Match me - High stats cs major looking for match schools [TX resident, 4.0 GPA, top 6% rank, 1570 SAT, <$40k (<$80k for reaches) from parents]

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Demographics: TX resident, US citizen, private school, male, asian

Current Junior

Intended Major: Computer science

UW GPA: 4.0
SAT: 1570, 1590 superscore
School does not rank except for putting people w/ 4.0 uw gpa as rank 1 for top 6% rule

Coursework: all honors, no ap at my school

Awards: none significant, (don’t want to reveal too much info)

EC: tutoring job, paid internship at IT company, freelance event photographer, business building websites, made a health/medication app, violin (no awards), help out with my parents’ business

I think my counselor rec will be great but teacher recs will be not amazing

Constraints: For my match schools my parents don’t want to pay more than abt 50k per year, ideally <= 40k per year
(500k+ family income, won’t qualify for need-based aid)

Mainly need help finding matches that would fit this criteria while still being worth attending over Texas A and M or UTD

Safeties:
UTD
TAMU

Match ideas (need a lot of help with these):
High match (close to being reach)

  • UT
  • Northeastern
  • Purdue

True matches:

  • Virginia Tech
  • Pitt
  • UMass Amherst
    IDK if applying to these schools is worth it because they are kind of expensive, even if I get some merit scholarship and IDK how much better they are than a and m

I have also considered NC State (seems not worth it OOS), Case western/Santa Clara (insane cost)

Reaches: MOD NOTE: Willing to pay full price for reaches.

  • Harvey Mudd
  • GA Tech
  • Rice
  • CMU
  • Duke
  • Penn

Any advice would be appreciated but mainly I need help with my match schools ATM!

2

You should make a two tier comparison for your targets.

secondary admission: texas a and m, purdue, ohio st
direct admission: umass, uiuc, northeastern and so on …

if you are ok with secondary admission then there is no reason to go to umass as a&m and umass are comparable.

1 Like
3

Texas A&M is not a good safety for computer science, since the only path to that major is to enter as first year general engineering and then earn a 3.75 college GPA in order to get automatic admission to computer science in ETAM. Computer science has little or no space after admitting the automatic admission applicants, so very few or no non-automatic admission applicants are admitted in ETAM.

2 Likes
4

Purdue is direct admit for CS.

2 Likes
5

Besides cost <$40k, what preferences do you have? I.e. does direct versus secondary admission (and how difficult) matter? How much breadth and depth of CS offerings are you likely to want? What non-academic non-financial preferences do you have?

6

Your matches are reaches - they’re admission safeties (not matches) but financially out of reach sans merit. Purdue is a match, but really a likely and actually will come at budget or a tad over (they have a tuition surcharge for the major). A UMN would be a better choice for possibly getting to cost than schools like Tech and NCSU.

You have 20 slots - you can apply but can only consider with the right level of merit which is unlikely.

Seems a reasonable list overall - but you do need to complete the Net Price Calculators for Penn, Duke, CMU - because you need to see what it will cost you. Will it meet your budget or not? If not, they have to come off.

Have your parents fill out Penn - as an example.

Welcome | Net Price Calculator (collegeboard.org)

7

You are not going to like hearing this, but a lot of schools that you have the stats for might pass on you because you say you want CS. Put some work into finding a place that is a “near sure thing including price” so you can feel in control, and say “I choose you, school!” Put a lot of effort into learning the ins and outs of the application process to that school, get the shirt….and when that one is all tucked away, then go ahead and shoot your shot, you could get a nice surprise, but if you don’t, you can go to the school “you” chose and you will feel excited to start your future. And I base this on just having sent two very similar stat children through the process, so actual results.

Good luck!!!

8

Direct admission vs secondary admission is not an important factor for me as long as there is a way into the major through just having a certain GPA (like Virginia tech 3.0 should not be too bad, A and M 3.75 is challenging but I think it is doable for me, I like physics which I think is probably one of the harder classes in the first year engineering before Etam).

I would prefer to be somewhat near a city especially if the university is not super famous so that opportunities for internships are better (many of my current ideas for schools are bad at this)

A practical focus would be cool but not a big deal as much of that stuff can also be learned on the side.

However I would consider both of these secondary to the cost.

IDK of any privates which would have a decent shot at merit scholarships to bring to COA to around 40k or lower and most of the state schools have huge classes, but this is not a huge deal to me as I am a strong self-learner

9

Being a self learner is required to succeed at TAMU. Get into the honors Engineering program. A savy task manager and networker will thrive there.

Get on all of their organizations’ instagram pages and see the great activities available (will have to apply to get in the good clubs, you can get shut out).

If you get a 4.0 first year you will start to become a candidate for small, continuing student scholarships. But you have to go to that school with eyes open ready to fight for everything.

Good luck!

1 Like
10

Yes, I have talked to them about budget, they can comfortably pay the 80+k a year if I got into one of my reaches, its just that they don’t want to overpay for a lower caliber school if they can avoid it.

1 Like
11

If a school offers merit aid (like Case Western, Santa Clara, Pitt, UMass, etc), then don’t just look at the sticker price. If you are showing real demonstrated interest to them and they think they’d have a legitimate shot of landing you if they gave you enough merit aid, then they will try to entice you with it. So the sticker price may not be the price that they would actually end up asking you to pay.

Did you take the PSAT this year? If so, is there a possibility you might become a National Merit Finalist? That could open up a lot of options that would be very financially attractive. A current estimate for the cutoff score is 220, though the range of 218-221 is where the cutoff is likely to be (source).

For instance, New Jersey Institute of Technology would give you free tuition & fees and you’d be eligible for potentially more honors scholarships, up to full room & board (source).

I’d recommend applying to U. of Illinois - Urbana Champaign which would be a reach, but it’s arguably one of the top CS schools in the country, and the cost would be way less than most of your privates. I’d also consider U. of Maryland.

Since a lot of your reach schools are on the small to medium size, I’d also take a look Rensselaer Polytechnic, U. of Rochester, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rose-Hulman, and Clarkson.

ETA: Adding on Stevens Institute of Technology which offers scholarships of up to full tuition. Stevens & NJIT are both quite near NYC (Stevens is literally across the river). Also tagging @DadOfJerseyGirl for his insight.

1 Like
12

You don’t want to be by a city but you have Va Tech - interesting.

I don’t think location and internships necessarily correlate.

Find the right schools.

Find schools at your budget.

@coolguy40 will tell you - the where is less important.

All these kids at the top schools today are struggling because CS is in big layoff mode.

So affordability, moreso than anything - should be a must.

You can go to school for $20K a year, $40K as your budget or more - if you choose others on your list.

But I’d find the right schools - and if you only want urban due to internships - than you don’t really need urban.

If you want urban because that’s the environment that would be comfortable for you, that’s why you’d want urban.

But given you have UTD and it’s a slam dunk (and I suspect Purdue will come through) the rest of your list can be whatever you want. But I like to optimize them - so I’d going UMN over an NC State or PItt type thing. A U of SC over NC State, for example…because these schools may not be as reputed, but they’re much more likely to hit budget.

Good luck.

13

I think the University of Florida would be a good school to add. They have a pretty solid Comp Sci program and there is no admission to major, so if you get in you can study comp sci. I think it would be a upper-target school for you and the cost would be just about 40k OOS.

1 Like
14

OK thanks for the advice! Yes, I took the PSAT, my index is 227 so I am hoping for a possibility of national merit finalist (UTD is on my list because of the national merit scholarship which is really good). I will look more into NJIT.
For UMD I have heard some things about overcrowding, is it as bad as most other state schools or even worse?
I will look into the other private universities you suggested.

1 Like
15

Define lower caliber - short of a few schools your outcomes are very likely to be the same no matter where you go.

My Poli Sci at U of Arizona nephew is in CS for a large name in NYC.

Had to pass a bunch of tests for them…he’s self taught.

It goes back to the where - likely not as big a deal as most kids make it.

PS -U of Penn is $92K next year (more when you go) and Duke $93K - so your folks need to re-adjust what they think school costs.

How about an RPI - if you can get their medal - can make costs!!

16

Ok, thanks for giving me more insight into the location vs internships. I definitely need to consider more what I am looking for out of a college instead of randomly looking into different colleges.

Personally I am hoping I will get into UT or Purdue, if I do that would be great as the programs are both strong and the cost is not insane on either.

Would you by any chance know how frequently University of Minnesota gives merit scholarships to oos students?

17

I noted UMN because it’s strong, it’s in corporate heaven, and yes, lots of merit.

Like Purdue, it will have a surcharge in the major.

UF was mentioned - another strong school.

Purdue is likely (I don’t think a hard target), UF is a hard target and UMN a safety.

You have Duke - you can swap in UNC instead - and save bucks too.

Again, with 20 slots, you can do what you want - as long as you have UTD and UT, etc.

You might look at RPI too - they can be very generous and their grads do very well.

Ohio State is another that might make costs and would be a likely.

18

Programmer here. @tsbna44 is right. I can tell you with absolute certainty that there’s no benefit going to a private or OOS university to study CS for lots of $$. In computers and tech, it’s all about hands on. Virtually all of your credentials will be built around on-the-job training. Each job, you’ll pick-up a new system or programming language. I happen to be from Texas too. If you’re a resident in Texas, you shouldn’t have a problem finding a job from UT, A&M, or even UTD. All of these schools are well recruited, and Texas has a huge tech economy. Just stick to Texas and you’ll be fine. :grin:

2 Likes
19

Please re-read the OP’s information about family income and the budget they have set for match schools (<40-50k) vs reach (no budget constraints). It is each family’s prerogative to set a budget and whatever priorities they choose. Let’s respect that in the responses and stay on-topic to the questions asked.

3 Likes
20

Can you change the headline which says less than $40K please - I think that’s what’s thrown some of us off.

1 Like