Hey, so I’m 17 and I have to apply to colleges soon. I need help on which colleges to decide on as I am a first gen college student that was born in Poland. I moved to the US when I was two so I am basically full fledged American. I don’t know if this helps at all but my brother dropped out of high school his junior year. For some reference, I got a 29 on my ACT (planning to take again next month) and this is my unofficial high school transcript: https://i.im g ur.com/2ylPfNb.png
I planning to major in Computer Science with a minor in something business related.
The first question is always what can you afford? Talk to your parents about how much they have saved for college and how much they can afford to pay each year. And ask what their expectations are in terms of where you go - how far from home, etc…Good to get all this out on the table up front.
The other thing to do is to look into your state schools to see which ones offer the major and minor you want - that is where you are likely to find your safety school.
@n’s mom- looking at the transcript, her/his GPA isn’t so high. A few Cs and even a D in AP Calc.
Without any other information, have you thought about the Illinois Institute of Technology? It’s in the area. Another choice would obviously be Urbana Champaign. Some more reasonable schools would be Illinois State, or maybe going to community college first (even for a year) just to improve your GPA.
First thing: you are first gen, are you also lower-income? What’s your EFC?
Second thing: what’s the average ACT at your high school? Your choices are different depending on whether it’s 26 or 18.
Third: “basically full fledged American” = are you a permanent resident/citizen, or are you international (visa) or DACA?
You probably have a shot at UWisconsin, which has a non-selective CS major, but costs will be high from OOS. You an try for UIUC but I believe it’s out of reach; you can try for IIT, Loyola, DePaul, and Lake Forest in the Chicago area. Most of your other picks should be in the 60-125 national range (both universities and LACs) or regional universities 1-25.
As another reach, you may have a shot at St Olaf, which has developed an excellent CS curriculum (especially if you indicate that you are bilingual English/Polish and would be interested in taking Russian as a foreign language - this presumes you know Polish well, of course.) Overall though, if we look at your math grades, we see that either you struggle or you don’t work enough, and that’s a bad omen for CS, so try to think of alternative subjects.
However, the above list would be affected by your answers to the first three questions.
