<p>I was considering certain schools, but I would like to know which colleges would be a good fit for me considering my sat scores/GPA and interests. I would like to apply for computer science or computer engineering.</p>
<p>GPA/class rank:
-5/~800 (based off of weighted GPA)
-3.70(unweighted)
-All Advanced classes throughout high school
-3 AP courses so far(score of 3 on world history, chemistry, and literature)
-5 AP classes this year
SAT:
-720(math)
-720(reading)
-700(writing)
-composite: 2140
-720(chemistry)
-650(physics)
-640(math II)
ACT:
-34(math)
-31(English/science)
-32(reading)
-composite: 32
EC:
-volunteer at church fundraisers occasionally
-NHS
-academic challenge
-secretary of the math club
Sports:
-Captain of the wrestling team
-county medalist, sectional medalist, district and regional qualifier
-played other sorts sparingly (track & football)
Work:
-worked 40+ hours a week during the nightshift as a dishwasher
Recommenders:
-I should have decent recommendations (my history teacher really likes me, I've known my English teacher for years, my programming teacher thinks my code is some of the best he's seen from his students even though I've only done it for 2/3 months, and my coach thinks I'm the hardest worker on the team)
Anything that might help:
Both of my parents are Salvadorn(Hispanic) immigrants with less than a second grade education. Our family of seven has a combined income of less than 20k/year. My first language was Spanish.</p>
<p>I'm only mentioning this stuff because I know that this is the kind of stuff colleges look at (or so I've heard) and I really want to know where I should apply. I've been losing a lot of sleep thinking about the schools over already applied to.</p>
<p>I began programming this year because my friend encouraged me to. Now it has become a passion of mine and I plan to study a computer related field in college, but it seems like the top tier colleges in this field prefer prepared students who have already had some experience with actual companies than somebody that has just gotten into this field. Which colleges do I still have a shot at getting into that are still top notch in computer fields. I need to know soon, so I can begin applying to them too. I have already begun applying to Lehigh, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Columbia, and Stanford.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I understand your comment regarding top tier colleges prefer prepared students who have experience with actual companies etc. You’re a high school student and not an experienced job applicant. In practice many college applicants, including future engineers, are unsure about their majors. They rarely have job experience or even opportunities to hone the skills they acquire in high school courses on real projects.</p>
<p>Your initial list is a start. Look with care at your instate options ( you don’t mention your state of residence). Computer science, at least at the undergraduate level, is a well defined discipline and it’s likely that your State’s flagship, and most likely your state’s publics a notch below, have excellent CS programs.</p>
<p>Your class rank is surprisingly high considering your low unweighted GPA. It will not be easy to answer your question because your high school seems to be an anomaly. Does your high school send a lot of students with a low GPA to top schools? What is the unweighted GPA of ranks 1 - 4 at your school?</p>
<p>Cornell, Columbia, and Stanford are reaches for nearly all applicants. Carnegie Mellon is too, for CS. Lehigh should be a match. So you need at least one admission and financial safety school, then maybe 1 or 2 more match schools.</p>
<p>What state are you in?
How much are your parents able and wiling to contribute to the costs?
Have you run the online net price calculators for each college on your list?
A match is not a good match (and a reach is unrealistic) unless there is a reasonable chance you can afford the estimated net price.</p>
<p>For safeties, consider your in-state public universities. CS is a very marketable major in high demand. Most state flagships will offer a good variety of CS courses at all levels (although the intro/intermediate courses may be overcrowded at some schools). The CS curriculum tends to be very similar at most research universities.</p>
<p>It’s hard to suggest more match schools without knowing more about your preferences (besides your interest in CS).
Universities a bit less selective than the Ivies, but more so than Lehigh, include:
Tufts
JHU
USC
Vanderbilt</p>
<p>Boston College is approximately as selective as Lehigh or a little less so.
All of the above schools claim to meet 100% of demonstrated financial need.</p>
<p>If you’re looking for smaller schools with good need-based aid, and about as selective as Lehigh (or less so), check out these colleges:
Colgate
Grinnell
Macalester
Oberlin
These 4 are liberal arts colleges with relatively good need-based aid, small classes, and total focus on undergraduates. CS course selection would be more limited than at many larger schools. </p>
<p>State universities with relatively low costs for out of state students (< $30K) include:
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Engineering
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities</p>
<p>Thanks for the info guys. I’m from an inner city school in PA and I do think that my GPA is low for my rank, but I’m pretty sure numbers 1-4 have much better GPAs. My friend, the salutatorian, has a near 4.0 GPA. As to whether my school sends students with low GPAs to a lot of top tier schools with low GPAs, I wouldn’t know because I don’t know everyone’s GPA, but I do know that our top ten schools usually go to really good schools. </p>
<p>What I meant about the job experience is that I’ve noticed that colleges want students that stand out and have a demonstrated passion for their major of choice (at least for the best schools) and when I look at profiles of students who claim to have been accepted into schools like Stanford or CMU, they say they have had some volunteer experience or internships with computer companies. This discourages me because I’m still not 100% sure what I want to study.</p>
<p>I guess what I really want to know is which colleges wouldn’t be a waste of my time to apply to (decent to good chance of acceptance), but is still competitive in computer science.</p>
<p>Apply in case. You have a compelling story to tell, especially because you have excellent scores, grades, and a full time job as a high school student. Though I hate to say it, you will probably get an admission boost because of your El Salvadorian heritage. In the world of admissions, you’re an almost extinct animal. Colleges spend a great deal of time and money to find applicants like you. </p>
<p>Look up full need meet schools and then apply to all of the ones which offer a non trivial number of CS courses.</p>
<p>It would not be practical to apply to all the ones that offer a non-trivial number of CS courses. Even if you eliminated all the LACs, you’d still have ~25 schools on that list.</p>
<p>In part, @fogcity’s point is that you can get a terrific education in CS at a LOT of schools, including Penn State, Pitt, Temple, etc. So ask yourself what kind of environment you want to be in. How important is it for you to find other people who look like you and have experiences like yours in your classes? The more elite the school the less likely that is to happen. How comfortable will you be surrounded by white and asian peers in your classrooms and dorms? That’s something you have to decide in choosing a college. Where are you most likely to succeed? You got a 34 in the math ACT; I have no doubt you can do the work. My question is about fit. On the other hand, you could look at certain southern Cali (Whittier) or southwestern schools (UNM, New Mexico State) where the Hispanic population will be more evident.</p>
<p>The ivies and near-ivies (CMU, Stanford, WashU, JHU, Vandy) are a crap-shoot for anyone to get into. It will be tougher with a 3.7 (as great as that is) than a 3.9 or 4.0, but there’s no telling if you’d get into any of those even if you had a 4.0. So apply to a couple of those, several matches like Lehigh (a very good school), and two safeties like Temple and Howard.</p>
<p>As you’re putting this list of schools together, consider need-based financial aid, which you are very likely to get a lot of based on your parents’ salary and assets, at the ivies–and merit aid such as you would get at Temple and Howard automatically, I think, and would be a candidate for at Pitt, Brandeis, JHU, Vandy, NYU, and WashU. CMU, BU, and NYU are relatively stingy, but I don’t know what they’d do in your case.</p>
<p>You could also be looking at whether your school is a Governor’s School Merit school or a Maguire Scholars Program school. Also check out the Hispanic Scholarship Fund.</p>
<p>Given your family’s low income, they may be able to contribute very little or nothing, so you may want to look at schools that will give you a net price under $10,000.</p>
<p>Put in a couple safeties, including some schools where you will get full-tuition covered (I believe Temple is one of those), but aim high as well. You have a compelling backstory to tell.</p>
<p>BTW, @jkeil911, private elites are pretty diverse these days while even state flagships are pretty upper-middle-class-heavy, so I don’t think he’ll find much difference in student body composition between those two.</p>
<p>Consider an automatic full ride scholarship school (follow the link in #10) for a safety.</p>
<p>For additional match and reach schools, consider schools with good financial aid (see the net price calculator at each school) and competitive full ride merit scholarship schools.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice guys. I really don’t care about the racial make up is for my school. What I want is a large school with a beautiful campus that is more math heavy(engineering). I do need since safety schools in my area (Reading) but I don’t necessarily like Temple(because reasons…).</p>
<p>How do I find the financial aid calculator for each school?</p>
<p>By the way, I don’t work full time during school (that would be crazy with all the other stuff I have to do) but most of that money was given to my parents. Would my wrestling background have an effect in my admissions? I’m not a five star recruit but I could get into some D II programs. Do colleges look at that, or do they label it as just another activity if I’m not good enough to make their team?</p>
<p>If coaches are recruiting you, or if you can convince a coach to take a look at some video, and you can commit for four more years of mat burns and dislocated joints, then get to work on getting your wrestling to work for you. If you don’t want to wrestle for a school, admissions officers know what a commitment it is to wrestle and respond favorably to wrestling. </p>
<p>net price calculators are found usu. on the financial aid webpage of each school. some schools make it harder to find, but most put it on the FA page. You’ll need your parents’ help to fill it out and your own tax returns.</p>
<p>Not caring about diversity will make your job a lot easier.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan, I guess we’ll have to disagree about how we define “pretty diverse.” Most colleges can continue to improve.</p>
<p>But look for your safety first. Realistically, this will likely have to be a school with an automatic full ride for your stats. The automatic full tuition ones may work if you take a direct loan ($5,500), get a Pell grant (up to $5,730), and have a few thousand in work earnings in the summer and school year (or some small parental contribution in lieu of the latter). Do this now, since deadlines are fast approaching.</p>
<p>Alabama is a popular candidate to suggest on these forums (deadline 12/15 for scholarships). But there are several others on that list you may want to consider.</p>
<p>If the coach at a given school really wants you, that can be a significant boost for admission and could get you an athletic scholarship. However, team practices, competitions, and activities can take up a lot of time, so you may have to arrange your academic schedule to take a lighter load or easier courses in season, and take a heavier load or harder courses in the off season. If not recruitable, then sports would be a extracurricular whose value depends on whether the college looks at extracurriculars and how well you did competitively.</p>
<p>But find your safety from the automatic big scholarship schools first. Being in Pennsylvania means that the typical in-state backup options are not as good and more expensive than for those in many other states.</p>
<p>If you cannot find a suitable school with a guaranteed full ride for your stats, whose deadlines have not already passed, you are more likely to hit a < $10K target at one of the more selective “full need” schools (assuming your EFC actually is < $10K). Try running the NPC on Johns Hopkins, Tufts, USC, or Vanderbilt. These schools are much more selective than Alabama (they won’t fill your safety need), but they are among the least selective schools that even claim to meet 100% of demonstrated need and also have strong engineering programs.</p>
<p>Alabama: remaining cost about $11,000
Alabama - Huntsville: remaining cost about $10,000
Tuskegee: remaining cost about $3,000
Howard: remaining cost about $4,000 (first come first served)
Florida A&M: remaining cost about $13,000
Louisiana Tech: remaining cost about $5,000
Temple: remaining cost about $16,000 (needs 3.75 GPA, you may not get with 3.70 unless they consider weighted GPA)
Prairie View A&M: remaining cost about $6,000</p>
<p>Note: for big merit scholarships, check if there is a college GPA to continue or renew the scholarship. 3.0 is generally not that hard to get for a top scholarship student, but 3.5 may be more stressful to maintain. </p>
<p>For comparison, below are net price estimates for several selective private schools, based on the OP’s information (family of 7, ~$20K income).
Source: College Abacus.</p>