Hello, I am a Senior in CA applying for 1st year for college. I prioritize in-state schools over out of states, but I am applying/applying to 8 out of states. I would greatly appreciate insight on my chances.
General info:
Citizen
California resident
No major cost constraints
National Merit Semifinalist, applying for finalist
3.49 UW
3.5 UW, 4.05/3.86 W/CW for UCS
3 APs, all 4s and 5s
Additional Details
I received 2 Cs, Both in 10th grade
My GPA did improve over time, I had a 3.1 in 10th and a 3.9 in 11th
I was suspended for one day in 11th grade. This was my first disciplinary action.
Major
I am applying for Chemistry/Chemical Engineering, depending on the college
Courses
English: Regular courses all years other than junior.
Math: Advanced classes all years other than freshman, PreCalc H, Calc AB, AP stats.
Science: Advanced classes all years other than freshman, Chem H, AP Chem, AP Phys C
History: Advanced classes Junior and Senior, AP US History, AP gov/econ
Other Courses: Electives all 4 years
Awards
Presidential Volunteer service award-gold
Eagle Scout
National Merit semifinalist
AP scholar
Extracurriculars
Boy Scouts(All years of high and middle school)
Board member of small nonprofit(2 years)
Aviation and Rocketry Challenge team member(2 years)
Volunteered as student SAT tutor(2 years)
Tutor for TaeKwonDo (1 year)
Essays
Average, not very deep in scope
Schools
Reach: ALL UCs other than Riverside and Merced, USC, U Florida, Cal Poly SLO, SDSU
Target: UW, UIUC, Colorado School of Mines, SUNY Stony Brook, UC Riverside, UC Merced, Cal Poly Pomona, CSU Long Beach
Safety: Oregon State University, Texas A&M U, University of Minnesota. CSU Fullerton
I have applied EA to all other than the CSUs and UCs, as well as TA&MU and UW.
Thank you to everyone for giving this a read-through. I really appreciate your help.
SJSU is considered my Local CSU, but it isn’t considered very strong for chemistry-related majors. I have looked into WUE schools; I believe Oregon State University is part of WUE. I am under the impression that the scholarship for WUE is only given to 30% of applicants however.
Curious why you have CSU Fullerton as a safety but CPP as a target. CPP you can figure out your likelihood pretty easily from their CPP index (assuming they don’t change much from one year to the next) - chem eng isn’t impacted, chemistry is but not enough that you need to worry -your GPA is more than comfortable, so it’s a likely for either major. Fullerton is impacted in all majors (and from what I understand not your local CSU?) but I can’t see if they are as transparent as CPP about how they admit. Same for CSULB. @Gumbymom will have some insight here, as well as to the other California publics.
I hadn’t realized that schools other than USC offered scholarships for NMSF and NMF. Thank you, I will take a look at them. Are there any such schools in California?
Any ABET accredited engineering program is good, although some may be better academic fits for a given student. There is also ACS approval for chemistry programs.
Chemical engineering usually leads to better job prospects than chemistry.
My understanding is that only your local CSU is technically a safety (if you meet requirements) but effectively yes CPP should be a safety (at least, very highly likely). I don’t know enough about Fullerton to judge.
Actually, any non impacted campus where your major is not impacted can be a safety if you meet CSU minimum requirements. The non impacted campuses define their local area as the State of California. But nearby campuses may not necessarily be safeties (e.g. consider a student residing in San Luis Obispo).
Based on their published past thresholds, SJSU chemical engineering looks likely, and SJSU chemistry and CPP chemical engineering or chemistry look extremely likely. CSU Fullerton is not transparent enough to make good estimate for, and does not have chemical engineering.
I would suggest replacing CSU Fullerton with SJSU and CPP.
UW and UIUC should be considered reach for OOS ENG based on your GPA. Especially UW, since they are test blind. TAMU should be considered target. I would add Ohio State (possible merit) to your target and ASU (Merit for your SAT score) to your Safety. I believe for Oregon State, WUE is now available for only top 10% of eligible students, not 30% anymore. They still provide less amount merit to students do not qualify for WUE. Good Luck.
Alabama gives you 5 years tuition, four years housing and money - but it’s not California or close.
Tulsa is a full ride for a NMSF - and it’s small.
UT Dallas, U Houston are others.
Not sure there’s any out West…besides USC - which is still very expensive.
You say you’re prioritizing CA but then have UMN, Texas A&M - at that point, what’s the difference Alabama or another…if you want to save your parents big $$.
That’s a different discussion.
But if you want to be close to CA, why A&M and UMN - vs. Arizona and Arizona State.
As a NMSF, you really should read the student guide. All of the participating schools are listed. You’ll need to check with each one you’re interested in to see the amount of award given. Some schools give to all NMSF and some are more selective.
Here is some admit data for the Chemistry/Chemical Engineering at the UC’s and some CSU’s. I agree that CPP would be a Safety based on 2023 CPP Index thresholds. Cal State Fullerton would still be considered a Safety.
Tulsa was my first thought too. It will be a full ride even if you don’t make Finalist. It’s a smaller school, with a solid ChemE program. If you’re interested in studying a foreign language and studying abroad, you can also do their dual-degree program, which includes both study and internship abroad, and the 5th year will be free too.
NMSF is great, but your GPA is on the lower side for the top schools on your list, and your course rigor is good but not exceptional for the competitive schools on your list. Since USC is obliged to give you half-tuition merit if they admit you, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they turned you down - being NMSF can actually raise the bar for admission when guaranteed merit is involved.
Maybe your family isn’t price-sensitive at all, but I think your reaches are going to be tough admits (and I think UW and UIUC are more reach than target for engineering)… so you may want to ask yourself whether you really want to pay 30K+/year for a safety or low-target school, when you could get a comparable education, completely free, at Tulsa. There’s a great peer group there; more than a quarter of entering students are NMSF.
Also, Oregon State’s info has changed to indicate that WUE will now be top 10% rather than top 30%. You’ll still get some merit there but I wouldn’t count on the WUE scholarship.
I believe you would just barely qualify for both WUE and Honors College at U of Utah; that might be worth considering too. They have both ChemE and Materials Science, which is another great chem+engineering major that you might consider if you haven’t already.
If you’re looking at SUNYs, consider Buffalo (which has ChemE and Materials) and SUNY ESF, which has multiple degree paths in its Department of Chemical Engineering and also has cross-registration and shared EC’s with Syracuse U, which has a ChemE program as well.
UC just (a week or two ago) published a dashboard with this information - I haven’t looked carefully enough to see how much detail, but it’s a lot more detail than I’ve been able to find in one place. Freshman admission by discipline | University of California
Unfortunately there is no one source for the admission data for the UC’s. Some data is from the Freshman profiles posted on the UC website, some is from the UC counselor conference notes, some is directly from each UC campus website and some is from the UCOP website.
The UCOP data is a year behind so 2023 data and 2024 data usually comes out end of January/early February.
For the CSU’s, data can come from the Freshman profiles listed on each campus website, CSU Counselor conference notes and CSU campus specific admission stats data.