Match me: College List for student targeting Math/AI/CS Research track [CA resident, 3.97 GPA, 1600 SAT, <$19k from parents]

College Search & Lists
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Demographics:
• US Citizen / CA Resident
• competitive Public HS - top 5% in class
• Male, non-underrepresented

Intended Major(s)
• CS, possibly with AI track
• Math
• ECE

Cost Constraints / Budget
• Dont want to get burdened by a lifetime of student loans
• But I am prepared to take some loans + parents will support
• Full-ride / Any merit scholarships will be very helpful, I dont think will get need based aid

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
• uwGPA: 3.97 (1 B)
• Weighted: 4.4 (5 point)
• SAT: 1600 (non-super)

Coursework
• 14 APs All 5s so far (some pending), Completd all STEM APs available in school
• Dual-enrolled at community college for multiple CS and advanced math courses including Multivariable Calculus, many programming, Algo, DS courses
• Two resident summer programs in Extensive Graduate level Math

Awards
• USAMO qualifier (top 200 in Math Nationwide)
• USACO Platinum (top 200 in CS Nationwide)
• USAPHO qualifier (top 300 in Physics nationawide)
• National Merit Scholarship

Extracurriculars:
• Research papers in few Engineering conferences, IEEE
• Two resident summer programs in Extensive Graduate level Math
• Community service nonprofit founder
• multiple clubs at school
• lots of Teaching experience in CS/Math

Essays/LORs/Other
• LORs: Relatively strong for STEM (though I haven’t seen them), not so sure about humanities Recc
• Essays: Not the best writer and I take lots of time, but I can write a descent essay

Please help me cut down or suggest better ones to add to my college list, I am running out of time and don’t think apply to all these schools I am thinking.

Reaches:
• MIT, Yale, Cornell, CMU, UC Berkely, UCLA, …?
Target:
• Duke, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, UIUC, UCSD, Purdue, UT Austin, UMich, UF, OSU, RPI …?
Safety:
Cal poly top 3, NC State, UCSB, Northeastern, ASU, …?

Help me finalize my list - possibly your input in these categories. Thanks a bunch!
• Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
• Likely (60-79%)
• Toss-Up (40-59%)
• Lower Probability (less than 40%)

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I would be inclined to add Stanford to your reach list. It is one of the very best in the world for CS, math, and related topics. You might want to think about whether to also apply to Caltech.

I think that you should add more UC’s to your list, and apply to many if not all of them. Some of the CSU’s would also be appropriate although someone else will need to say which ones.

For your various target schools, you might want to think hard regarding which if any of them you would prefer to UCs and Cal Poly and whether they would be worth the price difference (and travel).

While all of your reaches (and Stanford as well) are academically challenging, I think that MIT and Caltech may be an extra level of challenging. Make sure that you want to do this if you get accepted to either, although I am hard pressed to suggest who could possibly be better prepared to excel at either of these schools. If you get into MIT, when considering which school to attend, you might want to look at the course requirements at each school, and consider MIT’s major 18C “mathematics with computer science”. This is pretty close to what I did, although the major did not officially exist when I was there (my bachelor’s degree just says “Mathematics”).

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Thanks @DadTwoGirls for your insights and suggestions, I will definitely look up MIT’s major 18C (if I get in :slight_smile:).

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Have you run the net price calculator at MIT to confirm it is affordable?

Many of the schools on your list only offer need-based aid, no merit scholarships. Most of the publics on your list offer little to no aid to OOS students and limited merit. For example, both Duke and GaTech offer full ride and full tuition merit but it is extremely competitive. CA publics may end up being your most affordable, but run the NPC at a few privates like MIT and Stanford and let us know if they will work for your family.

These schools are reaches/low probability for everyone due to low admissions rates:
Duke, Georgia Tech for CS OOS, Notre Dame, UIUC for CS OOS, UT Austin for CS OOS, UMich OOS, Northeastern

NC State is a high target OOS

ASU is a safety

I can’t chance the UC/CSUs. Calling @Gumbymom for input.

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Since you are predicted to be National Merit, UT-Dallas, UCF, University of Tulsa, and Alabama are all guaranteed admit and would be full rides (or very close to it.) USC gives a half-tuition scolarship for NMF, plus the possibility of further merit. Here is a thread that describes the schools that give big merit for National Merit status:

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I missed the national merit comment. Good catch. :smiley:

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The list of National Merit Semifinalists has not even been released yet so while you may be a presumptive NMSF and then a NMF in early 2025, do not put “National Merit Scholarship” on your applications. National Merit Scholarships are not given out until next spring.

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With respect to your interest in AI, you may be entering a rapidly changing realm, in which the approach of quantum computing may begin to predominate. For this, I’m not sure if there’s another school as advanced as RPI.

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For a research focus, I’d strongly consider applying to the College of Creative studies at UCSB. It’s quite competitive (additional application, with essay, on top of the UC app), but you seem to be exactly the kind of student they look for. It’s sometimes described as “grad school for undergrads.” Computing | UCSB College of Creative Studies

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Congratulations on being an outstanding candidate for any of the schools on your list.

Since the UC’s are test blind, your perfect SAT score will not be used for admissions or scholarship consideration but only for course placement.

The UC’s calculate out 3 UC GPA’s (Unweighted, Capped Weighted and Uncapped Weighted): https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

For CS, all the UC’s listed: UCLA, UCSD, UCSB and Cal Poly SLO are Reach (Low Probability) schools due to the low major admit rate.

Below are the UC CS admit rates along with some of the Cal states:

Campus CS
UC Berkeley 1.9%/ EECS- 7.6%
UC Davis Estimated <20% Selective Major
UC Irvine 16.8%Impacted Major
UCLA 3.1% Impacted Major
UC Merced 91%
UC Riverside 32% Impacted major
UC San Diego Estimated 5% Selective Major
UC Santa Barbara Estimated 9% Impacted Major
UC Santa Cruz 60% Impacted Major
Cal Poly SLO 9% Impacted Major
Cal State Long Beach 31% Impacted Major
San Diego State 28% Impacted Major.
San Jose State 31% Impacted Major. A CSU GPA of 4.3 needed to meet 2024 Impaction threshold

You have a good chance at all the UC’s but there are no guarantees.

For UCSB CCS, the admit rate was 10% for 2023 Freshman applicants but an excellent suggestion.

I am sure you will have several schools in which to choose and if you are concerned about costs, the UC’s are a great option.

I would run the Net Price calculator on all schools you plan to apply to determine if you are eligible for any need-based financial aid.

Best of luck to you.

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Tagging @hebegebe who may have additional insight on your chances for admission at the schools you’re targeting.

I agree with @DramaMama2021, especially with respect to running the Net Price Calculator at the schools that don’t offer any merit aid and on the importance of looking at a school’s overall admissions rate when doing chancing.

For clarification purposes:

  1. How much is your family willing and able to pay WITHOUT any loans? That lets us know what the target is (and which schools might or might not be able to meet that target).

  2. It seems you and your family are willing to have you take up to the maximum amount in federal loans, which maxes out at $28k total for undergrads (starts with $5500 for first year students). Is your family willing to support (i.e. cosign) for loans exceeding this amount? If so, is there a cap on how much they’re willing to cosign for?

  3. What are your goals post-college? That can also influence which schools would be better for your interests.

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Congratulations on these. They are serious awards. But note that these are no longer the nearly automatic admission into colleges like MIT like they once were.

In terms of odds of admission, I am going to classify a subset of your colleges, and add a few more that I think would have similar odds. This assumes a solid application with strong recommendations and essays.

<40%: MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Duke. While collectively each is around 40% or less, it wouldn’t surprise me if you got into one or more.
40-60%: Yale, CMU CS ED, UMich, Cornell, UChicago: The surprise to many would be a high admit rate for Yale here, but they love to enroll the strong STEM kids that otherwise end up at MIT, Harvard, or Stanford.

Having written all this, it’s still important for you to have solid safeties, and the above posters have given you good advice on that.

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Congratulations! Your achievements would place you in the top 10% - 20% of the admitted students (not applicants) of any top school in the nation. While, nothing is guaranteed, achievement combination like yours is the rare right tail of the distribution. Sealing the deal would require (1) Good Essays (2) Making the financials work and (3) your perceived fit and like with the school. Good luck!

There are many schools that would offer money to you (Duke Robertson , Georgia Tech STAMP immediately come to mind). Others have pointed out Yale would love to recruit you (since they are looking for strong STEM students) and might make it work with some financial offer.

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While the OP might be prized by the likes of Yale, they do not make financial offers to kids that do not have financial need, which is what OP originally stated was their situation.

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My observation is based on personal knowledge of 1 data point where the school offered a 75% reduction in tuition only for a case similar to this one and the student made it work. The other data point I have is that another student obtained a 50% discount on tuition only at JHU for premed but ultimately decided that it will not work. So make of it what you will.

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But not at Yale, correct?

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The student who made it work was at Yale and that is how I came to know that their medium term institutional priority (5-10 years) is to improve their STEM standing relative to their peer schools.

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If loans are on the table, then you should probably take 95% of the schools off your list. Almost all public schools don’t offer financial aid for out of state students. All of these schools are reach schools, if not academic, they’re financial reach schools. Worse than getting rejected is getting a stack of acceptances to schools you can’t afford. I would recommend re-thinking the list to make it more realistic. A true safety school should be an in-state school you know you can get into. I don’t see any on the list. :slight_smile:

I’m a programmer too. A CS degree is ridiculously employable. You SERIOUSLY don’t need an expensive prestigious school to have a comfortable prosperous life in technology. All you need is to get your foot in the door. Everything else will be learned on the job throughout your career.

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I’m a big believer in scholarships. It’s a win-win for everyone.

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@AustenNut

Is your family willing to support (i.e. cosign) for loans exceeding this amount?

Yes, they do. I see some schools offer loans on their own at reasonable rates, even lower than federal loan rates. If such options are available, my parents are willing to cosign such loans or private loans like Sallie Mae.

WITHOUT any loans :

My family can probably scrape some money to pay 20% of the full cost but the rest they will have to get some form of loans - either cosign student loans with me or a second mortgage on the house etc. If I get into a top school, they think it can be a worthy investment, although it will be a financial stretch on my family.

What are your goals post-college?

My goal is to get into AI/ML/CS/Math research track - possibly in industry. So I would likely plan to do some grad studies - even if not immediately. In this regard if I find a BS/MS program that lets me do some advanced courses and some research projects, that will be preferred.