“planning to take 10 more AP tests this year? too many tests for a senior year imo.”
I agree. I think that many of us underestimate how much work a high school senior has to put into the “applying to universities” task. The effort of deciding which schools to apply to, applying to universities, visiting schools, and deciding where to attend to me seems to be approximately the equivalent of another full year AP course.
Also, at the end of the year, just before time to take the AP classes, you find out where you will be admitted and you figure out where you are going to be attending college next year. This is a great relief, and is very exciting for many, and can be disappointing for some (particularly students who did not plan for at least one very good safety). However, regardless of the result this results in an emotional let down. Thus when you get to the point of taking AP tests at the end of senior year, it is often at a time when you would rather sleep in and take a break.
“The list the she helped me make ended up with out of the 12 schools I’m applying to 8 of them being ivy’s of similar level.”
I interpret “ivy’s or similar level” as meaning “reaches”.
Whether this is a problem will depend upon the 4 schools that are not reaches.
I have seen some posts on CC from high school students who had UT Austin or U.Wisconsin or something on that level as a safety school due to being in-state with high stats. Personally I had McGill as my safety (in-province in my case). If your safeties are this good, then it might be reasonable for your other applications to be reaches. I will admit that I am not familiar with the public universities in Tennessee (just spelling the state correctly is enough of a challenge for me – we are from well to the north and east of you).
I still think that your ECs are fine. The point is not to have a super long list. The point is to excel at what you do. To me, “MVP of the team”, “coding lead”, “founder and leader” is sort of the entire point.
Beside UTK, look into UCincinnati’s college of engineering with co-op or UMiamiOhio, either one would be a safety.
I agree that Northeastern would be a good match, as would UMaryland or UMass Amherst (the latter would be a safety except for CS).
I think I’m in the minority here but for us, a safety was a school with a 70+% acceptance rate, where we knew for absolute sure, D would be accepted. One of D’s safety schools had rolling admission so she had an acceptance (with a full tuition merit scholarship and honors college invite) in hand in early October. Psychologically very positive to know she was accepted somewhere. The reaches, were any school with a below 25% acceptance rate (and be sure you look at acceptance for CS and not overall acceptance rates for schools who admit by major). The matches were somewhere in between.
I think the worst thing is to overshoot your list and be stuck with acceptances to schools you don’t love. And, you need to love your safeties!
It sounds like finances are at least some concern, and you’re looking to try to go out of state. Going to a private or out of state university is at least triple the cost of going in-state. For an employable degree like CS, the cost simply isn’t worth it.
That doesn’t mean you can’t go out of state. The best scholarships are still in the south like Univ of AL. Generally they’re in less densely populated areas You could also check out Univ of AZ. Oklahoma State does in-state tuition waivers for high achievers from out of state.
ALL of WPI is project based education, but it is not a conventional coop program. To better understand the system see “10 Things to Know About the WPI Plan” at https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan
CS and robotics are very well developed programs here. AVG unweighted secondary school GPAs of the last three entering classes is 3.9. CS, Robotics, Biomedical Engineering, ME and Electrical & Computer Engineering are all well developed majors from BS through PhD and admission is less competitive than CMU, MIT, Cal Tech and about the same as RPI.
You know that your stats flat-out guarantee admission because the requirements for guaranteed admission are published right on the institution’s website, or the institution is open admission (like most community colleges).
You know for dead certain that it is affordable without any aid other than federally determined (FAFSA) aid and/or state aid guaranteed for your stats and/or aid guaranteed by the institution for your stats.
Your probably major is offered.
You would be happy to attend if all else goes wrong in your application process.
Places that have accepted every applicant like you from your high school in recent years can be considered pretty safe for admission. But only auto-admits can be considered truly safe.
Since many of you ask for financial. My EFC is 25,000 and I will be applying for financial aid. The total amount that my parents can pay for each year pre-financial aid is $47,500 (Including each year and loans, I don’t know how much they have in savings; not including stuff like books, food, and transportation). Though, when I ask them, they tell me not to worry about it, so I’m expecting that probably some other family member will help me pay for college or they have saved up a decent amount.
Oh also to add to the previous comment. I am the first in my family to go to college, and based on my scores and stuff, my family has high expectations for me. That is why they are so willing to pay for my college. But still, good financial aid would always be a plus because I’d feel a bit guilty for draining everyone’s money.
" Don’t worry about it" often means “hopefully something will happen by Spring”. They’ll either take on debt, or won’t be able to, and then you’ll be stuck with few choices. Have you run the NPC on all your universities? Are the results below 25K? Below 47K?
If you’re going to look at RPI and WPI, consider Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo (SLO). My S is there this year in CS and loving it so far. He got in OOS with similar stats as you (SS 1570, 35, 3.91/4.19 Cal WGPA), but only 10 AP. The out of state tuition is doable and the large college town is breathtaking - just north of Santa Barbara and 10 minutes from the ocean. If interested, be sure to look at the threads for that school on this forum for calculating MCA OOS WGPA and other application issues.