Target Schools: Carnegie,NYU, Rutgers, Indiana University, UT Austiin
Safety: Baylor University, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, University of Texas at Arlington, University of Texas at Dallas, University of Texas at San Antonio, University of Houston,
Any thoughts / concerns would be appreciated thanks! (am I cooked?)
You are a great student and you will get accepted to college.
In my opinion, NYU and Carnegie Mellon should be moved to the reach category.
I think A and M might be better as a target not a safetey…
Otherwise you have a good list of what seem to be sure things on your safety list. Were any of those early action applications…or rolling admissions…so you will hear sooner than later.
I have checked the net price calculators for each school and unfortunately we are not eligible for any aid other than merit but these are all school that is in the comfortable payment range for my family.
So just to be very blunt, your reported unweighted grades and class ranking are outside the normal competitive range for your Reachy privates as an unhooked applicant (and I would also include CMU and NYU in that category).
What this means is there is a good chance that with your current list, all your offers will come from the publics on your list, plus Baylor.
And that’s fine, if you are fine with that!
That said, there are a lot of private colleges and universities that are not so Reachy, and for which your numbers would be considered very competitive. Some, in fact, might be interested in making a merit offer to you. Possibly a large merit offer.
If it were me, I would be including at least some such colleges on my list, because why not? Could yield some interesting offers.
As far as finding such colleges is considered, since you mentioned Business, one place you might look is Poets & Quants undergrad business program reviews:
Obviously a lot of the ones at the top are quite Reachy, but pretty quickly you get to, say, Bucknell, Fordham, Lehigh, Syracuse, Providence, Loyola Marymount, and so on. This is a non-exclusive list of colleges I personally think you could consider checking out to diversify your list. And you can check out those detailed reviews to get an idea if any stand out to you as particularly interesting.
I will assume that if you have heard back and consider them safeties, then you have been admitted. Congratulations! Certainly with Texas A&M and Baylor you have two very good universities to choose from. I do not know the other public universities in Texas as well. They might also be great choices but I just am not familiar with them (we live in the northeast).
Being “top 15%” I would expect that UT Austin is a reach, particularly for either CS or business.
You SAT is superb. Your GPA is very good, but is not going to wow your reaches. Being “top 15%” is not going to impress your reaches either. I think that your reaches are all high reaches with the possible exception of Michigan and UT Austin, which might be normal reaches, unless you are applying for CS or business in which case they might also be high reaches. I expect that Carnegie Mellon is also a reach, as might be NYU.
I do not know much about Indiana, but suspect that you might have a chance there. I also think that you might get into Rutgers. The people I know or have known who graduated from Rutgers certainly make the school look good, although I am not sure that I would pick it over Texas A&M if in-state for the latter.
Quite a few of your reach schools are expensive and give no merit based aid. With a family income of $140,000 per year I do not see how your family could afford to pay $90,000 per year for university unless they have a LOT in savings or are getting a lot of support from grandparents. Even being able to borrow enough to cover 4 years of university might be uncertain. “CS and business” does also seem like a combination where a master’s degree is at least possible, and master’s degrees are typically not funded and thereby represent potential additional expense. On the other hand, I do not think that you are getting into your reaches regardless of whether they would have been affordable.
However, to me the bottom line is that you are a very good student and you have very good solid safeties, and you will have a decision to make between very good universities to attend in September.
At some of these reach schools, the schools meet full need for all. It’s possible that this student would qualify for enough need based aid to make them affordable.
Some don’t. For example, UMich does not guarantee to meet full need for OOS students. Neither does Rutgers or Indiana.
Congratulations on the strong profile you built in high school and on all the acceptances you’ve received so far. You have a number of great options already!
With respect to your list, I agree with others that Carnegie Mellon, NYU, and UT should be changed to the reach category. I’d call Rutgers and IU likelies.
With respect to the reaches, it’s certainly possible that you would get into one or more of them. But that’s a lot of applications and I’d say the odds are below 20% for an acceptance. Definitely not impossible, but certainly not likely.
In looking at the schools on your list, it seems as though you might want to investigate Stevens Institute of Technology. It’s right across the river from Manhattan and could be a great place for you in terms of CS and business. Rensselaer Polytechnic and U. of Rochester might be a couple others to consider. All the schools I just recommended have lots of strong students, would probably be at least a toss-up if not a likely for acceptance, and might also send some nice merit aid your way.
Expect to need a 3.75 college GPA to get into CS at Texas A&M, since that is the automatic admission threshold for ETAM. CS has little or no space after automatic admission.
Realistically, you’re probably not getting into the UT business or CS programs.
Even many kids in the Top 6% dont get in to those majors because they pick the top applicants among all their admitted students (OOS and in state) for the popular programs.
So you’d be competing against admitted students from NY or California along with the very top Texas kids.
Are you sure? According to The Rice Investment program, you’d be eligible for substantial aid there. They’re definitely a reach. However, their undergraduate business school is new as of a year or 2 ago, so they don’t get as many applications for business as a more established business school might. You could have an outside chance there.
I agree and hope the OP will run NPCs. Many of the heavily endowed privates on OP’s list provide substantial aid to families with income under $200k. For example…
Rice does not admit by major. My daughter is a business major and the kids in her classes have the same achievement level as the STEM kids.
The main reasons she chose Rice were: very few T20 offer a business major, she loved the school culture, and because the undergraduate program is new, the classes are taught by their MBA professors.
Yes, I know that they say that, but I don’t completely believe it. Schools which “don’t admit by major” would at times have empty classrooms in some subjects and overcrowded ones in others as well as professors with nothing to do if they paid absolutely no attention to students’ interests.
And it’s a real plus that their grad school profs are teaching undergrads. My GS is a business major at Rice right now.
The subject of “not admitting by major” is interesting to me from a resource management perspective. I’ve recently received some insight from a GaTech faculty/admin. While I realize this is not necessarily how privates (especially LACs) handle resource management, I did find it interesting.
According to my source, his job responsibilities “should be” 75 admin/25 classroom. However, this varies by semester. Recently he was 25 Admin/75 classroom (undergrad + grad). Likewise, his department head, which should be 100% admin, picks up classes when needed.
It’s such a complicated puzzle for both Admissions and departments/faculty that must be adjusted from year to year while considering budget limitations. Additionally there are the politics… faculty “refusing” to teach because they have a grant guaranteeing a semester or year of 100% research.
But this is why schools that do not admit by major do ask for your intended major. And they know they need to prepare for applicants who attempt to game the systems.
I hope I’m not taking this too far off-topic. There’s just so much involved to balancing interest, resources when a school does not admit by major.