smart admissions strategy, assuming 1) there is a favorite school, and 2) the family can afford to pay full costs.</p>
<p>@paisahunt I live in your area. I mostly see the top 3% go into engineering at UCB, or UCLA. The other majors are much easier.</p>
<p>The logic is simple. It is less likely for schools like UCB to take more than a few (for most high schools, I will say 1) from the same high school for the same engineering major because there are so many qualified students from all over the state. The same logic will apply to other more selective universities.</p>
<p>Hello, I am op for this thread, thanks everyone!
My daughter got admitted to CIT ECE under early decision. When she applied to CMU, she applied for CIT, with preferred major as ECE. The admission notice says she has the opportunity to chose any major in CIT.</p>
<p>BTW, she got admitted to UIUC (cs), UMICH(cs), Purdue(ce) so far.</p>
<p>My daughter like University of Michigan as well.
But at this point she would be going to CMU ECE, due to binding unless we have an issue with financial aid, which will provide an option to break ED.</p>