Hello! Fellow students!!!
I am currently a sophomore and I am a girl who’s rn really into cs and chemistry, in general.
I got a 1300’s on the PSAT and got a 1420 on my actual SAT. I am gonna take it for at least two more times.
I am currently involved in french club as a treasurer, am a LiNK leader (president), have 150+ volunteer hours, attended NYU math program, and I have worked at a science museum.
I am gonna spend my summer taking cs courses and earn some certificates while volunteering at a senior center teacher computer. I am currently in Ap Calculus, and Ap computer principles. planning on taking ap stat, ap comp programming, ap chemistry. My gpa in freshman yr was 3.8 weighted and rn i have 4.2 weighted. I really want to go to Cornell for cs or Carnegie mellon for undecided engineering major. what are some things that i have to do and some things that i am doing well? PLZ help me!!! My school does not do ranking, but i am at the top 10%.
FYI. I live in a prosperous town with an annual income of the town is 100k+ , but my family doesn’t make that even both of my parents work really hard. We make 70-80k per year. Is this a good amount of money to get some grants from college?
To know how each college would treat your income and assets (IE., how much your house is worth ‘counts’) run the NPC on a variety of colleges. Note that only about 80 colleges ‘meet need’ out of 3,700. So if our EFC is 20k 1and the college costs 65k they’ll provide 45k in grants, work study, and often a 5.5k loans. The others may offer merit scholarships or not, each deciding the way they want. So, you must run to the NPC on every college you are thinking of, not just reached but also the matches, likelies, and safeties.
Second, the colleges you listed are ’ reach for everyone’, meaning that all you can do is do your best and keep your fingers crossed.
What will matter:
- did you make an impact on your school, your community? All these volunteer hours, did they lead to something measurable?
- did you participate in Girls who code, in hackathons…?
- academics : you’ll need as much math as possible, meaning calculus AB BC and if you’re done junior year use dual enrollment for another class (discrete math would be useful).
4 years of English with if possible ap Lang ; 4 years of social science /history; foreign language through level 4 or AP; as many science classes as possible, with a minimum of bio honors, chem honors, and either physics honors or AP physics 1, plus one.
Thanks for replying me! I know my dream schools are many people’s reach school and that’s why I wrote them as my dream school. I just really hope I can better my chances of getting in there:)
As the president of the LiNK, I have done a documentary screening with the help from the headquarter and done many fundraising events. I am also the president of the Chem Club and part of the robotics club and my school actually got up to semi-finals this year! Yay!
I am also in art classes and my works have selected for the county fair and the school art show. I am sure i can write about that too. I am also planning on volunteering at my town’s senior center for teaching computer to them. Or, I might just work at the library and help the GirlsWhoCode club.
I am taking all the math AP’s that my school offers and I am also gonna self-study AP Calc BC and take it next year. I have also won several awards for french (national level contests). But, my weakness is English. I am currently in regular English and planning on taking regular and I am also in regular history and also planning on taking a regular next year even tho I have an A or A+ in that class. I hope this does not look too bad.
I just want to focus of the STEM classes and I will take AP gov or AP lang in senior year.
THanks for reading and I hope to hear more advice from you:)
FYI my home value is about 500K and we have a mortgage that’s about 200K
You don’t want to have “dream schools”. You want to use those logic skills that make you good at CS and Chem, etc., and have a solid list of schools that include safeties (where you are pretty much assured to get in, can afford it, and would be willing to attend), matches (matches for your stats, net price calculator on the school website – the NPC referred to above – shows it as affordable), and a couple of reaches. It is harder work to find your safeties and matches than reaches, so don’t slack on that part of your research.
Telling us your home value and income isn’t particularly useful. You need to go to the website of each college you are interested in and find the net price calculator. Ask your parents to help you fill out the information, and see how the possible financial aid information looks to your parents. It does seem like you have the stats to expect some acceptances as schools that “meet need” (as the schools define it, of course, but they are the school that give the most need based aid).
Keep up the good work in your classes and on your test scores, and work to improve your English skills (you won’t be sorry in college, even as an engineering major!). And I think your ECs look very good (go FIRST!). If you keep your GPA and your test scores improve, you might consider Harvey Mudd as one of your reach schools. You might want to get a Fiske Guide to Colleges to start researching schools. Your guidance counselor or library might have one; you don’t need the most recent ones, just check the school website for details on stuff like application due dates that might change from year to year. But the core descriptions don’t vary a lot.
Thank u for an amazing advice! The more I think about my “dream school”, the more stressed I become. But, in a way, this works as a some sort of a catalyst for me.
Honestly, right now, money is not really a big problem for me, since my grandmother is going to pay for my college tuition, as long as I go to top 20 school in CS or whatever major I am doing. That is also why my reach school is like the top of the top schools.
I have never hear of a Fiske Guide to Colleges, so I better look it up! Thank you again for ur advice!!!
p.s. I am not RICH at all!!! It’s just my grandma wants to divide her money to her grandchildren and she said she would either pay for my college or help me with buying a house when the time comes. AHHH!!! The more I say it, the worse it gets!!! I just don’t want you to think that I am some pretentious trust-fund kid…
Stuff can happen – we’ve heard that promise before, and sometimes it falls through. Grandparents don’t realize how expensive college has become. Or they pass away, and even if some money is inherited it could be tied up in the estate and not available for payments when needed. Also, the schools will know after freshman year you are getting that financial help, and CUT your need based aid. It is more complicated than you are thinking. (I’d suggest you have one if your parents create an account here and post about this in the financial aid forum to get some more nuanced advice on how to structure your generous gift from your grandma so it is available and does the most good without affecting your need based aid).
And please stop using the term “dream school”. That phrase is not helpful to your search. Every school has pros and cons. No school is perfect, and there are going to be a lot of schools you haven’t heard of yet that may be a better fit for you. Don’t obsess on a couple of schools. Treat the search like a project.
Thanks for replying me! I know my dream schools are many people’s reach school and that’s why I wrote them as my dream school. I just really hope I can better my chances of getting in there:)
As the president of the LiNK, I have done a documentary screening with the help from the headquarter and done many fundraising events. I am also the president of the Chem Club and part of the robotics club and my school actually got up to semi-finals this year! Yay!
I am also in art classes and my works have selected for the county fair and the school art show. I am sure i can write about that too. I am also planning on volunteering at my town’s senior center for teaching computer to them. Or, I might just work at the library and help the GirlsWhoCode club.
I am taking all the math AP’s that my school offers and I am also gonna self-study AP Calc BC and take it next year. I have also won several awards for french (national level contests). But, my weakness is English. I am currently in regular English and planning on taking regular and I am also in regular history and also planning on taking a regular next year even tho I have an A or A+ in that class. I hope this does not look too bad.
I just want to focus of the STEM classes and I will take AP gov or AP lang in senior year.
THanks for reading and I hope to hear more advice from you:)
Hello, guys!
I am currently a sophomore and thinking about going into the STEM field.
Basically, I have taking a lot of computer-related courses in the school and out like online courses.
I have done some STEM-related volunteering experiences too; I am working as a volunteer at Liberty Science Center, working as a volunteer at my town’s senior center teaching computers/phones to elders, working as a member of the Midnight Run every month, and working as a volunteer at this church helping disabled kids.
I just got a letter from my school that I have accepted to participate in this internship opportunity at Columbia university called Lamont Doherty Observatory. I will be working on earth science research.
And here comes complications. I have to pay $1000 for this internship opportunity and one girl who’s done this is going to stanford but she has done other stuffs so im sure this didn’t play a huge part in her acceptance, but still makes me feel obliged to participate in this program if I want to improve my extracurricular activities. Number 2: I have been doing lots of computer-related activities and been thinking about going into that area. And, this internship is really not computer-related at least for now, because I did not get so much information about what to expect. So, the fact that it’s earth science makes me feel like I don’t have to do this for to go into computer-related field. #3: I am also really into environmental issues and this internship does grab my attention and interest. Environment is definitely one of my many passions. I am even working with the school to get some grants on implementing more eco-friendly environment in the school.
So… What do you think I should do…? Should I do the internship or what?