Match me to a computer/electrical engineering program: Junior in high school with ZERO extracurriculars [TX resident, 3.9 GPA, no rank, 1350 SAT]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • US domestic
  • State/Location of residency: Texas
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Private high school
  • Other special factors: School is #1 private school in the city and is known to be very competitive

Cost Constraints / Budget
$120K/year (estimate)

Intended Major(s)
Computer engineering or electrical engineering

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.9
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.0/4.0
  • College GPA: (for transfer applicants)
  • Class Rank: Unranked
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1350 SAT

List your HS coursework

(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)

  • English: Honors English 9, Honors British Literature, AP English Language and Composition
  • Math: Honors Algebra II, AP Statistics, Honors Precalculus
  • Science: Honors Biology I, Honors Chemistry I, AP Physics C: Mechanics
  • History and social studies: Honors World History, AP European History, AP United States History
  • Language other than English: Honors French II, Honors French III
  • Visual or performing arts: Honors 2-D Design, Honors 3-D Design
  • Other academic courses: AP Computer Science A

College Coursework (Transfer Applicants)
(Include college courses taken while in high school if not included above.)

  • General education course work:
  • Major preparation course work:

Awards
None

Extracurriculars
None

Essays/LORs/Other
None

Schools
Don’t know

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I think state schools tend to focus on GPA and ACT/SAT scores more than extracurriculars. You have some pretty good schools in Texas as a place to start.

What are you looking for in a school? Close to home? Far away? Small school? Large school?

Your biggest focus is to make sure the program you apply to is ABET accredited. That’s what matters most regarding academics.

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I don’t care about size, campus life, or location. I just want to get into a college.

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$120K/year is more than even full pay private. Did you by any chance mean $120K total?

Anyway, ECs include anything you do that is not for your academic classes. It includes jobs, family duties, hobbies, and so on. I suspect you in fact already do have some ECs, and you certainly have time to add some. Like, a summer job, for example.

In terms of colleges, Texas has a lot of good engineering schools, so you could just apply to those. Your HS counselor should be able to tell you where in Texas you are very likely to be admitted based on your grades and test scores, and other places where you might at least have a realistic chance.

If you wanted to go to college outside of Texas, then first, your actual budget is a critical question. But there are some excellent engineering programs that are either not too expensive to begin with, and/or offer merit. You could, for example, check out Minnesota, Michigan State, and Iowa State.

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Do you read a lot? tinker with CAD or electronics at home? Have a PT job? Help around the house? Take care of siblings or grandparents? Those all count as activities for your activity list FYI… Are you an admin of an online community of role-playing gamers? That would count too.. Anyway, you probably have some sort of activities for your activity list.

Anyway, you have excellent grades and a solid SAT, so you can get into a college, even with low ECs, especially if you don’t need aid or a lot of. Just make sure to take Calc senior year and another hard science class.

Ideally, do an actual EC before senior year or some sort too:)

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I wasn’t sure about the budget. I come from a high-income, former military family (mom is a highly-paid doctor) and my first 2 years of college are already covered by my mom’s GI bill, so $120K was just a guess for me.

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I know that the questions you asked might be rhetorical… but no, I literally do NOTHING outside of school. All I’ve ever done outside of school for the past 2-3 years is just scroll on my phone, watch TV and play video games (which I’m not even good or competitive at.)

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I’d suggest having a conversation with your parent(s) soon just to nail down these issues.

I’d then suggest changing this habit. Primarily for your sake, actually. But it wouldn’t hurt for colleges, either.

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fair enough - a lot of people seem to think only ECs are school-based or highly organized activities – but I agree with the previous, it is a good idea to have some hobbies…not necessarily for college, but for your brain and creativity building! However, you are clearly a good student, good luck.

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You need to have the cost of college talk with your Parents/Mom sooner than later.
That can really determine where you are applying to.

The GI Bill only covers up to a certain amount of tuition- and not all schools will have the yellow ribbon program that covers the remainder (and sometimes they limit the amount that receive this) so make sure you are working that into your $$ review if you are looking at out of state and/or private.

Well, you’re in luck- If you truly do not care- then there will be many choices available to you.

I suggest that you start figuring out what you want. No need to chase prestige- but get a bit pickier with the location and type of school. Even international schools could be an option (many work with the VA/GI Bill)
If you truly only care about going to college- then start with what experience you want to have and locations.

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One daughter when she was a junior in high school had essentially no ECs (she did get a bit more involved senior year). She still ended up being 5 for 5 in university admissions, with merit aid, and is currently studying in a very good PhD program. One issue is that she had very good grades in high school. You also have very good grades in high school. The other issue is that she did not even bother to apply to schools such as Harvard or MIT or Stanford that are very highly competitive for admissions. You might similarly not want to apply to Harvard or MIT or Stanford. If there are 3,000 universities in the USA, that narrows you down to only 2,997 to choose from.

There are lots and lots of very good universities. For any form of engineering you will want to look for an ABET accredited university. There are lots of them and they are all very good (that is part of how they got ABET accreditation).

For the very highest ranked schools, such as Harvard and MIT and Stanford, they have a huge number of applicants with very nearly perfect grades and letters of reference. These schools need some other criteria to figure out who to accept. They use ECs as one way to distinguish between a very, very long list of students with perfect grades. For the vast majority of other universities, including many very good ones, grades and test scores and a reasonably responsible approach to life is sufficient to get you admitted.

As obvious places to start, you have very good in-state public universities in Texas with very good engineering programs. Given that I live a long way east and north of you I am most familiar with UT Austin and TA&MU, both of which are excellent, but I am pretty sure that there are many other very good universities in Texas.

It also wouldn’t hurt to get involved in something other than school work and TV and video games. Look at the clubs that you have at school and see if any of them interest you. Do you play chess? Do you have a rocket club or a robot club at school? Is there something else that interests you? Really this is not so much for university admissions. Rather, this is just a healthy thing to do with your time.

I am betting that you have very good academic advisors in your high school. Talk to them. If you have a 3.9 unweighted GPA from the top private high school in your city, there will be lots and lots of good options.

Sometimes in some private high schools students are overly obsessed with attending famous universities (such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford). If any of your friends are obsessed with these famous schools, do not listen to them. Yes Harvard and MIT and Stanford are very good universities. However, there are hundreds of other very good universities. Out of the top 200 universities in the US, they are all good, and you should be able to get accepted to the large majority of them. Five or six years from now someone with a degree in EE from MIT and someone with a degree in EE from TAMU are likely to be working side by side, earning the same income, and no one will care which school you graduated from. People will care whether your designs work, and if you are designing physical electronics whether it catches on fire will matter. You can design stuff that works and does not catch on fire with a degree from any one of a very large number of universities.

And you will not need to spend $120,000 per year to find a very good university to attend.

Best wishes.

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Texas public universities use class rank instead of GPA, so chancing for them is somewhat more difficult than for applicants with a class rank.

However, PVAMU offers a full ride for 3.5 GPA and 1260 SAT and has electrical engineering and computer engineering (both ABET accredited), so that can be a safety.

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It’s time to find a hobby - if only for your mental health. I wasn’t much of a joiner in high school either and now I have a ton of hobbies. It is NEVER too late to try something. I took up my favorite hobby at 50. You do NOT have to be good at something right off the bat. Can you drive? Do you have spending money? If so - find a class -a fitness class, an art class, a pickeball team – an improv group– anything that remotely sounds like it might be interesting. Again - you can SUCK at this hobby - it just needs to be something that you want to learn about. Your local library will likely have many free options -but it doesn’t sound like finances will be a hinderance. You can LEARN to be creative (a ton of crafts and art out there) YOU can learn a physical activity. If you can get a 3.9 in school - you can learn to knit or crochet or frisbee golf.

Oh and volutneering!! If you like animals - go volunteer at a shelter! You might be cleaning poop but you get to play with dogs and cats! If you don’t like animals - there are plenty of other volunteering things you can do! As long as you are willing to try, most places will be thrilled to have you!

Another idea - every teenager should have a entry level job at some point! If nothing else, to appreciate how hard the service industry is! Try a local mom and pop ice cream shop, the local donut shop, even Target or a shopping center. Bonus - you earn money!

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My question is whether this baseline is what you’re happy with and want to continue, or whether you are looking for a college environment that will engage you more, socially and extracurricularly, than high school has.

The combination of your saying that you “do nothing,” and saying you have no preferences with regard to college environment, makes you sound a bit checked-out, and makes me wonder whether what you’re describing might actually be depression. But then again, maybe you’re just an introvert who likes school from an academic standpoint, but who just wants to balance that with a lot of “alone time.” It’s hard to tell, from what you’ve said… and of course it’s nobody’s business… but a clearer understanding where you’re coming from would help us to make better suggestions.

When you say you “just want to get into a college,” it sounds as if you think this may be in doubt, and it’s not. You have good grades, and that’s all you need for many good colleges. You don’t even seem to have significant financial constraints. So really, the problem is going to be too many options (and not a lot of clear preferences to help narrow down) rather than too few.

You will have multiple options at public universities in Texas. And there are plenty of excellent programs out of state that you could get into, too. Ones that come to mind immediately are:

  • Iowa State: highly-regarded engineering school, but admission is automatic based on stats
  • U of Utah: excellent STEM, and OOS students can take the path to residency and pay OOS rates only for the first year
  • U of Alabama Huntsville: another excellent STEM school with stat-based admissions and automatic merit, plus, if having your own space is important, single rooms are the norm in the dorms
  • U of Louisville: excellent project-based engineering school, modeled on Cal Poly’s “learn by doing” philosophy.
  • Missouri S&T

Or maybe you would like an even smaller, STEM-focused school. Rose-Hulman comes to mind as a place where an academically-focused introvert might fit in really well. RPI, Stevens, WPI, are all worth a look; RIT is a little bigger but could be a good fit also.

You need more sense of what would fit, in order to narrow down. All things being equal, would you rather stay in-state in Texas, or go somewhere out of state? Big school or small? Project-based or theory-focused? You have lots of options and need to come up with some preferences.

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You’re in luck, and this is what you are going to do just to have a school in your back pocket before you even enter senior year, which is going to take off a lot of pressure (as long as you can picture yourself happy at the following schools).

Apply to Iowa State and University of Iowa in late July. You will meet the auto-admit RAI. It is based on course rigor, GPA and SAT. There isn’t even a space to fill in your ECs. You will know immediately and get an official letter/email soon after (Iowa State’s is really fun). Both have excellent computer engineer/electrical engineering departments and are not “weed out” schools.

University of Kansas is similar, I just don’t know how long it takes to hear.

If you could be happy at a large state university in the Midwest, these are the schools to start with.

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University of Kansas is also pretty quick! ETA and Lawrence is great and we have 4 seasons

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If your family can afford $120,000 a year, you can afford to attend just about every college in this country.

What do you do when you aren’t attending high school or doing homework???

RE: colleges…you have some terrific instate public options for engineering. You also have SMU, and Rice (Rice would be a reach for you, I think) instate.

Have you looked into Texas A and M, or UT Austin, or Baylor, or UT Dallas?

You would have an excellent chance of both acceptance and some merit aid at both Arizona and U of New Mexico.

Check Purdue, Ohio State, University of Massachusetts, Lehigh, Lafayette…I could go on and on, but it would be helpful if you could give info that might narrow down your college search.

If you can really pay $120,000 per year, that opens up a LOT of options, so please clarify that.

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So you have a 3.9, 1350 SAT, will get to precalc and can afford any school in America.

You say:

This is wrong.

  1. you’ll get into most colleges

  2. you do care - because some are small, some are large. Some are in cold weather, some are in warm weather. Some are in the boonies. Others in the suburb or cities. Some are big in sports and greek life.

There’s over 300 CE schools in the US and 400 EEs.

You’ll get into hundreds of schools.

Not sure how many have ECE - but you need to figure out what you want.

You have ZERO issue with getting into a boatload of schools.

Engineering is heavy math - so I do worry you’d only get to pre-calc. It’s enough for hs but it’s going to get progressively and quickly much faster/harder in college.

Tell us more.

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I teach high school in Texas. You can apply to UT San Antonio. They have rolling admission. Every year I have students receiving admissions in September. Their computer engineering program is decent. I have former students graduating with job offers as well as graduate school offers. Your GPA and SAT score are similar to quite some of my students who got early acceptances there.

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update: my SAT is now 1460. Does that increase my chances of getting into a decent college?