What would you rank as my high/low reaches?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hello everyone. I will be applying for a major in CS, preferably a school with a reputable engineering department. Which schools would you rank as my safeties, high reaches, low reaches, etc</p>

<p>ACT: 33
SAT: 2220 (790 Math, 690 CR, 740 W)
SAT II: 790 Math 2, 800 Latin, 790 Physics, 780 Italian</p>

<p>GPA (/100): ~96 u, ~98 w (Honors = 1.03x, AP = 1.06x)
Freshman Year: ~94u,~97w
Sophomore Year: ~96u,~99w
Junior Year: ~95u,~99w
^somewhat upward trend
All Honors and APs</p>

<p>:::::AP & COLLEGE CLASSES:::::
Physics
Computer Science
Calculus
Italian
Latin
Macroeconomics
English Language
English Literature
World History
US History
European History</p>

<p>Rank: Top 10% (My highschool only releases 10%, valedictorian, salutatorian), but probably close to top 5%
Highschool is recently ranked #100 in the nation</p>

<p>:::::::::::Clubs & Activities:::::::::::::
Chief Editor of Italian Literary Magazine
Wrestling Team
Key Club (community service)
Latin Club (vice president)
Italian Club (treasurer)
Junior Statesman of America (Politics & debating club)
Philosophy Club (treasurer)
Engineering Club (treasurer)
Math Team (treasurer)</p>

<p>::::::::::::Community Service:::::::::::
Missions Trip to Buff Bay, Jamaica (West Indies) (annually for 2 years)
Local Hospital Research Assistant (work with researcher and collect data for neuroscience project, almost 8 hours/day every summer, +300 total hours)
Local Hospital Junior Volunteer (+100 hours)
Missions Trip to Los Angeles
Bobby Foundation (manage huge yard sales annually for underprivileged kids)</p>

<p>:::::::::::Honors & Awards::::::::::
AATI National Italian Exam Level IV, First Place (2012)
AATI National Italian Exam Level III, Fourth Place (2011)
National Honor Society
Italian Honor Society
Latin Honor Society
National Latin Exam, Gold Medal, Grade 9, 10, 11
Certamen (Latin Grammar & Culture Competition), 2nd Place
Underclassmen Awards 2011, Excellence in Italian
Underclassmen Awards 2012, Excellence in Italian
AATI Italian Poetry Contest 2011, Honorable Mention
Adelphi Prize for Leadership Award (Given to ~10 students per class)
Senator Kemp Hannon Rising Stars Award (Given to ~30 kids in Senator Kemp Hannon's congressional district)
Math Team County-Wide competition- Silver Medal</p>

<p>Teacher Recs:
Italian teacher: Will be amazing
Physics teacher: Will be very good, I programmed a newtonian mechanics simulator program for him to make demonstrations for his classes</p>

<p>White Male, no financial aid needed.</p>

2

<p>you should look at vanderbilt,wake forest, macalster in minnesota (smaller school)
safeties butler university,drake university & hamline university (if you do not mind cold )
other cool schools that could be of interest muhlenberg college and hendrix college!</p>

3

<p>You’re probably sufficiently good that Cornell, say, would only be a low reach, not a high reach as for almost everybody else. Where do you want to go? Especially with finances not a concern, I don’t think there are as many external factors shaping where you should apply as personal ones.</p>

4

<p>Safeties would probably be Stony Brook (assuming that you are a NY resident) and the schools listed here:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;
If you are a National Merit Finalist, there are more:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>You can always reach for the usual big four for CS (MIT, CMU, Stanford, Berkeley). Berkeley may be less of a reach if you apply to its College of Letters and Science (wherein you can declare a CS major) instead of the EECS major in its College of Engineering (both majors choose from the same CS courses).</p>

<p>“No financial aid needed” – means that you and your family can pay up to $60,000 per year (expensive private or expensive out-of-state public without financial aid or scholarships)?</p>

<p>If not, lower cost (at list price) schools include Minnesota, NCSU, Virginia Tech, Cal Poly SLO.</p>

5

<p>@exultationsy: I was actually looking at Cornell as my top choice, but I wasn’t sure if that was a high reach or not for me. What about applying to the different colleges of Cornell for CS, like Art and Sciences vs College of Engineering?</p>

<p>@Ucbalumnus: Yes I am a NY resident, but I am not looking to get a full-ride (though my family would like that), but I am just looking for schools that I could be sure that I would get into.
And how much of a shot would you gauge that I have at those places? If those are “high reaches” what would be a “low reach”?
And yes, my family can pay anything even without any financial aid or scholarships</p>

6

<p>I’m afraid I don’t know between Cornell’s different schools; I do have the impression that ED provides a significant (although not huge) boost there. I’m pretty sure Berkeley would also be a low reach for a full-pay OOS-er, since their OOS percentage has been soaring in the wake of California’s budget troubles. (Low reach meaning 20-35% chance of admittance, give or take on the high end). I don’t know about CMU, but Stanford and MIT are high reaches for anybody.</p>

7

<p>Other considerations greatly appreciated :)</p>

<p>What about UMichigan/UIUC?</p>

8

<p>My cousin’s doing some sort of (as yet undecided) engineering at UMichigan, and he loves it. He’s really involved with their self-driving car team and is so enthusiastic about it all the time. My high school never sent a lot of kids to UIUC (and I applied to colleges for a humanities major so I’m starting to get out of my depth here), so I don’t know so much about it.</p>

9

<p>High reaches:
MIT
Stanford
CMU
UC Berkeley
Harvard</p>

<p>Low Reaches:
Cornell
UMich
Vanderbilt</p>

<p>Matches:
Reed
UIUC
GA Tech
WPI
RPI</p>

<p>You honestly don’t need safeties… You’re a very strong applicant, if you apply to 2 schools from each category you’re still going to get into at least 2 great schools… Best of luck!(:</p>

10

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<p>Everyone needs a safety that s/he will certainly be admitted to, certainly be able to afford, and will like. It could be community college or some other not that selective school with a post-April application deadline, but one needs to plan for a safety application in case every match or reach results in rejection. April brings out the “rejected everywhere, what should I do” posts here.</p>

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<p>Berkeley is probably not as high a reach as the others in this list, especially if applying to Letters and Science.</p>

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<p>Reed does not offer CS “natively”. It does have a 3+2 program with University of Washington, but making the actual transfer is likely extremely selective. It is likely better to apply to University of Washington (but note that if one is not admitted to the CS major as a freshmen, it is highly competitive to declare later) and/or other smaller schools with “native” CS degree programs than to deal with 3+2 programs.</p>