The cutoff this year is 221 for California. See the aug 28 blog post ‘national-merit-semifinalist-cutoffs’ at compass prep.
Really? Awww…that’s sad.
It’s fine though… I have some solid in state publics where this wouldn’t even matter.
The way you can practically shorten your list is to apply to Stanford REA and any state schools that are rolling. The good thing about Stanford REA vs Harvard SCEA is that getting deferred from Harvard tells you about nothing since they seem to defer anyone vaguely qualified. If you get into Stanford, you are pretty much done. If you are deferred, you can approach your reaches with more confidence. If you are rejected, you can go ahead with your full list unless in the meantime you get into a rolling admissions school that you have ranked higher than others on the list unless aid is a determinative factor.
Do you have any suggestions for oos public schools that have good EE programs and can be considered safety/match?
Sorry, my kids were not engineering students. There are posters who have better knowledge than me on this topic. I think the difficulty will be aid for out of state. I think most states have limited need based aid for OOS. There may be some safety/matches that are still generous in merit. Do you have a strong desire to leave Cali? If you add more schools to your list, I’d start cutting others.
I think I found one: University of Utah. Seems to have good merit scholarships, good location (SLC), and decent engineering program.
Utah is a good one to look at. Also, U Iowa, Iowa State, Miami Ohio, Pitt, Cal Poly Pomona, U Maine, Oregon State, U Nebraska.
Although 10 unique applications, counting:
CSU application: SJSU, CSULB
- CPSLO extras: CPSLO
UC application: UCI, UCD, UCSD, UCSB, UCB, UCLA
CSM
SCU
USC
Swarthmore
Stanford
Harvard
MIT
UT Dallas does not have REA, fyi.
I don’t think you’ve indicated the type of classes you’ve taken (i.e., how advanced you are in math/science) or any extracurriculars. It’s hard to say, but if I were you, I would eliminate Harvard right off the bat. If you want to study engineering, it’s just not at the level of some of the others on your list. MIT and Stanford just seem iffy, without any further info about how your coursework and extracurriculars stand out and make you a viable candidate. The others look ok. Be careful with your SLO application and make sure you go over it with your GC, because it is different from the other CSU apps.
In particular, for CPSLO, be sure to enter any high school level math (e.g. algebra 1, geometry) and foreign language taken before high school in order to get the proper number of semesters of math counted in the MCA score (see https://mca.netlify.app/ ). For some reason, CPSLO does not use the usual CSU policy of validation (e.g. completing algebra 2 assumes completing algebra 1), so every high school level course taken must be listed, even if it was during middle school or before.
In terms of coursework I have
11 AP Classes total:
Sophomore
AP Human Geography
AP Calc AB
Junior
AP Physics 1
AP Calc BC
AP Environmental Science
AP English Language
Senior
AP Physics C Mechanics/AP Physics C E&M
AP Chemistry
AP English Literature
AP Comp Sci Principles
As for CSM, it’s already done. Most of the others are pretty short apps IMO, and I’ve started a lot of the supplements already.