Urban Colleges?

Majoring in computer science. Nothing ivy league. I just want a solid school with a good location. I have a 28 act raw score and a 1250 sat, 3.45 GPA. I don’t know if this matters but I’m in National Honor society, 4 year tennis letterman, 3 year baseball letterman. I’m also from Arkansas which i guess is “diversity”. I would love if you guys could help me out. Thanks

If it would work for you, the Jesuit colleges are in primarily urban areas across the country. My S went to Fordham in NYC and loved it. You can look at the list and see if any are good matches your academic stats and in a city you may want to attend college in or near. http://www.ajcunet.edu/institutions/

Good location meaning… Are there particular areas you want to be in? Do you want to be in a big city or do you want the traditional college experience perhaps. More details are desired.

Also what about money? What can you afford?

I prefer an urban environment or somewhere with good night life and plenty to do. I’m from the middle of nowhere and I’m ready to get out of the rural life

Money isn’t a huge issue because my parents have been saving since I was born but if I had to give a limit it would be around 45k per semester for everything (tuition, room and board, etc.)

There’s no college in the country that costs $45k per semester (yet). The most you’d end up paying would be about $70k per year.

Fordham immediately came to mind, and then I saw that @happy1 thought of it too. You can also take a look at Boston University, George Washington University. Tulane. Have you ever been to NYC, Boston, Chicago, or any really urban area outside the south?

Other possibilities not in major urban areas, but near big cities, in small cities, or in very good/large college towns: University of Michigan would be a reach, but not impossible because of geographic diversity. UMass-Amherst. University of Maryland-College Park.

I’ve been to almost all of the major cities in the country and was just recently in dc and boston. I checked out the universities there and thought that they were really cool but do you think that I have the scores to get in?

Scores to get into schools in DC and Boston? Sure. There’s reach, match, and safety schools there for anybody! If you have a few cities you like that you want to be in, that could help us help you. Or if perhaps there’s a region? For example southwest vs far west vs midwest vs northeast vs great plans etc etc.

I really like a northeastern city plus i have family there. I like dense cities

So near, or in a big city in the northeast USA? So like DC, Boston, Philly, Providence, NYC, Baltimore, Pittsburgh.

Is your 3.45 unweighted or weighted?

weighted:(

What’s unweighted? Schools weight differently

3.2

Lol still better than my HS GPA. I graduated with a 2.3 UW.

ANYWAYS,

I recommend running a college search on collegeboard’s website.
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-search

Or going to colleges.niche.com and running a college search there.

Put in your test scores, for selectivity I would put “somewhat selective” and “less selective” to start compiling a list of match and safety schools. Then, you can add some schools that are “very selective” for reach schools. But I think it’s good to start with safety/match schools. For “type of school” put in 4 year, and make sure you check the boxes for “private and public”, you don’t want to go to a for-profit school. For region you could put in new england for the northeast.

When I put all that stuff in with a computer science major I get a few schools. The ones that stand out to me are:
Bryant University
Quinnipac University
Hampshire College
Clark University
Providence College
University of Vermont
UMass Amherst
UMass Lowell
U of New Hampshire
U of Maine

I also ran the search with the major selection of “computer and information sciences, general”
I get a few state schools in Connecticut
U of Rhode Island
Suffolk University
UMass Dartmouth

However, the search functions for majors can be a bit glitchy so off the top of my head it’s also worth checking out:

Hofstra U
Adelphi U
Drexel U
Temple U
U of Maryland Baltimore County

The next thing, if I were you, would be to make an excel spreadsheet so you can compare, contrast, and rank the colleges. You should have columns with things like “location, cost of attendance, do they have my major, student body size, acceptance rate, etc”

Also if I were you I’d include U of Arkansas just because you’d have in-state tuition and it’s got a reasonably high acceptance rate.

The thing you have to remember is that sometimes, the higher the acceptance rate, the more likely you’ll be a competitive applicant, making you more likely to receive at least a small amount of merit aid.

Pitt, DePaul, Loyola Chicago and Loyola New Orleans, perhaps LoyolaLA, UMN Twin cities (BA in CLA only), St Thomas in Saint Paul, Hemline, Fordham, American U, Colorado Boulder, Bradley, Butler, UDayton, UCincinnati (especially the Information Science and Technology major with a Co-op), Western Washington University, USeattle, University of San Diego, University of San Francisco, CPP.
Macalester and Villanova would be big reaches but you can try once you’re done with your other apps.

Pitt will be really tough with that GPA.

Drexel would be a try. CS is harder to get into than overall as you’ll find at most schools.

Thank you so much for doing all of that!