Hi, I am a rising senior in New Jersey looking to major in comp. sci. and am starting to make my college list. I consider myself a top applicant (top 2% of class of 800, 1580 SAT, very high gpa and courseload, 10 APs, strong ec’s including internship, leadership positions, all-state band, but am an unhooked Asian male). The things I look for in a college are strength of education, research/intern/job opportunities available, starting salaries, prestige, and a very strong computer science department (Tbh I don’t really care about school size or location/weather). My family makes 140k, but I would like the cost of college to not exceed 30-35k per year. Here’s the thing, right now, my plan is to get full ride/good scholarship to rutgers honors college, or pray that I get into a reach school such as Caltech/Cornell/Stanford/MIT/Princeton, etc. I only really have a bunch of reaches and am having trouble finding good match schools - most of the “match” schools I’ve looked are public out of states at are 40k+ after financial aid after I ran their calculators (even ones known for their financial aid such as UVA and UNC), which can honestly not compare to Rutgers full ride.
Here is my list right now
CalTech, GTech, Harvey Mudd, UIUC, UMD, MIT, Princeton, Rutgers, USC, Stanford, U Washington Maybe: Columbia, CMU(Too Expensive imo), Harvard