US domestic (US citizen or permanent resident) or international student
State/Location of residency: (state is important if you apply to any state universities)
Type of high school (current college for transfers):
Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): Male, White
Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.):
Virginia, Top 5 School in the Country (Won’t say the name but it’s obvious which one it is), Non-recruited athlete, Double Legacy to USC Viterbi (Parents were Comp Sci and Biomed eng majors in the mid 90’s) Intended Major(s)
Computer Science GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0 GPA
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.73 (AP’s and Post AP’s graded at 1.0 and Honors at 0.5)
College GPA (for transfers): 4.0 GPA (2 Dual Enrollment Summer courses at George Mason Univ)
Class Rank: N/A
ACT/SAT Scores:
1,590 SAT
1,480 PSAT
Coursework (AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))
CS:
9th: AP CS A
10th: Web and App Dev
11th: Computer Vision 1 and 2/
12th (Next year): Undecided between AI and Machine Learning
Math:
9th: AP Calc AB
10th: AP Calc BC
11th: Multivariable Calc/Diff Eq
12th: Matrix Algebra
English/Humanities:
9th: English 9
10th: English 10
11th: Eng 11 W/APUSH
12th: AP Eng Lit W/AP Gov Awards
National Merit Scholar (Semifinalist Currently, We’ll see how I do)
MathCounts (8th Grade) Extracurriculars (Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
MathCounts (3rd Place State in WI) (I used to live in Wisconsin)
Math Team (3 Years and Next Year)
Basketball (Varsity (Hopefully) All 4 years)
Competitive Programming club (All 4 years)
Varsity XC (All 4 years)
Computer Vision Club President (4 years)
NHS Officer Essays/LORs/Other (Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)
Very strong, have been drafting and working on already Cost Constraints / Budget
Some FA/ Parents and Grandparents paying 15k / Upper Class (600k per year income) (High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)
Schools (List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)
Safety (certain admission and affordability)
Univ of Virginia
Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
UCI
UCSC
Please clarify. Are you saying your parents and grandparents will pay $15,000 a year for your college education?
You will be full pay at those CA public universities as they on’y give a pittance in even merit aid to OOS students.
Why do you have George Mason as a match? Is the cost too high? I would think it would be a very likely admit…moreso than UVA which you have listed as your safety.
MIT, Stanford and Harvard don’t give merit aid so your cost to attend will be in the $70,000 a year range. With a $600,000 income, you won’t be eligible for a dime of need based aid…well…except the $5500 DirectLoan.
Thank you for swiftly responding! Yes they are. Oh, I didn’t know that it would be full pay I put George Mason as a match because I thought that its too good of a school to have as a safety. (Am I wrong on that?)
Ah okay, I guess I’ll take MIT,Stanford and Harvard out of the list… Thanks for all of the advice!
If you’re going to have UCI and UCSC on the list, I’d certainly add Cal Poly. It’s a better program, arguably, depending on who you ask, the best in the state, different, but opportunities on par with Stanford and UCB, and it’s cheaper.
For the UC’s, a capped weighted GPA of 4.37 will make you competitive but they also look at the your unweighted and fully weighted UC GPA.
What is your actual college budget per year? The UC’s will be around $65K/year to attend with little to no financial aid as an non California resident.
Cal Poly SLO as suggested would be around $42K/year so you need to finalize your budget before making a list of safety and match schools.
Cal Poly SLO also uses 9-11th grades in their GPA calculation and caps the honors points to 8 semesters of AP/IB courses for 10-11th grades. OOS Honors does not get the extra weighting.
CS will have a lower acceptance rate for all the UC’s and it is direct admit for most of the UC’s.
UCSC requires you apply as a CS major and you cannot change into the major later if accepted.
UCI admits into the University first and then into the major so they consider your 1st and alternate major choices. It is possible to switch into CS later if not admitted directly, but not guaranteed.
UCB offers CS in the College of Letters and Sciences (non direct admit which could change this admission cycle) and also EECS. EECS is a tougher admit than CS L&S.
If $15,000 really is the max your parents will pay annually for college, I would suggest you start with University of Alabama, University of New Mexico, and Arizona. It’s very possible you will get sufficient merit aid at those to make the schools affordable.
I would suggest you read through this thread. Like you, the family had a firm price limit and was looking for merit aid as they didn’t qualify for need based aid. This student wanted engineering, IIRC. But you can check some of the recommendations to see if CS is offered.
If your parents have a combined income of 600k why are they only contributing 15k to your college tuition?
Just saying, for that kind of income, 15k seems incredibly low. That’s like a drop in the bucket for them. I would highly recommend you sit your parents down and have a talk about how much they are willing to contribute because their high income + low contribution is really screwing you right now in terms of finances. My parents don’t make nearly that much and have to support me and my brothers and are still offering to contribute the same amount. Walk them thru the reasons you want to pursue your career and convince them that you won’t just waste their money.
George Mason seems like a safety imo. However, I have talked wit some engineers who have cited that some of the smartest people they have ever worked with have come from George Mason so maybe their CS/Engineering programs have low acceptance rates? idk.
Honestly, you’re competitive at all of these schools. Like, how the hell did you take Calc as a freshie? My school doesn’t even offer that course to you unless you are at least a junior.
I agree (assuming there isn’t something in the FAFSA that reduces their EFC), but every family has different views on this. The problem is, it will put the OP in a bind. They will not be eligible for any need based aid and essentially locked out of every school on their list for financial reasons.
This poster needs to hunt for merit aid…that won’t consider family income and assets. That is why I linked the thread from @KevinFromOC . He also had a $15,000 price point over year…but didn’t really qualify for need based aid. His daughter applied to and got accepted with great merit awards at a number of places.
This poster should read that thread from beginning to end.
I also found it hard to understand what this line means. Do you mean that your parents earn $600,000 per year, but will only contribute a total of $15,000 per year towards your education expenses? Alternately I might not be understanding what this means.
If you need to get the budget down to $15,000 per year without any need based aid, then the budget is going to be a big constraint. Fortunately…
This might help, but is something that I am not familiar with.
Hey! Thank you guys for all of your help! My parents DO make a combined income of 600k but its still taxed and comes out to about 115k thanks to housing and other things and my grandparents live with us too. The reason I’m only getting 15k per year is because I wanted only this. I want college to be something that I chose for MYSELF and not was paid for by my parents. Hope this helps!
I’m going to be blunt here, a $600k income is not reduced to $115,000 by taxes (I am familiar with this from personal experience). It may be almost halved to $300k or so (depending on how good - or not - your accountant is) but it isn’t going to be that little. That being said, with a $15k budget ($20k if you add in what you can borrow in student loans) your college choices will be limited to places where you can get substantial merit aid. That rules out most top 20 schools which almost always award $$ based on need - and you won’t get any need- based aid with parental income that high. Unless UVA offers merit $$, it won’t be affordable for you even in-state as tuition alone will gobble up most of your budget (unless you live within commuting distance and would be willing to do that). All the UC schools are out as they don’t give $$ to out of state students, although USC is worth a look as they give merit and you are a legacy. I’d check out the recommendations of other posters who have pointed out schools that give big merit. You look like a fantastic student so you should be competitive for merit aid but you’ll need to be aggressive in seeking out the best awards and apply early to maximize your chances. I’d also suggest a sit down with your folks to discuss finances and see if there is any wiggle room there.
I put George Mason as a match because I thought that its too good of a school to have as a safety. (Am I wrong on that?)