High stats (1600 SAT, top 1% rank)+strong extracurricular Asian male from NJ, applying for CS.
Reaches:
MIT
Stanford
Princeton
Cornell
UPenn
Caltech
CMU (SCS)
MAYBE UIUC but it would be 50k and they give out very little merit scholarships, so probably not.
Safeties:
UMD (Need good scholarship since out of state)
Rutgers (Expecting very good scholarship)
EFC around 35k
Would be willing to pay max 40k/year for top-tier school, 25k-30k otherwise
The most often suggested match schools, Northeastern, Boston University, UIUC, U Michigan, U Rochester, Stevens, and even Rose-Hulman etc. are too expensive (a lot of them come out to 50k-60k per year after using the net price calculator, which my family cannot pay for undergrad). The schools that may be affordable with merit scholarships (U Minnesota, Ohio State) either turn out to be safeties or still expensive 30k+ (RPI) and I would pick Rutgers over them, so no use in applying! Can anyone recommend really good match schools with significant merit scholarships?
BU does have a few merit scholarship opportunities (National Merit, Trustees and Presidential). You need to apply before Dec 1 for consideration even if you are applying regular decision. The scholarships were $20K/ yr last year. National Merit may be higher for the next application cycle because I believe I read it would be 50% of the tuition.
My daughter’s college list turned out the same way, due to a combination of her niche interests and net price calculator reality.
She has safety schools and reach schools. Her match schools are the honors programs at her safeties. Maybe take a second look at Maryland, Minnesota and Ohio honors. If Rutgers honors is not 100% safe, apply to one or two more honors programs.
Hey, thanks for the responses so far. Tulane does not offer a CS program. McGill lookes nice and I’ll look into it more but I’d prefer to stay in the U.S. for college (looks like it’ll be 35k-40k + plane tickets). Most of the full need colleges on that wikipedia list look like reaches haha.
Also what sucks is that schools like Boston University apparently don’t stack merit aid with need-based aid, so even if I end up with a nice 20k merit scholarship, it"ll just lower the financial aid by that much (but eliminate the loans).
How much need-based aid would you get at Rice or Mudd? USC (are you likely National Merit=at least 1/2 tuition merit)? Make sure you check the CMU deadline for getting financial air paperwork in to be eligible for merit. Olin (computer engineering, not CS)?
My son’s friend’s parents make their kids pay for 2 years of their college. CMU was her dream, she didn’t get accepted (good stats but lower than you) and ended up at U of NC. Unfortunately all I know is not Chapel Hill, but another campus and financial aid was very generous. Good luck!
Rice and Mudd would both be $38,000, including $8k of combined loans/work-study, but I think I am applying to so many reach schools that adding more isn’t going to increase the chances of getting into one (no one from my school has ever got into harvey mudd, but only 1 to 4 people out of 800 apply every year, and very few people to Rice). I think I just made the NJ cutoff for Nation Merit SF, so i will likely be a finalist - good for USC and Northeastern, but they come in at 60k and 50k respectively, so I don’t know if I can afford them even with a merit scholarship (which might reduce the very little need-based aid they give). Not really interested in a liberal arts school unless it has a significant STEM focus like Harey Mudd.
McGill’s $56K-60K+CAD/year COA is equivalent to about $45K+ USD/year. There are several Canadian universities ranked higher in CS that cost less including Waterloo, University of Toronto and UBC.
You’ve been given a lot of good options for match schools, I’d second USC if you can get the NM semi finalist, even if you don’t they hand out lot of merit awards . Your best option is try to get admission into a reach because most will give FA and meet your need. However being an ORM for CS is going to be a negative at some of those places. You could make one of them a little easier to get in if you apply early. I know many Asians who got into Penn, Cornell, Columbia with your numbers but they were most if not all early decision. But if you’re strong enough to any of those ED, you’ll have a decent chance at MIT/Cal Tech/CMU.
Stanford, Princeton are going to be lottery-esque odds for you, you should apply to Stanford, but consider dropping Princeton for a college that doesn’t give advantages for hooks. Look at Tufts, Northwestern, JHU, maybe Chicago.