I live in the state of Texas, so I believed UT Austin would be easier to get in compared to if I was an out of state student.
I am okay with spending much of my weekend doing intuitive problems, and the culture of some of these top schools seems to be a decent fit. Regarding the class rank, my school is in a really competitive district in the state of Texas and has been ranked highly. So, the top 10% of my graduating class have very GPAs, and if they were to be converted to a scale out of 5, the weighted GPA cutoff could very well be in the 4.5s for bottom top 10%. I donāt really know if top colleges care about the competitiveness of a district or school and I have seen many people move to easier schools just to get a better rank. To be honest, I am kind of lost in this aspect.
Around 150k to 200k
I am taking high school chem senior year because I didnāt really like chemistry too much, and our school allows us to take physics instead. I have 3 years of spanish, but two of those years were in middle school, and they still counted for high school credits. If you have any suggestions for target schools with good stem majors and merit scholarship opportunities, I would highly appreciate that.
Thereās many listed above - but you shouldnāt focus on merit but on cost. UF, as an example or FSU, are great schools. At full pay, theyāre cheaper than a lot of schools that give significant merit. Alabama -$20k. KU maybe $30k - strong - forget the admit rate and has a top Honors College. Iowa State is another.
You need a budget. You mentioned $40k up above on NPCs ? Is that the budget or $70k or $20k. What can your family afford or more importantly what do they want to afford?
Great schools abound at all prices and most are STEM strong.
Your title says under $50k. Lots of guidance above already to hit that #.
If you want small schools - thereās many LACs that will likely hit - Rhodes, Furman, Wooster, Kalamazoo. You have lots of great in state options not named UT - Tech, Houston, etc. I get it - you have good stats. But thereās many of you at many, many schools. And if the school cost too much without your statsā¦thatās how you get there - having them buy you in because you add to their profile.
You have to start there.
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At least in my experience it appears that highly ranked universities in the US are very good at accounting for differences between different high schools. As an example, as a freshman at MIT I knew students who were from lousy high schools, and students from highly ranked very strong high schools (such as the Bronx High School of Science). The ones who had gotten into MIT from a lousy high school had truly excelled in high school, on the level of āthe top student in the high school in math and scienceā. I did not notice any correlation at all regarding the strength of a studentās high school and how they did at MIT, which suggests to me that admissions had been very good at properly accounting for differences in high schools.
This might be a slow way of saying that I do not think that you need to be concerned about the high school that you are coming from.
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So there are several different ways you can play this given your profile and interests.
One is to look at generally excellent research universities, specifically with strong STEM, with flexible curriculums, and that have merit. A couple popular choices like that in my circles are Case Western and Rochester.
Another option is to look more at specifically STEM-focused research universities. MIT and Caltech are like this, but some others you might be interested in considering would include RPI, WPI, RIT, and Clarkson.
Then there are undergrad-focused colleges that might also work well for you. The problem is not a lot have engineering, but some do. Trinity University might be worth checking out, including because it is relatively close. Lafayatte and Bucknell as well.
And then there are STEM-focused small colleges, but I am thinking those might be TOO focused for you.
But OP needs to run the NPC bcuz if full pay or close, these wonāt hit short if significant merit.
Theyāre time to chase but not assured even if he gets in.
So unless UTD is good for him, he has to find more assured / affordable.
Trinity has engineering science only - so OP would have to see if it covers the bases. Looks great on paper.
https://www.trinity.edu/academics/departments/engineering-science/engineering-science-bs
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Absolutely. If the NPC says you will need merit to get to budget, the next question is whether that amount of merit is a reasonable possibility.
That is tricky to investigate sometimes, but sometimes the answer is there auto merit that is enough, which is great. Sometimes the answer is the max merit is too little. Not so great. And then sometimes the answer is maybe they will offer enough, but maybe not, and it is discretionary.
In cases like that, you canāt treat the college as one of your āFoundationā applications. But I think you can do what I call āchase meritā, where you apply to multiple such colleges and then see if any offer you enough discretionary merit to make them affordable.
In my experience, this sometimes means a kid has at least one guaranteed to be affordable and Likely collegeāmaybe in-state public, maybe auto-merit, maybe meets need and the NPC checks out, or so onāthat is a compromise in other ways. I think you should still pick this college as carefully as possible, but I do think you need at least one (arguably two is better) LIkely colleges guaranteed to be affordable. And you need to make whatever compromises need to be made to have that college or two on your list.
And then they have a bunch more applications that are Likelies or Targets for admissions, but they are chasing merit. And thatās fine, as long as they arenāt counted in that foundation level.
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After running NPCs on some of my reach colleges, my estimated yearly cost of attending is around $26,000 to $40,000 (well within my budget).
Adding onto this, I play Chess around 5 hours a week. The only problem is that I havenāt played competitively since 8th grade. I enjoy playing chess a lot, and I treat it as more than just a normal hobby. Should I or can I still include my rating and other awards even if I havenāt played USCF since 8th grade?