Chance a CS major for UCB, Princeton, and UCLA?

@theloniusmonk I see. Are there other colleges that put a major emphasis on NMSF like USC does? Because I didn’t know how far just SF would take me, but if that gets USC from a reach to a match for me, I think that might change things for at least some of the other hovering colleges.

@MWolf Thank you! Founding DPS was really a spur of the moment decision because the ending left me in tears and I really wanted to keep that feeling alive. But in my applications I’ve pushed DPS aside because it’s nowhere near as flashy as the other ECs, especially when I apply to STEM schools. So I was wondering if I could fit it into my “advocacy” essay category (see quote below) so I can talk about it? Is DPS worth mentioning alongside debate and starting STEM classes for the underprivileged, or should I drop it?

@penguin2: Curious as to why the University of Washington at Seattle is not on your list.

USC has long been known to like NMSFs, that’s more anecdotal info though than actual data. In USC’s student profile, they list the number of NM scholars, so that’s one way of telling interest, you can check other colleges student profiles for that. Anyway USC provides admit, apply and enroll data, which can be really useful.

SAT middle 25-75 is 1260-1480 for applicants and 1400-1530, for admits, meaning they reject a lot of kids below 1260 and many kids below 1400 to get that 25%. Similarly their gpa 25-75 for applications is 3.45 – 3.93 and for admit, 3.79 – 4.00, you’re at 1550/4.0, probably 80% for scores and 99% for gpa.

It’s a match, in the good ole days, a safety (female CS with 800s across your subject tests, rigor, NMSF). We would have been talking about what scholarship you would qualify for - anyway, if you’re serious about USC, and you do get in, I think you have to go on campus for the scholarship interviews. Good luck!

This whole SLO CS admit rate is 5% just isn’t true.

The SLO CS department has 660 undergrads.

660/4.5 is ~150 CS freshmen.

SLOs eng admit yield rate is a low 25%. So for every 4 admission offers 1 person enrolls.

660÷4.5÷0.25 is 586 CS admission offers per year.

If the admit rate is 5%, 586/0.05 would be 11,000 applications for CS alone.

That would be over half of the applications to the SLO engineering department.

That’s 3000 more applications for CS than GT or UCB get. Considering that most people don’t know SLO exists this is highly unlikely.

Most colleges have around a ~20% CS to engineering application rate… not 50%.

SLO had 19000 engineering + CS applications. 20% is ~3800 CS applications.

586/3800 is a 15% CS admit rate. Very low… but not 5%.

@Greymeer: I look at SLO’s projected admission target for Full time Freshman for 2019 which was 100 students enrolling out of projected 5378 applying. These are projections and if the reality is that they accept more students that projected then that is fine. SLO does not list yield by major and CS may have a higher yield than other Engineering majors so yes the CS acceptance rate could be and maybe is higher than 5.6% if you are using something different than a 33% yield.

Still low, still competitive and difficult to determine the majority of the applicants chances since SLO does not list MCA point cutoffs for their majors.

CPSLO could do itself and prospective students a favor by publishing the historical MCA point cutoffs for each major and the MCA formula.

“If the admit rate is 5%, 586/0.05 would be 11,000 applications for CS alone.”

That’s not what SLO’s planning info says, as gumbymom mentions, they’re expecting 5378 apps, not 11,000. The 2018 apps was 5100 I think, so the 5378 seems reasonable. Even with a 25% yield, you’re looking at 7.5% acceptance. The Naviance info I have shows a lot of kids getting rejected with solid numbers (3.8/1450 type).

@Publisher I didn’t think the weather (I’m used to Cali heat) and the cost make UWash worth it.

@theloniusmonk Thank you! The NMSF info is really helpful, I’ll look into some of my borderline colleges’ profiles to see if they place emphasis on it.

@Greymeer , @Gumbymom , @ucbalumnus , @theloniusmonk Thank you all for your in-depth research and all the math you did on CPSLO! I think I’ll treat it as a reach then, if it has anywhere from a 5-15% acceptance rate. Especially considering my own MCA point summary is very borderline.

I can understand your prefernce based on weather, but UW’s placement & intership & externship opportunities are among the best in the world for CS (should be much better than two of your listed schools in the thread title).

@Publisher I’ll look into it. Would UW be a match or reach for me?

Your numbers make it a match, but not a guarantee as competition is strong for direct admission as a CS major.

Now dated, but a 2014 US news ranking of Computer Science programs was as follows:

  1. CMU

  2. MIT

  3. Stanford

  4. UCal-Berkeley

  5. Illinois

  6. Cornell

  7. Univ. of Washington

  8. Princeton

  9. Georgia Tech

  10. Univ. of Texas at Austin

  11. CalTech

  12. Wisconsin

  13. UCLA

  14. Michigan

  15. Columbia

  16. UC-San Diego

  17. Maryland

  18. Harvard

  19. UPenn

  20. Brown, Purdue, Rice, USC & Yale

  21. Duke, UMass-Amherst, UNC-Chapel Hill

  22. JHU & NYU

  23. Penn State, UC-Irvine, Minnesota & Virginia

  24. Northwestern, Ohio State, Rutgers-NB, UC-Davis, UC-Santa Barbara & the Univ. of Chicago

  25. Dartmouth College, SUNY-Stony Brook, Texas A&M, Univ. of Arizona, Univ. of Colorado at Boulder, Utah, Virginia Tech, & WashUStL

  26. Arizona State, Boston University, NC State & Univ. of Florida

All 51 schools should yield multiple job opportunities for their CS students & grads.

Again, this list is outdated as it was compiled in 2014, but, hopefully, you will find it helpful.

Direct admission to CS at Washington should be considered a reach. Admission to the school but not the CS major is more likely, but then getting into CS after enrolling as undeclared is very competitive.

@Publisher That list’s interesting, I’m surprised Cornell’s ranked higher than Caltech, same for USCD and Duke. But you’re right in that they all give similar CS opportunities out of college. It’s interesting that my absolute safety school (SJSU) is the primary recruiting source for Apple and Cisco, not Cal, Caltech, or UCLA.

@ucbalumnus Understood. Then I don’t think I want to start looking into a new school now, especially if it’s another reach. My list is already reach-heavy.

One more thing, I was reviewing my resumes throughout the years and I remembered I took the AMC10 and qualified for AIME as a sophomore, then flunked the AIME.
Is an AIME qualification worth adding to applications? Or is it nothing without USAMO?

Local convenience helps.

But also note that SJSU admission is quite competitive for CS. Your CSU eligibility index = 4.15 * 800 + 1550 = 4870. For the last few years, CS has been the most competitive major at SJSU, with thresholds of 4625, 4725, 4500, 4550: http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/ . So admission is still quite likely for you, but the margin is narrower than for most other majors.

@ucbalumnus Is this threshold definite? As in if I have above a 4625, or whichever cutoff it is for this year, I’ll get in? How do SJSU and Cal Poly SLO (as both Cal State universities) factor in course rigor and extracurriculars? My course rigor actually hurts me when calculating capped GPA because I have 54 courses, 33 of which are honors/AP/CC.

SJSU does not consider EC’s in their admission decisions. It is CSU capped weighted GPA and test scores= Eligibility index

SLO uses MCA points in their admissions decisions. EC’s are given points based on # of hours/week and if you hold a leadership position. Jobs are also given extra points if major related regardless if they are paid or non-paid.

SLO also uses 9-11th grades in their GPA Calculation with a cap of 8 semester of honors points for the approved courses. HS course rigor is determined based on the # of semesters of each academic core.

Here is the MCA point calculator: https://mca.netlify.com/

I think that it will depend on the AO. While I cannot imagine that it will look bad to anybody, I believe that it demonstrates some extra depth of character. Many extracurricular activities seem to have a strong element of “I am doing this for my college application”. This often seems true, even when students are engaging in activities which do interest them. It is obvious (at least to me), that you established the DPS purely to pursue your own interests/passions, without much consideration as to how it would look on your resume.

Again, I may be wrong, and maybe some AOs will see it differently, but I think that it would separate you, in a good way, from the dozens of high-stats applicants, with All The Right ECs, All The Right Awards, etc. On CC, there have been a large number of applicants who, in all other ways, look just like you: high SAT scores, high GPA with a rigorous curriculum, different STEM activities with awards, music, advocacy and social activism, etc. Since you have all of those, the DPS may help you stick out among the rest.

The DPS on its own wouldn’t compensate for weak academics and otherwise weak ECs, but yours are all pretty strong. So I would recommend keeping it in, especially when applying for colleges which put more focus on personal narratives.