Match Me Round Two [AZ resident, 3.93 GPA, 36 ACT, 1590 SAT, <$40k, chemistry and math]

Chance Me / Match Me
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This is a second posting of this profile. After doing some research, planning financials, talking more with student about their desires, and looking at all the schools you recommended before, we have narrowed down the college list. I still feel like we need some more targets, especially because many of these school are only on the list if they will give scholarship/merit money. We have removed the international options for financial reasons.

US Resident/Arizona Resident
Highly selective/High rigor HS school

Need merit or meets-need schools. Could afford $40K/year max.

Double Major in Chemistry and Math. If double major not allowed, then Chem Major.

3.93 UW GPA (School doesn’t do weighted GPA)
School doesn’t rank
36 ACT/1590 SAT (Yes, will get National Merit)

List your HS coursework

School doesn’t offer APs but have done 8 AP tests with all 5s.

  • English: In top English track at school.
  • Math: Has completed 16 university courses in Math with all “A” grades. (Calc 1-3, linear algebra, diff EQ, proofs, Analysis I and II, Complex Analysis, Number Theory, Group Theory, Adv. Linear Algebra, Stats, Combinatorics, Game Theory, Knot Theory)
  • Science: AP+equivalent Physics, AP+equivalent Chem, Honors Bio, Organic Chem for scientists and engineers at university, Physics for scientists and engineers at university.
  • History: AP US, AP World, and AP Gov.
  • Language other than English: Spanish (didn’t do AP test, but took four years.)

Awards (State awards in Sci-Oly 9th only)

Extracurriculars. Struggle to do much due to ADHD. Hard to manage course load and more once medication wears off.

Part time job - Math Tutor at university and Writing Tutor.
Full time job- summer (11th) at local company
Hobbies - Reading classic/world literature, world news junkie (is just as strong in history as is in math), crossword puzzles (making them and doing them), rec. level sports.
Clubs: Pres Math Club, other minor club involvement
Volunteer: Summer Science Camp for elementary school
Lacking areas that other high-achieving students usually have: Hates competitions, so doesn’t participate in Math comps, Science Comps, etc. ADHD means his speed is slower so he can’t compete at a level that is commensurate with his knowledge.

Essays/LORs/Other
Really hard for me to guess but I imagine they will be strong.

Schools
Super Reaches: CalTech, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, MIT

Target: UWashington - Seattle, Carnegie Mellon, Michigan State, UofMinnesota, Purdue

Safety: University of Utah (WUE), UofAz, AzSU (in-state), UTDallas (NMF)

Schools listed in order of interest. UUtah>>>>>>UTDallas

School Criteria:
First priority is within budget.
Prefer being in the WEST, but not a deal breaker.
Either a large school with a honors college, or a smaller school. But if a small school want one with graduate program.
Climate, anything goes except HOT AND HUMID (not looking in the SE at all).
Prefer city, not rural.

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For ease of reference, here is the original Match Me (aka, my kid) post:

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I can’t evaluate all of these, but I don’t think University of Washington will hit your budget. They do have some merit, but it’s pretty limited (~ $6000 max 2 years ago, from what I saw) for out of state students. Maybe Oregon State (WUE) might be worth adding, although I don’t know that you need it in the mix.

Carnegie Mellon’s acceptance rate is less than 20%, so I’d consider it a reach.

Best of luck to your student!

2 Likes
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There were a lot of other schools suggested in your previous thead. If you can share more about what elements were unappealing about some of the other options, that would be great. For instance, Rensselaer Polytechnic (RPI) is a school that I commonly see referenced as a good target school for people who are also interested in CMU and MIT. I realize it’s not in the west, but that doesn’t appear to be an absolute requirement. Or if Troy (a suburb of Albany) isn’t “city” enough then one might mention Worcester Polytechnic or Rochester Institute of Technology or something that is more “city.” Letting us know why some schools were eliminated (like, these schools don’t give merit aid and the NPC was too high, or our kid prefers to be out west than to attend these schools, or these schools are too rural, etc) can help folks to provide suggestions closer to what your son is hoping to find.

I would classify these schools differently for your son. These would be my guesses:

Extremely Likely (80-99+%)

  • Michigan State
  • U. of Minnesota
  • U. of Utah
  • U. of Arizona
  • Arizona State
  • UT-Dallas

Likely (60-79%)

  • Purdue

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • U. of Washington…leaning likely

Lower Probability (20-39%)

Low Probability (less than 20%)

  • Cal Tech
  • Stanford
  • Harvey Mudd
  • MIT
  • Carnegie Mellon
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RPI and RIT were both cut for combo of cost and distance. Mostly cost. A few that were borderline with cost were left on. (CMU though on the very high side but student found it more interesting.)

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So your issue is cost. Tulsa free. Bama almost free - 5 years tuition so free Masters potentially, 4 years housing, $4k a year money. UTD on your list…

So if you aren’t coming up cost wise then the uber safeties - Michigan State, Purdue, Washington etc are high reaches.

So have two assured to hit or frankly crush the budget. You can apply to no merit meets needs if they hit on NPC. But why would you if they don’t - like you said about RPI Or swap in schools with big potential merit instead - Vandy, Rice, Emory, Miami, WUSTL, etc. OR W&L and the Johnson. At least, while a small chance, there is a chance.

Get rid of schools with no chance $ wise U Wash etc.

Given the majors in most cases a flagship is a flagship is a flagship.

The budget needs to drive your list - not U Wash is a great school.

That includes the MITs of the world.

So admission wise you have many safeties - even if you say match - but if they are out of max budget they are high reaches.

A cost seeker needs to build a list for cost, not pedigree. And while one can chase pedigree, the most important schools on your list, those that require the most study, will be the in-state or NMF schools because with this list, that’s your likely home.

Good luck.

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I would choose Alabama in his shoes over the other state school options due to the size of their NMF scholarship (tuition+housing+4k annual stipend+2k for research for five years) and so long as they are flexible with accepting his coursework for credit or placement and with taking grad courses as an undergrad. This is something to discuss with the various departments (math, chemistry, maybe also physics) and students in these departments. Because Bama recruits high scorers so heavily across the US (rather than within the state as most other state schools do), there are likely to be more high scoring students at Bama than at most other state schools.

There is also Randall Research Scholars Program | Honors College

The downside, of course, is the weather. Summers are certainly HOT AND HUMID.

Ohio University Honors Tutorial College would fit in the budget with the merit scholarships he’s likely to get (trustee, premier, excellence). It’s a smaller school with a graduate program.

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If you’re willing to shell out for a top school, I would recommend UChicago - tippy top math program (right up there with MIT/Princeton/Caltech etc) and very strong chemistry program with a lot of grad level quantum/physical/computational chemistry offerings.