Hi everyone, I’d appreciate an honest evaluation of my college chances and Early Decision strategy. Current Junior at a Boarding school taking College classes at an university. Please let me know about any other schools that have high business reputation and lower competition than other top universities and still gives need based aid.
Demographics
*Permanent Resident, TX. (Edited by moderator)
Boarding school
Cost Constraints / Budget Budget is 40k a year. Qualify for need-based at top colleges (most private/liberal arts colleges in my list are around 20k) for me.
Also considering Independent Major for better admission odds.
I am intentionally avoiding highly competitive Computer Science majors.
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.7
Weighted HS GPA: 5.02
Class Rank: HS doesn’t rank
ACT/SAT Scores: 32
List your HS coursework
(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)
English: Honors Eng 1 (A), Honors Eng 2 (B), Dual Enrollment - Writing literature and composition course 1 and 2 (A)
Math: Honors Alg 1, Honors Geometry, Honors Algebra 2 (All As), AP Precal (B) and Dual enrollment (Calc 1 and Calc 2) (B).
Science: AP Physics 1 (B), Honors Chem , Honors Bio, Dual enrollment - Bio and
History and social studies: AP World, AP Human Geo, Dual enrollment - History and political science courses ( All As)
Language other than English: Spanish 1 and Spanish 2 ( A)
Health Terminology - A
Other academic courses: Honors Computer science 1 and AP CSA ( All A)
Awards
AP Scholar (or equivalent academic recognition)
Cyberpatriot (ranked 37 out of 3224 teams)
Top 10 Aviation research recognition and presenting as the only high school student in the conference of 4000+ participants with over 90 countries recognition.
BPA SLC qualifier.
Academic Distinction.
Extracurriculars
Not in order from best to worst.
Student government leadership role (elected as president)
Founder of a school aviation club (30+ members)
Varsity tennis
Summer Internship at an aviation company
~200+ hours community service (tutoring, aviation museum volunteering, etc.)
National officer role in a student finance/leadership organization with large outreach (6000+)
Neuroscience Research Internship at a nonprofit local organization (exploring interests)
Developing an aviation dispatch system for rescue operations.
Vice President: Scaled organization to 15 global chapters. Directed outreach campaigns engaging 20k+ and architecting 24/7 mental health support system.
Independent Faculty-Mentored Researcher at local college about aviation and CS.
Schools (List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if unsure, leave them unclassified)
Tulane University (possibly ED) (IT Major)
University of Richmond (possibly ED) (CS Major? Any other major I should apply as)
Purdue University (Cybersecurity)
San José State University (Engineering Technology / CNSM)
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Cybersecurity / Aviation Tech)
Texas public universities will be hard to chance without class rank.
Arizona State University has automatic admission with a 3.0 GPA and course requirements fulfilled. But check its scholarship estimator to see if it will give an affordable net price.
Your own counselors are almost certainly far more qualified to provide an overview of your chances for admissions. Aside from being better trained at this than most of us, they are also much more knowledgeable about how your high school is regarded by the colleges on your list, and how these colleges will evaluate your grades and activities.
If applying ED to Tulane I’d say you have a pretty good shot - though I’m unclear how your GPA is derived weighted/unweighted (most weighting I’ve seen from base level to AP only adds 1 point so from 3.7 to 5.02 doesn’t make a lot of sense to me)… in any case you appear to have a decent GPA.
I would just make sure you run the NPC on the Tulane website and validate that the expected cost will be in budget.
I probably can’t because I am not a U.S. citizen but I am a permanent resident. Though, if USAFA or USNA isn’t an option then I am thinking to do ROTC in college.
I might argue that if you’re applying ED the supplemental essays were irrelevant anyhow. Those are/were used to gauge applicant intent to attend if accepted. Your GPA at face value is in the hunt for admittance for ED.
Do you actually want to do cyber? Or do you want to do computer science and are choosing cyber because it is potentially less competitive?
If you really want cyber … Have you looked at RIT (Rochester, NY)? Fantastic for cyber. Also, in the UT system, UTSA (San Antonio) is very strong in cyber. (In my mind, stronger than Dallas and maybe others on your list in Texas, but I might be mistaken.) I would expect both to be safeties for you.
I would encourage you to do a deep dive into “first destination” reports put out by the career services offices of each of these schools. What companies and what kind of roles are they funneling into? I believe the schools you have listed will point in very different directions. So think a little bit about what you want to do long-term, and which of these schools will help get you toward those goals.
Adding onto this … for each of the majors you are looking at google “(Major) (school) 4 year plan” and see what classes you would be taking in each of these majors. IT is going to be different from cyber which would different from computer science. And a school like Purdue (where you might be in the engineering department or the technical division) is going to have a very different set of requirements than a liberal arts college like Davidson. One of the great things about college is you really get to choose the classes you take. So think about that ahead of time, so you’re not surprised by being locked into classes you’re not really interested in.
Most students change their major. I suspect a lot of that has to do with not really understanding what will be required in that major before you get to the school. Doing your homework on that ahead of time can help you pick a major and a school that is a good fit for what you actually want to study day to day.
When applying to college you need to take a long-term view (where will I be in 4 years and 10 years and 20 years?) and also a short term view (what classes am I actually going to take? where will I make my friends next year? what activities will I do when I’m not in class?).
UTSA? I mean I haven’t heard much about it and cybersecurity is kinda of a backup plan for me and in future I want to do something in cybersecurity and aviation.