Would like feedback on CS Target/ Reach/Safety schools

Applying to College
1

Rising senior in WA state
Unweighted GPA - 4.0
SAT- 1530 superscored (800 Math, 730 Eng)
Courses so far - 7 AP courses and 4 honors (including 1 college level);
CS courses include AP CS A, AP CS P and Data Structures
Extra-curriculars include - Robotics (FRC) code lead, volunteering at a non-profit for last 2years teaching kids math and CS, teaching assistant at Summer Chemistry course in UW, teaching assistant at local mixed martial arts club, Juisitsu black belt, NHS and Diversity commissioner

Here is my list of schools
Reach - UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, Georgia Tech, WashU, UT Austin, UW
Target - CWRU, UC Irvine, UMich. Ann Arbor, UMD-CP, UW-Madison
Safety - UPitt, UM - Twin cities, ASU, WSU

Considering dropping 1-2 reach schools and adding couple of Target/ Safety schools.
Which ones could be added/ removed from this list?
Thanks in advance for suggestions

2

For CS , most of your targets are reaches. Pitt has rolling admission so be sure you apply early. I wouldn’t consider it a safety but you will know early if you are accepted.

IMO, you are better off adding some true matches.

Since you have a number of large state schools, I’m surprised UIUC and Purdue aren’t on the list. Still reaches for CS but Purdue would be less reach-y.

If you like Case, Rochester would be a school to consider. My D also felt RPI had a similar vibe, albeit smaller, to some of the schools on your list. Those would be matches.

Be sure to pay attention to deadlines. Some of the schools fill the bulk, if not all, of their class in EA.

4 Likes
3

You have a lot of OOS public universities on your list. I think you have a good chance of acceptance at at least some, if not most, of them. Just make sure they are affordable. In particular, the CA publics
as they give $0 in need based aid to OOS students and very very little merit aid.

3 Likes
4

I count 16 schools. Maybe whittle it down to 10? You only need 2 safeties.

Is money a concern? You’ll be full-pay at some of these schools.

Is WUE applicable? Utah?

Case used to pretty much require demonstrated interest. Do some research.

I’m thinking your targets are reaches. You could do 2 safeties and the rest reaches.

I’m a Pitt grad but I wouldn’t consider it an upgrade over ASU for CS and it would cost a lot more.

1 Like
5

Michigan is a reach and almost 80k a year with little to no merit. I would classify most of your reaches as high reach and most of your targets as reaches for CS. I agree also too many schools! Hard to do those essays welll. Be sure to research how to write the school specific essays. Lots of help on the internet geared towards specific schools detailing what they are looking for.

Be sure and consider price. UW in state has a 27 percent admit rate for in state CS which makes it much more likely than Ga Tech, Michigan, Texas , etc. which will likely be single digit acceptance rates OOS for CS

Also agree add Purdue.

2 Likes
6

That depends on your budget. You haven’t mentioned anything so for now I’ll assume your family is comfortable paying $83k per year (but please check and clarify).
I’m also going to assume no location preference since you have listed schools from all over the country.

Additional match schools: Virginia Tech, UMass-Amherst
Additional likely schools: Rose-Hulman, RIT, Stevens Institute of Technology

1 Like
7

I would consider UW CS a match for you. Your stats are stronger than many people I know in the program.

Not sure you need so many reaches – if you get in to UW CS, there are few schools on that list that are better. I had a very tough time passing up my acceptance.

2 Likes
8

What do you want in your school experience? There are some schools on your list where that will be quite different day in and day out, for example Berkeley and WashU.

It’s very competitive for CS, but Cal Poly is popular with WA students, does a great job placing grads, is cheaper than the UCs and is in an idyllic location.

It’s not like any school on your list, but if you’d consider small, Harvey Mudd does a good job and is part of a neat consortium.

Lastly, CMU is a Case WashU size analog, with a great reputation.

It all boils down to my original question. Does size matter? Location? Weather? Class size? Price? Big time athletics? Support for your hobbies, like maybe hiking, surfing, skiing, big city cultural experiences? You get to choose how your next 4 years look. With a CS degree your opportunities will be good from all of them if you get a strong GPA and amass some experience.

Good luck!

9

When you say rising Senior you mean Junior - correct ? Usually you’d hear rising the summer b4. But a student saying a Junior now. Just making sure.

Nothing to add on top of all the great advice. Just remember UCs and even UW (most likely), your test won’t be seen.

I do think you’ll get into at least several of your target and up (my opinion) as you are quite impressive. I make that statement assuming both first and second semester junior year go well.

But I do agree that you have schools of varying size (well just WUSTL and CWRU stand out), location and it seems like these were picked for pedigree and I’m not sure it’s needed in CS. But then if you like the size you might look at Colorado School of Mines too.

If it were pedigree you are after, I’d throw in Ga Tech, Purdue, and UIUC. You could cut two safeties or leave all if you haven’t had a chance to visit yet. While they are easy ins for you your safeties, these are all great. If you start your common app in summer, you might find some of these apps aren’t that difficult or share common essay questions, etc. I had one kid do 15 and one 21.

If you decide budget matters or if your family tells you it does, then you can flip to WUE or a school like Arizona, Alabama, or privates (like CWRU, RPI, etc ) that will throw money at you. In this major the pedigree may matter less.

Best of luck. Very impressive.

1 Like
10

Congratulations on being a competitive applicant and I will only address the UC’s on your list.

First of all, the UC’s are test blind so your competitive SAT score will not be considered for admission or scholarship purposes. Also make sure you can afford approximately $67K/year to attend any of the UC’s since they offer no need-based financial aid except for any Federal aid you may be eligible and very little merit aid.

CS is probably the most competitive major at all the UC’s and all these schools listed: UCLA, UCB, UCSD and UCI will be Reach schools for CS.

You need to calculate your UC GPA’s at the end of Junior year. Note only AP/IB or UC Transferable DE/CC classes count for the extra Honors points in the calculation.

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

UC admit rates based on the Capped weighted UC GPA and not major specific.

Campus 4.20+ 3.80-4.19 3.40-3.79 3.00-3.39
Berkeley 30% 11% 2% 1%
Davis 85% 55% 23% 10%
Irvine 60% 31% 14% 1%
Los Angeles 29% 6% 1% 0%
Merced 97% 98% 96% 89%
Riverside 97% 92% 62% 23%
San Diego 72% 25% 2% 0%
Santa Barbara 73% 28% 4% 1%
Santa Cruz 91% 81% 46% 9%

Below are the CS admit rates for these campuses:
UCB 2022: 2.9% for the College of L&S. EECS was 4.5%
UCLA 2021: 5.4%
UCSD 2022: No specific data but it is a Capped major and the admit rate is close to UCLA’s and UCB.
UCI 2022: 5.8%

Overall 2022 out of state admit rates:
UCB: 8.6%
UCLA: 8.8%
UCSD: 31.5%
UCI: 36.6%

Best of luck and I am sure you will excel wherever you land.

1 Like
11

Thanks to everyone for your feedback.
Just to clarify - I am a junior currently. We won’t qualify for any need-based aid and so while the budget matters, it is not the biggest of factors for my family.
Biggest factors are - strength of Comp Sci. in the school, location and likelihood of non-need based merit/ aid.

I had considered Purdue and UIUC but didn’t like their locations (strongly prefer being within/ around urban areas) - still researching the locations of remaining schools in my list.

All UCs have 1 application so actual # of apps would be ~12 to 13

Based on the feedback, I have dropped Michigan from the list and may drop UT Austin and UM - Twin cities as well.

Will look at Amherst and Virginia.

Any thoughts on Duke and Rice? They have good CS programs and appear to offer non-need merit/aid.

Thanks again.

1 Like
12

I think UW Madison maybe considered more of a safety because the department is not closed, with very light gpa requirements to enter CS after you join. It is in the college of letters & science.

If you are willing to pay OOS tuition to a bunch of publics (little chance of merit, perhaps with the exception of UMass Amherst), you should consider some of the privates at a slightly higher price point for possibly a better college experience.

If you are considering Duke and Rice, a whole host of other privates could be considered with some real diversification benefits (unlike in the case of the OOS publics which are more numerically inclined), as the admission criteria at the privates are more idiosyncratic.

1 Like
13

Austin honors (Turing) is well regarded. And there is no special instate preference for the honors. And the tuition is very tolerable. You may enjoy the coziness. They accept a 100-120. About 50-60 join Turing each year.

You may want to consider improving your SAT. Even for instate, at many of the publics, the SAT becomes important for merit aid. Hard to justify giving large scholarships for folks at a 1530 when there are folks with a high 1500s or a full 1600 looking for merit scholarships. Usually these tend to be for instate kids, or in the case of UMass Amherst to bring OOS tuition close to instate tuition.

If you want more safeties, you could consider adding Penn State to the list. Rutgers may also be a safety if you care to come this far east. The regional job market for Rutgers is good. It may feel like a commuter school a little bit though.

I doubt non-need merit aid is being given to CS kids at Duke and Rice. You may want to check on that a bit more. I have seen a top English Lit kid get 4k/yr from Duke and 40k/yr from JHU 2 years ago. I suspect that is the kind of profile you will need.

14

I think strength of Comp Sci - you don’t know but you are going by ‘rankings’. There are so many schools in an area that have strong programs and will be overlooked because you are not digging deeper. To work in comp sci / programming, technically you don’t even need the major. My nephew has a poli Sci degree from Arizona but passed the four or five programming tests at his well known company.

When you say likelihood of non need (ie merit) you need to factor in things like some schools may not have merit but their tuition is lower - Elon for example (but not good for you 
just an example). And you want urban.

Umass (Amherst) and UVA are great but not close to being urban.

You can apply to the UCs but their cost will be high. An Arizona / Arizona State will be similar and have a level of urban-ness although not Uber urban but UW urban.

UT Austin an ok drop as it’s very hard to get into but UMN is about as urban as any school on your list and gives $$. So from that POV it should be a keeper.

You are unlikely to get aid at Duke. Rice is a slim hope. Vanderbilt a better hope. You say budget is not most important but then non need based aid matters. At some point you’ll need to have the true budget discussion with your family. Or play the if I got into Duke I’d pay $80k+ and I would choose that over a solid school at $40k. Assume another $3-5k above what they say and Honors could cost more at the schools that offer it.

I think you are a bit ahead - I think you should go visit schools - large, medium and small. Like a UW and WWU and Puget Sound if you family is taking trips, etc. or different size schools in different environments to really get a feel for what’s out there from an environmental POV


You can go to school for under $20k a year and get a great education and job or you can go $80k+ and there are many in between. My son goes to a VERY low ranked engineering school at a well known for high merit college (which doesn’t mean the quality is less btw) with stats similar to yours - and yet all five job offers he has so far were similar or higher salary to schools in the top 20 of engineering or higher.

You and not the school will make you. So if you want urban/near urban, even if they are ranked lower, there’s nothing wrong with Pitt or UMN. Or the Arizona schools or a UTK, UK, U Denver, SMU, Utah, U of South Carolina etc type schools that will balance quality, environment, and urban feel. Note for you those are all safeties and there’s many more. Then you can try a Vandy, Rice, NEU which would all be reaches with merit possibility or a CWRU, RPI, Miami, WPI which might be similar on the target / likely side but again with merit.

You have to spend four years, day after day after day - so you don’t want to choose a school simply based on where a magazine rates it but rather where you’ll feel comfortable.

The career outcome will likely be similar. The school can help but most/many today find internships on their own and if you get an internship or two, the job opportunities become easier (assuming a strong job market).

Good luck but reading your posts I do think a lot more learning needs to be done before you truly define a list. You’re off to a great start though.

15

I’m not an AO nor am I an expert. That said, this is how I would classify your current schools.

Extremely likely (80+%)

  • Arizona State

  • Washington State

Likely (60-79%)

  • U. Pitt (if you apply early)

  • U. of Minnesota

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • UW-Madison (leaning toward likely)

  • U. of Maryland (leaning towards low probability)

Low Probability (20-39%)

  • Case Western

Lower probability (less than 20%)

  • UC Berkeley

  • UCLA

  • UCSD

  • Georgia Tech

  • WashU

  • UT – Austin

  • U. of Michigan

If the likelihood of merit aid is one of the biggest factors, then my guess is that your family would prefer not to be paying $80k if they don’t have to. Although Rice and Duke offer a small number of merit scholarships, they have way more qualified applicants than spots to get into the college itself. Trying to get one of the merit scholarships is extremely unlikely for everyone accepted to those schools
it’s rather like winning the lottery and I would say would be an extremely high reach. But, there are the scholarship lottery winners every year, so it does happen, but the odds are extremely low.

I’m not sure whether U. of Maryland or UC – Berkeley are going to meet your wishlist for urban, and Washington State (assuming that’s the WSU you’re referring to) is the same.

Below are some suggestions that you might want to look into further, categorized by my guess as to what your chances of acceptance would be.

Drexel, Northeastern, and U. of Cincinnati all place a very strong emphasis on co-ops, making the transition easier between co-ops and regular school semesters than at many other places. Those co-ops are often good paying for CS, so another means of lowering the costs of your education.

Some schools on this list are smaller (or at least mid-sized) like Seattle, San Francisco, Wentworth, Worcester, Illinois Tech, and U. of Rochester.

U. of Arizona and U. of South Carolina are both known for their honors colleges as well.

With all the schools on this list from Toss-Up through Extremely Likely, I think the chances are pretty good for you to receive merit aid, and quite possibly some very generous merit aid. Generally, the higher your profile is in comparison with the rest of the population, the larger the merit reward is likely to be. Thus, your best chances for merit aid are not at the schools with lower probabilities are for acceptance.

Extremely likely (80+%)

  • DePaul (Chicago, IL)

  • Drexel (Philadelphia, PA)

  • New Jersey Institute of Technology (Newark)

  • Seattle U. (WA)

  • U. of Arizona (Tucson)

  • U. of Cincinnati (OH)

  • U. of Houston (TX)

  • U. of North Carolina – Charlotte

  • U. of San Francisco (CA)

  • U. of South Carolina (Columbia)

  • U. of Texas – Dallas

  • Wentworth (Boston, MA)

  • Worcester Polytechnic (MA)

Likely (60-79%)

  • Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago)

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • U. of Rochester (NY)

Low Probability (20-39%)

  • Northeastern (Boston, MA)

Lower probability (less than 20%)

  • Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh, PA)
2 Likes
16

I would disagree with this unless things have changed radically since 2014 when our similar stats son got in with $100K merit.

1 Like
17

I agree with Austenut’s categorization. Things have changed dramatically in college admissions over the last 8 years. CWRU’s Class of 2026 acceptance rate was 25%.

High stat students can have difficulty gaining admission if they don’t apply ED. Significant demonstrated interest is a must, to the point of ridiculous (IMO). For example, last year’s deferred EA students had to login in to their portals every Friday and re-state their interest in still attending CWRU.

8 Likes
18

UMD is on a nice suburban campus but it’s pretty close to DC. Easy to get there by bus or metro. Lots of kids do internships or co-ops in DC.

They do offer merit scholarships (including a limited number of full-ride), but they’re based on a holistic review and are very competitive. OP is in range though, at least stats-wise.

19

According to the CWRU CDS last year, the 75th percentile SAT was 1490. Only 7% of accepted students had a 4.0. The OP has a 4.0/1530. I don’t see how that can be described as “low probability.” It’s a different story in highly rejective schools that are hovering at 5% acceptance rates and who gets in is a little more random. According to the CDS though, 30% were accepted last year. I would consider CWRU a match, if not a likely, as long as the OP demonstrates interest. That’s with a big caveat, that they don’t rank CS in a separate pool. I haven’t seen any evidence that they do, but like some schools, they might.

1 Like
20

Two things to note for cwru. The OP is applying for CS. And those stats may apply for ED