Chance/match my rural AK kid for computational biology, 3.95 GPA, 1540 SAT, blue states only

Chance Me / Match Me
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I think the UCs are going to be out of budget but there are several cal states (CSUs) that might be considered safeties or matches. They should hit your budget with the grandparent 529 and are in a very supportive state. I would look at SDSU, SJSU, and cal poly SLO. They all have academic programs that are or can be combined into computational biology, have a strong campus presence (unlike most CSUs, which are largely commuter schools), and should be trans-supportive on campus. SDSU seems to have the strongest program match; SJSU apparently has a good Silicon Valley internships for this field (per AI). SLO is the CSU flagship and likely the most competitive. The local town (San Luis Obispo) however may be a little more conservative than the other two.

CSUs are an easy app—no essays and are mostly stat based and they share the same app.

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Also Simon Fraser University (near Vancouver) has a joint major between CS and molecular biology and should meet your price point based on the current exchange rate and also housing would likely go down in costs if your student lives off campus. Also very LGBTQ supportive.

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I think the good news is you already have some great choices for suitable research universities on the list, namely WPI, Brandeis, University of Rochester, and RPI.

The “blue state” requirement imposes some restraints on where else might make sense, but with your kid’s numbers, I am not sure she really NEEDS a lot more possibilities.

But again suggestions like Pitt (if you are OK with Pittsburgh/PA), the University of Minnesota, and University of Delaware are possibilities.

And I don’t know if we mentioned Delaware yet. Delaware is a generally strong research university, not least in STEM fields, with a really nice campus in a really nice college town that is also on the train line that goes to Philly and NYC in one direction, Baltimore and DC in the other. One of the cool things about Delaware in this context is they actually have a 4+1 program in Bioinformatics that could be of interest, where you can start taking graduate level classes during your undergrad program and then get the Masters in only one additional year:

This is not something you are committed to right away, it is an option you apply for during junior year (my sense is it is not crazy capacity limited but you do need to fulfill the prereqs).

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Note that all three of SDSU, SJSU, and CPSLO are among the more competitive-for-admission CSUs, at least for some majors. CSUs recalculate GPA with grades from 10th-11th grade (9th-11th grade for CPSLO), with up to 8 +1 points for honors courses (only AP, IB, or college courses count as honors when not listed at University of California A-G Course List which lists California high schools). For CSU (but not UC), a college semester course counts as two courses with two grades for this calculation.

SJSU lists its admission formula at University of California A-G Course List and prior year thresholds at First Time First Year Impaction Results | Admissions

SDSU shows some information at Applications by Major – Analytic Studies & Institutional Research and Applications Interactive Visualization – Analytic Studies & Institutional Research , but not as detailed as SJSU.

CPSLO has First-Year Student Profile | Cal Poly . Be sure to list all high school level math (algebra 1 and higher) and foreign language on the CSU application, even if taken while in middle school, so that it can be counted for courses taken beyond the CSU minimum.

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Do you think she needs any other true safety schools beyond Oregon State? It seems to me like that should be a pretty good bet, and probably the honors college too, but the internet is filled with horror stories about how unpredictable and random the admissions process is – and I don’t want her to end up with nowhere.

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So I think if she has Oregon State plus at least one more “Likely” that is good enough.

I think these are good starting-point definitions:

https://support.collegekickstart.com/hc/en-us/articles/217485088-Differences-Between-Likely-Target-Reach-and-Unlikely-Schools

For Likelies:

  • Likely: the admit rate is over 50% and your academic profile puts you in the top quartile of students from the previous year. These are schools where you have a high probability of gaining admission and merit aid, and it’s ideal to have at least two in your list.

With her grades, class rank, and test scores, she basically just needs to be looking for places where the admit rate is 50%+, and of course it should be comfortably affordable and academically suitable. Ideally she would actually be pretty excited about why each Likely could be a good fit for her in particular.

Note that to the extent they have different admissions policies for in-state versus OOS, you want to apply the relevant admissions standards. If they actually have direct admissions to a desired major, you can look at that. Usually Bio stuff does not, it is just part of some sort of Arts & Sciences college or such with general admissions. But CS might.

OK, so the admit rate at places like WPI and RPI are over 50%, I believe, and there is no OOS distinction. You’d want to check this, but to my knowledge there is no specific restricted admissions to Computational Biology at either. I’m pretty confident she qualifies as a top 25th applicant on the numbers.

So assuming they look good for affordability and she really likes them, that to me is two more solid Likelies. I would not then worry about needing more.

Of course you aren’t necessarily limited either. Particularly when people chase merit, they might want more Likelies from the admissions perspective. Or sometimes people are still considering different sorts of colleges. Like if she wasn’t sure she wanted a tech focused college like WPI or RPI, maybe have another Likely which had a broader focus. Or an LAC, if she starts getting more interested in those. And so on.

But personally, I would not say she needs those, they would just be possibilities if she wanted to increase the diversity of her Likely options and/or chase merit.

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Because Oregon State does not have published automatic admission criteria, it is best to treat it as something other than “safety”.

Additionally, section C7 of https://institutionalresearch.oregonstate.edu/sites/institutionalresearch.oregonstate.edu/files/2025-07/cds_2024-25.pdf says that level of applicant’s interest is considered, so an overqualified applicant may be wait listed or rejected based on the assumption that they will not matriculate.

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Just reposting this here from the parent thread. I am on vacation and don’t have regular computer access, but will revisit once I do.

I’d really like her to have more in both the target and safety zone. So I guess her best bet to add more is to try and figure out if there are any small to medium-sized universities that will make it realistic to pursue all her interests together (bio, cs, math) in some major/minor/just taking courses combination without overloading.
I have a vague recollection that your kid didn’t want a tech-y school, but I may be misremembering that. Below are a few “generalist” schools that could be possibilities:

Southern Illinois Carbondale: About 8600 undergrads, offers a doctorate in the 3 fields, and is a surprisingly heavy-hitter when it comes to people going on to earn a doctorate. Although there are certainly no guarantees, I suspect your D would be competitive for their full ride.
U. of Denver (CO): About 6600 undergrads and offers through a doctorate in the 3 subjects, though no PhDs were awarded in CS in the most recent year.
U. of Rochester (NY): About 6100 undergradsa and offers through a PhD in the 3 fields.
If more tech-focused schools are options then

Clarkson (NY) has about 2300 undergrads and offers through a PhD in bio, cs, and math, so I suspect there’s sufficient depth for your D. They tend to be very generous with merit aid, but make sure to take a look at the university finances (do that for all colleges, actually).
Illinois Institute of Technology has about 3100 undergrads, and its Chicago location means that it should be easier to get flights back home. Again, offers a doctorate in all 3 fields of interest leading to a presumption of sufficient depth.
Michigan Tech: About 6k undergrads and offers doctoral programs in all 3 fields as well.
New Mexico Institute of Technology: A WUE school of about 1100 undergrads that offers through a PhD in all 3 fields, though no math doctorates were awarded in the most recent year of IPEDS data.
Rensselaer Polytechnic (NY, about 5700 undergrads) and Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ, about 4200 undergrads) also offer doctorates in the three areas.

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As a quick addendum, I think it can also help to think of this as a multi-step process. So, you don’t have to know the whole list in advance, you can see how things are going and react accordingly.

That’s why a rolling college like a Pitt or Minnesota or such can be nice. Or really any non-binding early notification college where you find out well before RD applications are typically due. If you get a suitable offer from one of those, you have solved the “at least one offer” part of of the problem, and you can focus solely on getting offers you would prefer.

If for some reason that DOESN’T go as planned, you may want to do things like add an autoadmit college to your RD list (assuming you didn’t have one before).

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+1, the demonstrated interest piece came to mind. Make sure even if it’s a safety in terms of stats, that your daughter couldn’t end up being a victim of yield protection and do what is possible to show interest.

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As a general comment, high matches may represent the category of schools that should be considered with the most diligence by an academically ambitious student.

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I wonder if you are underestimating your child’s likelihood of getting into WPI and RPI?

In any event, University at Buffalo (NYS flagship) has Computational Biology. I literally know nothing about the major but just saw it listed when checking out their Biology Dept and thought of this thread. I suspect with that amazing GPA and SAT this would be a very likely.

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Just as a general observation, in my S24’s feederish HS there was quite a bit of discussion about yield protection during the college counseling process, but there were many colleges where their reputation was that on the one hand, they required a lot of sincere demonstrated interest, but on the other, if you applied with high numbers and that demonstrated interest, they were more likely to offer you merit than preemptively reject you.

Realistically, these colleges knew you were still likely to go somewhere else, but apparently they were able to woo enough such kids with merit that it was worth it for them to try.

Rochester for example was known to be a college like that–not a good idea to apply without demonstrating interest, but fine to use as a Target (or even borderline Likely) with high numbers, and again a strong possibility of merit. And in fact my S24 applied to Rochester and that is exactly what happened. Admissions, a modest merit offer, and he chose somewhere else . . . but that’s just the nature of what they do.

As a general rule of thumb, the colleges that were instead on the yield-protection watchlist shared some traits in common. They were often in popular locations, certain cities or sometimes regions. They often had little or no merit aid. And they had what seemed like rather low acceptance rates given their general academic standing, particularly for RD (if you could figure that out separately).

It was therefore pretty unusual for a “Likely” to be considered a high risk for yield protection, because if nothing else they wouldn’t have a low enough RD acceptance rate. That again didn’t mean you could ignore demonstrated interest (sometimes yes, but often no). But as long as you were carefully choosing your Likelies for sincere, personal reasons, that was not necessarily all that hard to do.

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I think you have a good list already but if you want another “likely”/target you might want to check out RIT. They offer a BS in bioinformatics and computational biology which seems to be in your daughter’s wheelhouse. I think your daughter has a unique profile and coming from Alaska will make her stand out so I won’t be surprised if she is admitted to one of her reaches - obviously, it is far from a given but I think she has a better than typical chance of admission. Obviously, putting together a strong story in her applications - and writing solid essays - is a must.

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Oregon State is also rolling.

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Perhaps apply there (and any other rolling admission college) as soon as possible.

If it admits early with affordability, then it becomes a safety, even though it cannot be known as a safety beforehand for reasons mentioned above.

Rolling admission colleges may become more selective later as they fill up their classes, so that is another reason to apply to them early. The same applies to many colleges with EA.

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Perfect. If this kid doesn’t really prefer a Pitt or Minnesota or such to Oregon State, that can really be it for that sort of school (unless there is a shocking surprise). But if she would prefer to have more than one early option to consider (and choice is nice), that would be fine too.

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Yeah, at least back when S24 was applying, his college counselors (who knew Pitt admissions very well) strongly suggested getting Pitt applications submitted in September, preferably a little earlier than later. They explicitly stated that the later it was submitted, the riskier it might be.

Of course this was not literally when the application opened, and in fact in Pitt’s case, it was pretty obvious it took a bit before the admissions committees started meeting and making their first decisions.

But that’s still way before most EA/ED 1 deadlines, and in fact most kids who applied in September got their decisions before those deadlines.

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Thank you all for being so helpful. A few more questions.

How might the different major possibilities (bio, cs, computational bio/bioinformatics, data science, I suppose maybe applied math could fit too) be seen by potential grad schools? She’s not sure she’ll go that direction, but she has enough interest in research she’d like to have a science PhD path accessible. I guess I kind of thought data science might be seen as weaker, but I don’t know much about it.

Also, of the schools I mentioned or the ones people suggested, does anyone know which are likely to be more or less flexible about placing out of prerequisites? (WPI states that it doesn’t have any hard prerequisites, and MIT has an exam system – both of those appeal to her, but she’s not sure how it would work out at the other schools). She’s not interested in getting through college faster, but doesn’t want to re-do too much content. Particularly, she’d rather not repeat 3 years of math courses. And in science, she’s less worried about repetition, but some of it would be silly. Some schools don’t accept AP Bio at all, or need a 5 on the test, but she’ll have 4 or 5 post AP college bio classes before she gets there (after a 4 on the test in 8th grade), and doesn’t want to end up back in the intro series.

Also, beyond the state requirement, the fit of the program and school is much more important than location to her. But if all else is equal, west coast would be slightly more convenient than east coast (one of the reasons to have a safety in Oregon). Places somewhat closer to airports would also be more convenient. (there are a lot of steps just to get to the Anchorage airport from our end – travel is going to be multi day on multiple airplanes no matter what, so some ease on the other end would be nice). Every possible college is vastly more urban than her home, and she’s cool with that, but would prefer if an urban campus was a bit more campus like (like MIT, rather than cut up by the city like Boston University, which she also saw while she was there).

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Typically they don’t accept AP Bio because it doesn’t replace the level of bio that they want students to get in the intro series for majors. My D had a 5 on AP Bio and many specialized bio courses as well, but none of this counts towards the intro sequence for bio majors at most of the schools where she applied. Many students are in the same situation, it’s pretty normal.

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