Chance a stressed co'26 for her dream schools! [NJ resident, 3.90 GPA, 1560 SAT, 34 ACT, 1520 PSAT; computer science, data science, philosophy]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • us domestic+ us citizen
  • State/Location of residency: NJ
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): public competitive hs

Cost Constraints / Budget

*full pay

Intended Major(s)

  • computer science/data science + philosophy

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.90
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.44
  • Class Rank: not reported
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1560 SAT, 34 ACT, 1520 PSAT

HS coursework

  • 9th grade: advanced algebra 2, advanced english, ap physics 1, honors american government, latin 2, chorus, computer science, advanced chemistry, gym
  • 10th grade: honors precalculus, honors english, honors biology, ap us history, honors latin 3, dual enrollment financial accounting, gym, ap computer science a
  • 11th grade: ap physics c mechanics, ap physics c electricity and magnetism, ap calculus bc, ap lang, honors world history, dual enrollment mobile app development, dual enrollment game design, gym
  • 12th grade (to be taken): ap statistics, ap lit, ap psychology, ap microeconomics, data structures, another computer science elective, modern physics, gym

Awards

  • 1st place in mock trial, 3rd in central region of jersey
  • 1st place in state, 4th in nation for online judicial bee
  • 5th in region for business law
  • high honors at my school, ap scholar stuff, national merit semifinalist maybe, national honors societies + other honors societies

Extracurriculars

  • research assistant at my state school in ai ethics
  • captain of my school’s mock trial; led to first ever championship title
  • created an app to help community service in the area w/ ai features, built 1-2 small ml models for fun
  • director of tech for a student led npo partnered w/ a huge company, helped establish branches in over 15 countries
  • started working w a t5 researcher on a cool paper in tech governance
  • part of initiative w/ attorney general to reduce bias - host local workshops and partners w/ local artists to spread awareness of diversity through art, raising money to donate to an anti-bias npo
  • volunteer foreign language teacher (200+ hours)
  • paid job at a local coding tutoring place - teach javascript and unity
  • member of school’s girls who code + fbla, used to do science olympiad for 2 years

Essays/LORs/Other

  • haven’t written yet!

Schools

  • NJIT
  • Rutgers University
  • Stony Brook University
  • University of Maryland
  • Stevens Institute of Technology
  • University of Pittsburgh
  • University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Carnegie Mellon University
  • Johns Hopkins University
  • University of Virginia
  • Cornell
  • UPenn
  • Princeton
  • Brown
  • Yale
  • Tufts
  • UCLA
  • UC Berkley

please please chance me/ let me know what i can do over the summer to help my app!

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These are the dream schools? All of them?? The ones that are so different in size and weather and environment and curriculum type?? wow.

Let’s start with yes, you’re in:

NJIT, Rutgers, Stony Brook, Stevens, Pitt

So if those are dream schools - you have zero to worry about!! So stop stressing.

Target - but I lean toward in - UMD. If you want another two (one safe but a great name - UMN and one higher up the rankings but a smidge easier than UMD - UMASS).

The rest - you’ll get into some I predict…at least a couple. U of M though LSA I’d think.

I suspect these are dream based on ranking but not fit.

I encourage you to figure out what type of school you’d like - size, weather, urban/rural, sports, greek life, etc.

Best of luck to you.

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Congrats on your excellent profile. You are certainly a viable candidate for any college and have a shot to get in anywhere. However, as I am guessing you already know, there are more worthy candidates than spots available at the hyper-competitive colleges so it is impossible to chance someone.

Your list has a ton of reaches, but glad to see a few safety/match schools. Would you be excited to attend those schools as well? Perhaps add in a couple additional match/high match schools (ex. URochester, Case, as a couple of examples).

Anything productive you do over the summer (including a summer job) would be just fine.

Are all of these colleges comfortably affordable for your family? For example, as an OOS student you will not get any aid at the UC colleges.

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I would cut the list down to no more than 12 after considering what fits you in terms of location/weather, size and institutional academic focus. Your family may be able to be full pay, but have you cleared that with your parents? College admissions is not a lottery where each application is additive. At some point too many applications will hurt the quality of each application, especially your holistic reaches. Pick 6-8 reaches at most so you can write well thought through essays and short answers so that those schools see you fitting them.

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I sadly wouldn’t count UMass-Amherst as a safety or even target for anyone if the major is Computer Science. Even with the 1500+ SAT score—the GPA for CS needs to be pretty perfect. (Please correct me if I’m mistaken)

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haha i just really like a lot of places! i’m a super indecisive person and like both big schools and smaller ones, i thrive mostly in the northeast but love california too. ik i’m all over the place but i’ve visited a ton of these schools and loved almost every single one!

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i’d be super happy at any of the schools on my list and everything’s comfortable for my family! thank you for the amazing advice :slight_smile:

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These three look very likely to me given your excellent stats and being in-state for two of them. These are also very good universities. You can do very well with a degree in CS and/or Data Science from any of these schools.

The first three Rutger’s graduates who I ever met were graduate students (at Stanford in a subfield of applied math). They were very strong graduate students in a very good program that is not all that far away from CS and Data Science. Since then I have met many other Rutger’s graduates, and they have all made the school look very good.

Starting your list with three very strong very good safeties is exactly the right thing to do.

Otherwise I think that you have a good list. The main question that comes to mind is whether the schools on this list would be worth the cost compared to your excellent in-state options. This may end up being a difficult question and might depend upon your family’s finances.

As @tsbna44 mentioned above, you should be thinking about what makes a school a good fit for you, and look for schools that are good for your likely major.

I do not think that you need a dual major with philosophy. You can major in CS and/or data science (or math), and just take the philosophy classes that interest you. Anything that you can do with bachelor’s degrees in both CS and philosophy, you can also do with a bachelor’s degree in CS plus having just taken the philosophy classes.

I am not completely sure what data science is, but my impression is that it overlaps with both CS and applied math. To me the overlap between CS and applied math is a very interesting one, and is pretty close to what I did many years ago (back when “data science” was not explicitly an option). I did not think of Yale as being particularly strong in this area, but it has been a long time since I thought about this issue. However, in general you do want to look at the strength of specific programs, and not be blinded by the overall reputation of a school.

And I think that you are doing very well.

Do something constructive that you find interesting. You might also want to read the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site, and be aware that the same approach of “do what is right for you and do it well” also seems to work at other highly ranked universities, and is a good approach in general.

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hi!! thank you for the great and sound advice - after undergrad, i plan to go to law school and go on to specialize in tech law and ai ethics. do you think i should keep my philosophy focus during undergrad taking that into account?

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For law school, where you go undergrad won’t matter.

That you’re a great test taker will.

You say you are full pay - is that for law school too?

Because you could be $700K by that point.

You’d be best, I think, at Rutgers with Honors or NJIT…the cheaper the better.

You could go to Ramapo or Rutgers - both will get you to Harvard Law, etc.

No different than Stony Brook or Stanford.

You’re a great student and test taker - so you’re in good shape for law school.

But make sure you have $$ for it.

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The most important thing for law school is a strong GPA. Find a major(s) you enjoy and can do well in. Philosophy can be a fine pre-law major.

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Usually, a data science major includes some CS, some statistics, and some other subject that is called the applied domain. However, there may be considerable variation across colleges.

There is ABET accreditation for data science (in two different variations, under computing accreditation and applied and natural science accreditation), but there are only 5 schools (4 in the US) which have ABET accreditation for data science.

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I happen to know a few lawyers who work in high tech. However, they appear to be mostly involved in patents and intellectual property. Nearly all of them have a bachelor’s degree in some high-tech-related field. One for example has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. Another has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and worked as a software engineer for two or three years before going to law school. I also know someone who got a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and went to law school.

I have heard that admissions to law school is largely based on undergraduate GPA and LSAT score. However, I have also heard that people with an engineering degree get a small bump, because there are so many jobs available for lawyers who understand engineering.

Regarding philosophy, it seems to me that this involves logical thinking and being able to write well. These seem like skills that would be useful to a lawyer.

Generally yes I think that you have a sensible plan, as long as you can maintain a high GPA in these areas.

And if law school is the plan, then budget for a full 7 years of university. Even lawyers (and doctors) are better off if they can complete their university studies with little or no debt.

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