I posted before but neglected to detail my situation,
(I am a HS senior)
I am looking to be a Computer Science major but don’t have the greatest stats.
SAT- 1250
SAT math - 620
SAT reading-630
ACT composite-28
ACT science - 29
ACT writing-10/12
SAT writing-10/12
(I am retaking SAT in Nov. and will apply Early action to the schools of my choice. I expect SAT to go up.)
weighted GPA: ~3.34
(I expect this to go up, for reasons I will explain in a minute)
Colleges I’m looking to apply to:
*Univesity of Washington
*Seattle University
*Syracuse University
*Purdue University
with a backup of:
St. Johns, Wash. State U, and Michigan SU.
how do these options look?
how much will raising my GPA affect my chances of admission?
My reason for my GPA being low is due in part to my lower grades the first 2 years of high school.
My father became terminally ill with cancer and required extensive personal care, from both myself and mother, which heavily detracted from school, I also suffered from concentration issues from grief after he passed away, but I now maintain a relatively high standard with my classes, (all college or AP classes)
I’m taking:
AP Comp Sci
AP gov
AP economics
AP physics
college calc
Marching/Concert band
I am also a varsity swimmer, how will this kind of resume hold up in the admissions to these schools, are there any other similar schools I should look at?
(I live in Upstate NY, and don’t want to go to college nearby.)
Ask your GC to address your low grades & your father’s illness in their recommendation. Also, can you afford to pay for all those out of state public schools? You live in a state with good, affordable public options – I’d suggest you add 1 or 2 of them to your list.
I included that information in the GC recommendation and the common app additional comments. I have 1 or 2 NY state schools on my list, but not super thrilled about them honestly, and I should be able to afford tuition.
Washington State in eastern Washington is a very different campus environment than UW and Seattle U. Pullman is going to be harder to travel to versus a city with a major airport, too.
Have you run the net price calculators on each school with your parents? On the college websites, usually linked to from the tuition & fees page or financial aid page. You should do that before spending the money in applications, test scores, etc.
I agree with @intparent: You have a range of very good in-state options. You have out of state options on your list which are going to be a LOT more expensive. There is no way that you should take on debt just to go out of state. NY is a large and diverse state and you can find in state options which will be quite different from where you are living now. At a minimum I think that you should include at least two of the SUNY’s on your list of where you apply, and then see what the offers look like when your acceptances come in.
I am very sorry to hear about your father. As a dad who has dealt with a few health issues (doing well right now), I am very confident that he is proud of you and would want you to do your very best at university and in life.
well I am currently considering a few state schools, but I don’t think I should rule out other options either
My issue is I wanted to get a feel for how likely I am to be accepted to these colleges, as I have visited both several in NY and UW, SU, and SeaU, and like all of them alot more by comparison.
If I could get into these schools I think I’d be alot happier in the long run, even if it ended up more expensive.
Have your parents said they will pay full tuition plus room and board at all of these colleges? You can always move out of NY after graduation. And NY is a pretty diverse state, with SUNY’s located all over it.
If you don’t want to stay upstate you can certainly look at SUNY Stony Brook which would be strong for computer science or SUNY New Paltz although I don’t know anything about their computer science programs. You can also look at closer out of state options like Vermont, UMass, UConn but you need to check out of state tuition as not likely to get any merit money.
While I appreciate the suggestions of schools, what I’m really wondering is how likely I am to get admitted into Purdue, SeaU, Syracuse or UW, thats what I feel I need to know before I make any informed decisions.
I think you have a reasonable list here for your grades and test scores. If you want to get a better sense for any individual college take a look at the Common Dats Set for each. This contains data on the range of GPAs and test scores of past accepted students. Just Google the college name and Common Data Set and it will be one of the first search results.
Congrats on your hard work and success! I think your list is reasonable. I would suspect that UW will be a reach but can’t say definitively. It gets lots of OOS applications, especially from CA. Your are certainly a very reasonable candidate though.
I would think Syracuse and Purdue would maybe be matches, maybe reaches. Certainly a reach for engineering. Your GPA is probably a little low, but it’s really impossible to say what your full application will look like as it sits on an admission officer’s desk. I’d think you’d have a good chance at Seattle.
You seem to want to be in the PNW, which I fully understand. What about Portland State, University of Portland, Lewis & Clark, or Puget Sound. Maybe the University of Oregon?
And here’s maybe the best idea of all–University of British Columbia, great school in a great PNW city. Good luck!
UW is very competitive for Computer Science, and has become more selective overall. If you can afford out-of-state tuition there, then you might want to look at UC Santa Cruz, San Jose State, Arizona State, University of Colorado, et al. We were surprised when my son was waitlisted at UW four years ago. He was not applying to a STEM program, and his stats were slightly higher than yours.
If you have the money to go to a non-SUNY then maybe check out RIT and Clarkson. As for the PNW schools see if your stats fall in the range using their Common Data Sets. You may have the advantage of being full pay and being from NY. Good luck and you should be very proud of yourself for getting through a very tough situation.
“And here’s maybe the best idea of all–University of British Columbia, great school in a great PNW city.”
Yes this is a great school in a great PNW city. It might be a reach for OP, although I am pretty sure that UBC won’t care about OP’s freshman year of high school which apparently will help the GPA. I think that 1250 on the SAT is probably low for UBC. U.Victoria or Simon Fraser will be safer with OP’s stats and less expensive for an international student.