Help with finding colleges matches?

woogzmama
Mon, 23 Jun 2014 19:34:11 +0000

Your stats aren’t too different from those of my son who is entering college in the fall. Your stats are slightly higher, but he had much stronger ECs, and was not applying to as heavily “impacted” (ie. competitive) a major as you will be. For computer science, I would say that you are not competitive at the top UCs. You should re-calculate your GPA according to the discrete UC formula, but I don’t think that your Math SAT is strong enough. The top UCs are almost as selective as Ivies/Stanford/MIT/CalTech when it comes to STEM departments. I’d say that CalPoly-SLO would be a reach for Computer Science, but San Jose State or San Diego State might be matches with your stats. I think you’d have a reasonable chance at UC Santa Cruz, which has good connections with the Silicon Valley tech community. UC Santa Barbara and Irvine would be high-match, low-reach schools for you, probably. I’m not sure what admissions are like at Davis for Computer Science, but I suspect it’s also “impacted.” Unfortunately, the data sets presented at these universities are mostly aggregate: they do not break down stats by department, and so they won’t give you a realistic picture for Computer Science admissions. My son got into Davis and UCSD, but as a regular Arts & Sciences applicant, not for STEM. In the Northeast, you might have a pretty good chance at Lehigh, Fordham, or Northeastern, although none would be a sure thing for you. Drexel is another possibility, as are Pitt, Temple, and Stevens Institute. Your Math SAT is a concern for any elite STEM program. It is not bad, but I think that most will look for scores over 700. Have you taken a Subject Test? What about AP or IB exam scores in Math. You have a solid resume for most colleges, but it’s a little more problematic for STEM schools.