Hello everyone. I am a current junior in high school beginning the college search process. I have been curating a list with my college counselor, but I want to hear the perspectives of you fine folks on ye olde CC.
I intend on majoring in computer engineering or robotics engineering when offered (at WPI and Purdue)
So far, my list is made up of Purdue, IU, Cornell, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Northeastern, Boston U, Michigan, RPI, and WPI.
Stats:
3.88 UW GPA, no W
No class rank
1470 SAT (760 RW, 710 M). Taking the ACT next month. If the ACT doesn’t go well, I’m going to retake my SAT in March.
Extracurriculars:
Co-president of affinity coding club
Vice president of community service club
Co-founder of non-profit to push CAD education through competitions, also made the website
Research in VR at a local uni
Programmer for FRC team, website editor, media team whatever
Website editor for 2 school publications and a local organization
CMU SAMS (accepted 2020, also getting accepted for 2021 from the mouth of the head of SAMS)
Coding competitions such as CTFs (top placements at large competitions, top 5%-.1%) and hackathons
Volunteer teacher in Python at local library
Volunteer reader for a local accredited organization, I’m the only high schooler there
School math center tutor
So… yes! I know my stats are a bit low, but am I totally out of the running for my schools? I also have some circumstances surrounding my high school career that I’ve detailed elsewhere on CC, but I’m too lazy to rewrite it all. Thank you in advance! I just want to know where I stand in applications at this moment.
Yeah! I’ve found that, on average, I’m probably going to have to take out around 6-7k in loans per year, no matter what school I go to (without merit aid, that is, but I can’t estimate merit aid at this time). MIT is by far the cheapest on the NPC, around like a $100 estimated contribution. Michigan, RPI, and WPI are the most expensive, asking around $30k. I know WPI offers good merit aid, with a full scholarship for FIRST robotics members, though.
My parents will not be contributing any money directly to my college expenses. They’ll slip me a $20 here or there for gas and food, but any tuition is just infeasible for them.
With a financial situation like this, cast your net wide, it’s going to be pretty hard, despite nice pointy ECs and good (but not quite MIT/Caltech caliber) stats. You may find some surprises, positive and negative. Obviously, OOS public schools like Michigan will be very expensive. In our research, the biggest positive FA surprise was Rice and schools with generous merit scholarships. Also consider honor colleges in large schools, U of Arizona comes to mind - check out their guaranteed merit for your grades.
Yeah, I’m a bit worried about schools like Michigan. I said this in another thread, but I’m really only going to apply because I have College Board fee waivers and my dad really wants me to. I don’t think it will be financially feasible for me, though.
I’ve heard Rice is very good with aid from friends, actually! I’m not sure I’d want to go to Texas, but I’m definitely not against looking into that school more. It seems very nice.
I’ll try and dig for more schools with guaranteed merit aid, just so I can have more financially available backups. Thank you!
In other words, you need a net price of about $10k or less ($5.5k federal direct loan, $4.5k summer and part time school year work earnings, or similar amounts).
Michigan, RPI, and WPI should be listed as high reach, because you need to earn a high end merit scholarships to bring their net prices down to $10k or less.
That’s about what I figured (for the net price calculations). I wish I would get an automatic full ride, but we make just too much for that.
I don’t know why I thought the FIRST scholarships were full rides! I was obviously mistaken. I’ll ask the financial aid/admissions office to see if those stack. I believe to get the FIRST scholarship you have to be nominated by your coach (which shouldn’t be a problem if I choose to matriculate to WPI) but there’s a separate application process after that… I guess it’s not going to be as easy as I hoped. Sigh.
What do you mean by defer my major choice? Also, if it means anything, I am in-state for Purdue and IU! So I hope they can be reliable financial safeties.
I’ve never heard of U of Detroit Mercy! I’ll definitely check it out. Same with Cincinnati. I’ve heard good things about it as a school, but never looked into it myself!
Hi!!! I think you have a good shot at BU and Northeastern. I’m not as familiar with a lot of the other schools but I think IU wouldn’t be bad either. CMU, Caltech, MIT - really difficult (lots of super qualified applicants get the smackdown in the running for those three because they’re definitely very quantitatively-inclined schools). Also, just a heads up (I’m a senior who just went through all this and we have a lot of the same stats: almost identical GPA and SAT)… applying as a compeng / robotics engineering major, those were my two listed majors as well, SUCKS. Big public schools like Purdue and Michigan are sooo unnecessarily difficult to stand out to the admissions board as those majors because they get so many brilliant kids. You sound super smart and your (very impressive, by the way) ECs align with computer engineering / engineering, so I wouldn’t say to change your major just for the applications because I think the admissions committee would see through that, but I’m letting you know ahead of time, largely funded public schools have their hooks in engineering and it’s a little crazy. I’d say to check out Ohio State, it’s a bit of an anomaly but still has some great STEM resources, I got into their engineering program recently with a good scholarship and you’d definitely be eligible too! They have an AMAZING engineering lab and they’re looking to grow their program in a way that I don’t think Mich really is.
Anyway, I hear back from Mich soon (and BU, Northeastern, and Cornell later) if you’d like to hear how somebody with similar stats fared! Good luck! Enjoy junior year- I loved it and I miss it a lot now haha.
TL;DR: definitely difficult schools but engineering admissions is weird. Just make sure you have schools all over your range.
@2plustrio probably means that you could get admitted to Purdue, but not the major you applied for (or the engineering division if you applied for that), which is commonly seen as a rejection since popular majors (or the engineering division) are hard to change into after enrolling.
The hard part for the OP may not be admission, but getting enough scholarships and financial aid to bring the net price to $10k or lower. If the net price calculator for a college does not show an affordable net price without needing competitive merit scholarships, the college should be classified as a reach, since competitive merit scholarships have unknown or high difficulty to get.
@hughesmadalena Thank you so much for the insightful post! To begin, I wish you the best of luck in your admissions decisions! I really hope you get good news everywhere left. I really like Northeastern and BU!! I especially love Northeastern’s co-op program and the focus on pre-professionalism.
Michigan and Purdue are terrifying for admissions just because so many qualified applicants apply. I hope I have a little bit of a boost for Purdue being in-state, but it’s still so scary. Why do they have to be so cruel?!?
@michaelcollege That’s relieving to hear. I hope I’m not totally out of the running for schools like CMU, though! I love those schools. I understand their uber-selectiveness, though.
@ucbalumnus That’s very scary that I might not get computer engineering for Purdue. I know you have to apply into FYE, which is pretty challening. I plan on declaring a secondary major as Robotics Engineering Technology in the Polytechnic Institute, which is a tad easier to get into from what I know.
Financial aid is the worst. I wish I didn’t have to worry about this, but I guess wishing won’t do much to change my situation.
If you didn’t apply EA, you may have an issue because CS is showing that’s it’s already closed for Fall '21 so you may only get into your secondary major.
