Hello, I am currently entering Senior year of high school and I have not yet applied to college yet and am coming to my final decisions on where exactly I should apply. I can afford to apply to about 12 colleges, it seems like a fair amount. So far I have taken the ACT and received a 33 Composite (34 math, 33 English, 30 Reading, 35 Science, 8 on Essay). I am also going to be taking the Math Level 2 and Physics SAT II’s this fall. My GPA is about a 3.88, I am in the top 10% of my class and I have taken the most rigorous course load offered at my school. I am also involved in Varsity Sports, and numerous other extracurriculars and activities I am interested in either physics, math, or engineering, I am not completely sure yet. I am probably going to go with mechanical Engineering, but I also aspire to become an astrophysicist and I know that is another route. Anyway, here is my list (Not really in order):
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Columbia University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Michigan
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Texas
Boston University
University of Illinois
UC Berkeley
UC Los Angeles
University of Maryland
SUNY Stony Brook (State School for me)
Others I have considered: Stanford University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Princeton University, California Institute of Technology, University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon.
I really only want to apply to two Ivy Leagues, maybe three if I have some space. Let me know what you think of my list, if I should switch out any for the other colleges I listed, or if you have any in mind. Also don’t judge it based on my scores, I am not completely confident in some of these schools and that is why I have my safety schools and fit schools too, so don’t limit it based on scores or grades. Thanks.
If you’re going to purge some schools from your list, remove Penn, UCLA, and BU. Getting into MIT and Columbia with your statistics – good as they are – may be a bit of a stretch unless you have some hook (e.g., the potential to be a D-1 athlete) to go along with those statistics.
What schools do you consider to be your safety schools (for both admission AND finances)? You are setting yourself (or your parents, more to the point) up for paying lots of OOS tuition for the public universities on your list; have you spoken with your parents to determine how much money they can contribute annually for your college costs? If not, you need to have that conversation sooner rather than later.
(Do you have the money to pay all of the application fees?)
It’s a fine list. Great schools. I can’t comment on much beyond that since we are not supposed to take your scores into account. You say you can ‘afford to apply’ to 12 schools. How are you going to ‘afford to attend’?
I think you should replace some of your OOS state schools with “low reach” schools like Johns Hopkins, Rice, Vanderbilt, CMU, USC… because they give much better financial aid. And if you are interested in Engineering, I think you should consider Cornell. So something like this might make sense:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Columbia University /or/ Penn
Cornell University
Johns Hopkins
Rice
Southern Cal
University of Michigan /or/ Cal-Berkeley
Georgia Tech /or/ UCLA
University of Texas /or/ University of Illinois
Boston University
University of Maryland
SUNY Stony Brook (State School for me)
MIT, Columbia and Penn are all extremely high reaches. I suggest that you eliminate one or two of them from your list. Replacing them with suggestions noted above by @prezbucky seems like a good idea to me.
As stated by others, you seem to currently have more state schools on your list than would suit your purposes. Stony Brook and maybe one public out-of-state should be sufficient. RPI suits your academic interests. Cornell would be stronger than almost all of your current choices if physics, engineering and math were considered together. URochester has good academic breadth and may be a good school to include.
There’s also Cooper Union and Olin, both of which offer half-tuition scholarships to all enrolled students…perhaps worth a look if the OP would be full pay at the Ivies and comparable schools. The drawbacks are extremely tough admissions and a focus on engineering rather than the sciences.
U Minnesota is very strong in STEM fields and much cheaper than comparable public universities. OOS tuition is about $20K per year, half that of Michigan and the UCs. You’d get much more bang for your buck.
@2muchquan Well I didn’t mean financially, I actually meant that in the sense that my school and college counseling office limit us to only 12 (Why and how I don’t know), but apparently they will not send out out transcripts unless we have an approved list with 12 or less colleges
@gandalf78 Money is not an issue to me or my parents at all. We have enough savings to cover 4 years as long as I get a little bit of financial aid. Even then it is not an issue they have stable jobs and can contribute more.
Then OOS publics are really on equal footing: UCLA, UMichigan, UCB and maybe a fourth that appeals to you could be one combination. Applying to more OOS publics than that just defers a decision you will have to make anyway. In New York, SUNY Buffalo’s engineering program is well regarded.
“we are not supposed to take your scores into account” (post 2)
I have to disagree about MIT being a reach without a hook. MIT doesn’t really do hooks anyway. Go for MIT. If you are interested in theoretical math then CalTech. You’ve got great credentials. I’d get rid of the SUNY. I say that in general (pretty lousy state system) but particularly for you–and especially if you have to limit the number of places you are applying to. CalTech, Carnegie Mellon. Why BU? I’d do Princeton over Columbia. If you want a great school that may be slightly less competitive choose Rochester University-great physics, optics!