College reccomendations

April 14, 2008 7:16 AM

My teen is a solid B+/A- student and is interested in studying either robotics engineering or computer science in college. She will take the SATs next year--so we don't have those scores yet, but we are starting to look at colleges. She wants to go to college in or near a big city. Got any recommendations of schools she might actually get into with those grades? Of course, we are not considering the "big league" schools.
posted by sandra194 to education (54 comments total)

Uh, "those grades" are slightly better than what got me into a Top 20 school. (granted that was fifteen years of grade inflation ago)

WHat part of the country are you in? What's a "big" city - St. Louis, or Houston? Or L.A.?
posted by notsnot at 7:33 AM on April 14

Have you ever heard of something called Olin College? It's a free engineering college in Boston along the lines of Cooper Union engineering. Depending on the SAT score, it might be a bit of reach, but it's worth a shot. I had a dear friend, now unfortunately deceased, who went there and never reported being happier.
posted by Electrius at 7:44 AM on April 14

We're in NC's 5th largest city. She loves NYC, Atlanta--thinking along those lines. And all of teh cities you mentioned above are big cities to us.
posted by sandra194 at 7:44 AM on April 14

Yes, I have heard of Olin --looks really nice. She may apply as a "reach" school.
posted by sandra194 at 7:46 AM on April 14

What about Austin? Texas is really a great school set in the heart of an amazing city (said the reluctant Aggie).
posted by doorsfan at 7:51 AM on April 14

What do you consider a "big league" school? Why are those out of her reach? A- isn't that horrible!

Plus, she wants to go into a field that's traditionally a boy's club. The fact that she's a girl will give her a bit of a leg up almost certainly (whether that's fair or not, I'm not going to expound on).

I don't know anything about engineering schools, so I can't really recommend a school, but I just wanted to chime in to say that the "good" schools shouldn't be discounted.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 7:55 AM on April 14

It's almost impossible to get int UT Austin if you're out-of-state. The acceptance rate for out-of-staters is lower than Harvard's.

What about Georgia Tech? (especially if you're a girl....)
posted by unexpected at 8:04 AM on April 14

By all means, reach. You don't want your kid to definitely not even posibly have the option of going to a top-tier school because you didn't spring for the app fees, you know?

I applied to 22 schools, at least half of them "on the off chance" and I got into 20 of them. I had my choice of a wide range of schools; the only places I didn't get into were UNC Chapel Hill and Rice. Speaking of which...
posted by DarlingBri at 8:10 AM on April 14

You all can get in touch with the Society of Women Engineers. Not only will they have some recommendations, but they probably have alumni from most schools that might be willing to put in some good words for your daughter.

I imagine you all are aware of this, but there are lots of scholarships and other programs that are only available to women studying engineering/CS. I eyed them quite longingly as an male CS undergrad trying to pay for school.
posted by Nelsormensch at 8:15 AM on April 14 [2 favorites]

Of course A- isn't horrible--but the kids that the big league schools have 4.5-5.0 GPAs and above--at least coming out of her high school--so we are looking at solid B+ schools

She would love to go to Georgia Tech--we've already visited--so she will apply there as a reach school. Those kids are definately in the top 10% of their classes. It's almost like a 4.0 GPA doesn't matter for some colleges--kids have GPAs way over 4.0 for the top 20 schools these days.
posted by sandra194 at 8:16 AM on April 14

My alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University, is an urban campus with a relatively new and well-funded engineering school. VCU hosts the annual FIRST Robotics Competition for high school students. Not sure how competitive the engineering school is, but she should have no trouble with regular admissions.
posted by junkbox at 8:17 AM on April 14

Carnegie Mellon is a top notch CS school. There is aggressive affirmative action with regards to keeping the male/female ratio equal. This alludes to that. It will be a "reach" school, but a CS major with a degree from CMU is set for life. Pittsburgh is not a large city, however CMU is located in Oakland. It definitely offers a city experience.

On preview, I see that you feel like Georgia Tech is a reach. Realize that affirmative action for females in computer science is very real. It is probably easier than you think to get into a good school.
posted by traco at 8:21 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]

DarlingBri -- oops sorry about the UNC-Chapel Hill thing, they do take a lot of in-state kids
posted by sandra194 at 8:24 AM on April 14

Purdue?
Indianapolis might not qualify as a big city for you, but Chicago is a quick morning drive away.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:40 AM on April 14

Definitely go for the "reach" schools. You may be pleasantly surprised. If you are going to take a risk for anything then definitely take the risk of applying for the big league schools. I heartily concur with people upthread suggesting that you get in contact with fellow women engineers and network groups.

Though GPA is important, selection committees are fully aware of grade inflation and the reputations of certain schools so, do not discount her application simply based on GPA. SATs and activities do count and a host of other factors. It is well worth studying/get coaching for the SATs and any subject exams she may be taking; a regret of my undergrad career was in accepting ETS' crap line on how you cannot be coached for the exam.

The important thing is to find a school that is good for her that meets her needs. If she plans to go to grad school the undergraduate institution is a stepping stone towards that longer goal, so she needs to take a look at schools that prep their students into that arena and offer opportunities for co-ops, internships or research opportunities. If she decides that CS engineering is not for her but in something related then a school with a more expansive offering may be good as well.
posted by jadepearl at 8:41 AM on April 14

Nthing the previous answers - Apply everywhere. Even if you think it's beyond a reach. Please don't downplay the fact she's a girl, even is she's doing the whole "I don't want to get in because I'm a girl, I want to get in on my merits alone" thing. (I'm a female CS geek, I've been down that route, and the only person it hurt was me.) Also, don't worry about other's kids GPA - since when should your daughter care about what the other kids have? :). Apply everywhere, get into a wide selection of schools, and THEN make the choice. No sense limiting your options before you have to.
posted by cgg at 8:42 AM on April 14

Texas!
posted by ncc1701d at 8:44 AM on April 14

If she is taking SATs next year I assume she is currently at most a junior in high school? How about trying to strengthen your daughter's college applications with activities other than GPA? Is she involved in after-school activities related to CS or robotics? Or how about signing up for summer programs such as this one at Smith College?

Some great school suggestions so far, such as Georgia Tech and Rice.
posted by needled at 8:45 AM on April 14

I second jadepearl's comment on coaching for the SAT - math scores can definitely be improved quite substantially by coaching, and given her college interests she should try to do well in the math section of the SAT. Do not consider schools to be a "reach" based on GPA alone.
posted by needled at 8:49 AM on April 14

Carnegie Mellon is the best robotics university in the world - definitely apply even if it's a long shot!
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 8:59 AM on April 14

You should apply to any and all schools she is even remotely interested in. Affirmative action for females in almost all engineering degrees except chemical is very real and can/will get you in where a male students would be rejected. One of my female friends had a 1.6ish gpa graduating HS(1500/1600 sat) and got into a top 5 college for her field since hardly any women ever applied to get a degree in the field she was interested in.
posted by metex at 9:03 AM on April 14

I went thorugh a similar search, myself! You and your daughter might want to consider these schools, all of which have excellent Computer Science departments:

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Case Western Reserve
Boston University
posted by nilihm at 9:05 AM on April 14

My alma mater has a purportedly excellent women-in-the-sciences program (I was a history major, so I can't comment first-hand), and an engineering grad program, and it all ties together so you can get a BA/BE in five years, or something like that. It also has an excellent computer science program.

I don't know if my school counts as "big league" for you, since I don't know what your criteria are, but if they're financial, please please keep in mind that many private colleges (especially in the Northeast, I think) have need-blind policies, whereby if you get in, they're not going to lkeep you out just because you can't afford it. My situation was: I got into a bunch of schools, including my state u. State offered no financial aid, and I couldn't have afforded it. Alma mater offered truckloads - loans, grants, scholarships, work-study - and while I came out with debt, it was less than it would have been had I gone to state u.

Good luck to you and your kid!
posted by rtha at 9:08 AM on April 14

Nthing apply everywhere. Definitely consider the "big league" schools... and don't forget the good public schools- Berkeley, U of Washington, Wisconsin-Madison, UIUC, UNC, Austin, etc.

Also important for her to know- For some schools, it's easy to be accepted to the school, but getting into the department is very competitive. Great grades during her first few quarters are critically important.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:10 AM on April 14

Definitely consider Carnegie Mellon for a city experience. The campus is a calm little oasis, with traditional college quads and no roads going between academic buildings, which you can't always find on an urban campus. My favorite neighborhoods are all accessible by an easy bus ride, and there are cultural things to be had downtown. Housing and parking are also cheaper and easier than they would be in many larger cities.

As a female CS major at Carnegie Mellon, I was accepted with grades exactly like your daughter's. Perhaps lower grades than many of my male peers, but now that I'm here, I'm doing just fine in my classes. Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of girls drop out of CS because it wasn't right for them. One thing that really helps is exploring something on her own, outside of classes, if she hasn't done so yet. Don't be surprised to meet (mostly male) students in college who have been programming since elementary school.

By the way, if your daughter wants to go into industry after graduation, consider the school name. Many of the top software companies recruit on my campus at least twice a year, and we have a great Career Center that helps you find lucrative summer internships. It's striking how much easier it is to get a job from here than from lesser known schools.
posted by scission at 9:12 AM on April 14

Definitely consider top-tier schools, and look around for scholarships. There are a surprising amount of resources for women going into STEM fields. (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). This is even more true for CS/Engineering than some of the others.
posted by chrisamiller at 9:13 AM on April 14

I forgot to point out that most places, including Carnegie Mellon, admit students to separate schools within the university. Here, getting accepted into the School of Computer Science means being accepted as a CS major, since it's the only major within the school.
posted by scission at 9:13 AM on April 14

I'm a girl who went to Georgia Tech and majored (eventually) in computer science.

When I applied to Ga. Tech, there was a formula into which you could plug your SAT and GPA numbers, it gave you your "projected freshman GPA", and if it was over a certain number you were pretty much guaranteed to get in. No essay question. Lord I hope they've changed the process.

I just looked all over Ga. Tech's web site's admissions section and couldn't find anything about "projected freshman GPA"; either they're not using it anymore, or not publishing it.

I'm sure that SAT scores were weighted much more than GPA, though. I was an unremarkable student, grade-wise; was even excluded from an award I'd otherwise have gotten because of low GPA. My parents withdrew me from the "gifted" program after my freshman year of high school, so I didn't have as many AP classes as others. I had little in the way of extracurricular activities. High school was kind of a difficult time for me overall. I just did well on the SAT, so I got in with no problem.

a little more info:

I will say this: I didn't spend any time programming before entering college, didn't know anything about the languages they taught (Pascal, mainly), and I feel that it put me at a huge disadvantage. Along with not actually owning my own computer. This wouldn't affect admissions, necessarily, but I thought I'd mention it. They said "good, then you won't have any bad habits", but really, people would talk about certain things outside of lectures and I'd be lost, which made me less likely to try to join in conversations or ask questions in class.

I'd offer to talk to your daughter about it (I'm a gurl too, and studied Computer Science), but I didn't really go there because I _wanted_ to and had kind of a weird experience. I did graduate, though! And I have to say, even being pretty shy, I didn't have any problem making friends; I think the computer science folks have a way of relating that makes them more comfortable with each other than with the population at large. I do kind of miss that since I don't work with other geeks at the moment.

Please do e-mail me if you have more questions with which I can help. I'm even living in North Carolina now (Triangle area, and I just looked up the fifth-largest city so I know you're not nearby).
posted by amtho at 9:42 AM on April 14

MIT, CMU and the University of Rochester were my top three choices when I was applying to college last year (and trying to decide between chemE and EE). If her next two semesters are really solid and she has decent SAT scores she could feasibly get into one of those schools. I'm at MIT now, MefiMail me if she has questions about what that's like.

You were talking about students with 4.5/5 GPAs-keep in mind that colleges generally ignore it when high schools assign "weighted grades". In their minds, an A is an A and a B is a B.
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 9:50 AM on April 14

Sorry, but A-/B+ in what classes? Honors, advanced, studies, AP, IB? It makes a massive difference which level you're succeeding at.
posted by tmcw at 10:26 AM on April 14

....And I completely missed the part about in or near a big city, which my Dartmouth is not, unless 1.5-2 hours from Boston counts as "near." It may not matter, though, since hardly any of the engineering majors I knew saw the light of day!
posted by rtha at 10:44 AM on April 14

Don't be afraid to reach - make sure she applies to MIT and CalTech. "Where else did you apply" often comes up in admissions interviews, and these two apps send a signal that your daughter is serious about her own success, even if she a) doesn't get in and b) has no desire to attend either of those places.

Don't overlook the excellent but tiny Harvey Mudd College in Pomona, CA. I can't envision a more perfect place for a person to spend their college years working with robots.
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:04 AM on April 14

I'm a woman now doing robotics in industry, and I went to Olin College. I was a B+/A- student in high school, but I went to a private school and had almost all AP courses my senior year, for what that's worth. That got me into Olin, MIT, and several other good engineering schools.

For robotics, I'd recommend MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, or WPI (they just started an undergrad robotics major). MIT might be a reach, but the others might be better fits. Olin might be a reach as well, depending on what she's getting these grades in. Olin also doesn't really have CS, so if she really wants that, I'd recommend she look elsewhere.

I really recommend she do something project-based in college... FIRST robotics, Botball, building LEGO Mindstorms kits, whatever, but that will help her in a big way if she's got experience with those. Make sure that when she is in school she's looking for summer internships in the field, too -- that'll go a long way.

She should feel free to mefimail/email me if she has more questions.
posted by olinerd at 11:09 AM on April 14

Meant project-based in high school, not college. She can do those things in college too, but an intro to the concepts as early as possible can only help her.
posted by olinerd at 11:12 AM on April 14

Grades don't mean all that much, really; it depends a lot on the school she went to and the classes she took. The SAT (and ACT, if she's taken it) will be a lot more indicative. That said, I went to a Tier-1 engineering school with quite a few Bs, and possibly even a C. Definitely not a 4.5/5. A lot of it also depends on activities: what has she done with her spare time?
posted by spaceman_spiff at 11:23 AM on April 14

Seconding Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Worcester is not a big city in the sense of New York and Atlanta, but I think the new undergraduate robotics program at WPI is worth checking out.
posted by copperbleu at 11:33 AM on April 14

Georgia Tech has a good robotics program (and good CS in general)
Northwestern has good AI and CS
Uchicago is a very good school that takes some borderline students (it's kinda self-selecting)
posted by zpousman at 12:00 PM on April 14

Please, please talk to counselors about her chances at getting into the best universities, if you haven't done so already. In my high school, a student with AP courses, A/B grades, and decent test scores was definitely top-tier material.
posted by theiconoclast31 at 12:07 PM on April 14

You don't get what you don't ask for. Stamps are cheap.

Caltech accepted me, a slightly better than 2.0 high school student, years ago. I'm guessing really good SAT + good grades in science/math + a couple of AP exam grades of 4 out of 5 helped, but I don't really know. No money, though.
posted by ctmf at 12:10 PM on April 14

Geez you guys are a wealth of info :::big hug::: You really have me thinking about not ruling out the Top 1 & Top 2 tier schools--although what really matters is what will be a good fit for her.

She has attended summer camps in Engineering/Robotics at NCSU since middle school and last Fall she went to a WIE Girl's engineering conf at Georgia Tech. She is Math whiz and is doing well in Chemistry--so far. She takes Honors classes and will move to a few APs in the next 2 years. We'll see what those SAT/ACT scores bring. She is also on the golf team at school--not a great golfer, but at least on the team and she does some other activities and camps dealing with golf. I really am trying to get her to join at least a couple of school clubs.
posted by sandra194 at 12:35 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]

Nthing the "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take" stuff. When I was a Caltech, I found that they indeed evaluated everyone as a whole. We had 4.5 GPA from magnet school Intel-semifinalists along side the kids who actually didn't finish high school because they failed their last English class or something, and in all cases their dedication to their chosen field of study showed through and they seemed to perform equally well. Props to my school for that.

So, you never know. Please don't assume your daughter doesn't have the options of these "big name" schools because as long as her extracurriculars support her interest, she does.
posted by universal_qlc at 12:37 PM on April 14

David Hanson completed his Ph.D. in Robotics at the University of Texas at Dallas. I also attended there and can attest that they have great professors and the school is relatively cheap. Mind you, it's not MIT, but the bonus is how cheap it is, and that there are lots of nearby job prospects for her prospective fields (Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, etc.). It's in Richardson, just north of Dallas, which is a large and diverse city. Also, David's got Hanson Robotics in Richardson nearby where she could apprentice or possibly get a job developing, programming and building robots.

If this interests you at all, MeMail me and I'll try to set up something with David personally. We've been friends since high school.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 12:50 PM on April 14

This doesn't directly answer the question you asked, but I'd give some serious thought about picking a school based primarily on your daughter's interests as a high school junior. I also planned on majoring in CS when I was in high school. After getting some great advice I decided to apply to a wide variety of mainly liberal arts colleges instead of engineering/computer focused schools. I ended up choosing UNC-Chapel Hill even though it didn't have the absolute strongest CS department of all the schools I had been accepted to. Two semesters in I decided I liked biology and wanted to major in that instead; I now work in an entirely different field - investment banking. Very few people that I know ended up majoring in what they thought they were going to coming in, and I suggest keeping that in mind as you go through the whole college decision process. Good luck!
posted by btkuhn at 1:10 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]

Purdue is an hour from Indianapolis (a pretty boring city by "Big City" standards). Don't send her to Purdue.
posted by toomuchpete at 1:28 PM on April 14

To echo what so many have said, apply to the crazy schools (MIT, Caltech?). I deeply regret not doing so when I was applying to colleges. In retrospect, not only were my chances better than I realized at the time, but it is now clear that at some schools they really have some kind of crazy lottery system, and you really never know what they'll do. It sounds like her grades are good enough to get her on the dartboard, so why not take the chance that one of their darts will land on her application?

Just treat it like a lottery ticket that you can only buy once. You have no expectation that you will win with it, but if you happen to win, that's wonderful. And you can't win if you don't play.
posted by prefpara at 2:29 PM on April 14

Absolutely, look into CMU. I was a female CS undergrad there in the late 90s and an employee until last year, and would be happy to offer any input that might be useful about the school in general and the department in particular to you and/or her if you want to MeFiMail me.

This was a decade ago when the big push for women in the CS department there was still getting underway, so the admissions culture is definitely different there now, but those sound like roughly what my grades were. I had great SAT scores and recommendations, too, for whatever that's worth.

Of course now I barely remember where else I applied, but with similar grades I believe I got admitted to Brown and waitlisted to MIT - it's worth trying! If I'd been willing to go further away, I'd have shot for Caltech and Harvey Mudd as well.
posted by Stacey at 3:51 PM on April 14

And if you're willing to consider a Canadian school, apply to the University of Waterloo, located an hour outside of Toronto (Canada's biggest city). It is Canada's #1 technical school, with fantastic computer science and engineering programs. Their co-op (internship) program is the best - you get six four-month work terms in between your study terms, and plenty of internships are available in the US. US high-tech firms regularly recruit from their grad pool.

/biased Waterloo grad
posted by crazycanuck at 3:53 PM on April 14

http://wtp.mit.edu/

Send her to this the summer after her junior year if she can get in. It was a lifechanging experience for me.
posted by crinklebat at 4:52 PM on April 14

FWIW, my understanding of at least CMU's "affirmative action" is that they did it by taking the focus off already being a super-l33t hacker coming in and placing more emphasis on academic excellence, strong extra curriculars, you usual top-tier school qualifiers. Many more women meet those qualifications than ones that emphasize computers since birth. I would be frankly a little disappointed if they were letting in HSers with B+ gpas and no other outstanding recommendations now, since they certainly weren't when I attended. Which is not to say your daughter should not apply, btw, but if she's only a sophomore it can't hurt to see if she can see the value in pushing herself a little harder to get into a better college. I have never for a second regretted going to CMU, and it is certainly worth every penny. I would choose it far above GA Tech (true story: the scholarship interviewers there questioned my abilities to be going into CS despite quite a bit of experience in the area already, and told me how they remembered when the first woman was admitted, "We all knew she was looking for a husband, and she found one!").
posted by ch1x0r at 5:12 PM on April 14

Nthing CMU. I teach Information System at another US University. CMU have really turned their program around by changing how they teach and redesigning the courses to appeal more to women. This is at a time when female applications to CS are at a record low, so your daughter may stand more of a chance than you expect at the top Universities. At CMU, their changes are not just window-dressing: they have achieved a real turnaround in culture. Many girls drop out, or transfer out of CS because they really, really hate the hard tech, hacker-oriented, lad-culture of CS departments. (I hope she likes beer!). She will have to get used to the lad-culture in her work, but the ace-it-or-drop it culture that also prevails in such departments is a big turn-off to girls. As someone who occasionally has female students in tears turning up at their office (I'm a soft touch), I'd advise her to apply to lots of places and to ask the female students at each place what they think of their courses. As a coda, I'd also add that I studied Electrical Engineering as the only girl in my year and it was not a big deal. The only major problem was that all my professors noticed if I missed class ... :-)
posted by sgmax at 7:22 PM on April 14

Whoops - I just realized that a reference to liking beer is probably inappropriate in a country where young people don't drink legally until age 21. I come from Britain, where students reach legal drinking age in the year that they start University, so beer is de rigeur. ... So ... I hope that she likes geek jokes instead!
posted by sgmax at 7:53 PM on April 14

Seconding University of Washington. If she saw the Business Week article about Cloud Computing and has any interest in that, Bisciglia came out of UW. I wouldn't be surprised if he maintains a very warm relationship with that institution for a long time to come.

And Seattle is beautiful, if cloudy.
posted by bilabial at 9:09 AM on April 15

Yet another CMU recommendation- I'm a female junior there in CS, and I applied while living in North Carolina coincidentally. I applied to both the Electrical and Computer Engineering program and the Computer Science program and was accepted in both as well as being offered merit scholarships. My GPA was high due to weighting from IB classes, but my grades were in the A/A-/B+/B range. If your daughter is serious about Computer Science, I really don't think there's a better place to be and I've never experienced any of the typical problems with being female in a male majority culture. I strongly encourage her to apply here- if either you or her have questions feel free to contact me via MeFi mail. :)
posted by version control at 9:53 AM on April 15

Dude...where do you live? Kansas? No..the internet police are NOT going to hunt down his username and bust his ass. Seriously.

My bad. I totally forgot that an innocent sounding admissions on a website that nobody would ever find have never come back to bite anyone in the ass.
posted by toomuchpete at 7:10 PM on April 15