Chance a hopeful Asian male for CS [NC resident, 4.0, 36, 1580, parents will pay 1/2 cost]

Chance Me / Match Me!
,
1

Demographics
US Citizen

  • State/Location of residency: North Carolina
  • Type of high school: Competitive large public high school (2000+ students), feeder into UNC Chapel Hill and NCSU
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): Asian (Chinese), Male
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): UIUC legacy? (dad got his doctorate there, does that count?)

Intended Major(s) Mostly just Computer Science, applying to slightly different majors at some schools (listed with schools)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.00/4.00

  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.634/5.00

  • Class Rank: 13/533

  • ACT/SAT Scores:

1580 (800 M, 780 EBRW)- first try, one sitting
36 (36 M, 35 S, 36 E, 36 R)- one sitting, second try (34 first try)
Listed all tests taken b/c CMU requires all scores

Coursework

Freshman- AP World History (4), AP Chinese (self-study, 5)
Sophomore- AP US Gov (5), AP Comp Sci Principles (5), AP Comp Sci A (self-study, 5), AP Physics 1 (self-study, 4)
Junior- AP Calc AB (A), AP Calc BC (5), APUSH (5), AP Lang (5), APES (5), DE SOC-210 Introduction to Sociology (A), DE MUS-110 Music Appreciation (A), DE BUS-115 Business Law I, DE MA-242 Calc III
Senior- AP Stats, AP Physics C: Mech, DE MA-341 Applied Diff. Eq. I, DE MA-305 Linear Algebra

Only took up to Chinese II, but I self-studied AP Chinese and scored a 5.

Awards
Atlas Fellowship Finalist- top 200 applicant out of 13,000+ global applicants to the Atlas Fellowship
North American Brass Band Championships- 1st Place
North Carolina All-State Band
Swim Team Award (Male)- this award goes to the “male swimmer in each group in my swim team that shows the most promise”

Extracurriculars

Voting Core Member, open-source project- Cowrote open-source app w/13 adult devs, 130 million downloads/year, increased weekly downloads 1352x, won $20,000 award from Indeed, board member

Vice President of Technology, NPO #1- Led team of 14 devs to build website for 501(c)(3) business edu org, won $124k in recurring yearly grants from Google and Microsoft, board member

Chief Operating Officer, NPO #2- Lead operations for edu advisory, 5k users in 66 countries, got org 501(c)(3) status, developed free AI college advising service, board member

Chief Technology Officer, NPO #3- Leading team to revamp website and booking system for int’l free music edu 501(c)(3) w/1500 students and 15,000 free lessons booked, board member
Will include in additional info for this one: Org featured by NPR, the United States Army Band, and Tri-M Music Honor Society’s national website

Senior Web Developer, startup- Interned at Silicon Valley social media startup, hired as web dev, promoted to senior dev where I lead a team maintaining a website w/ 8300 users
Is it a bad idea to include in additional info that this is a part-time role and I currently hold some restricted stock units (RSUs) for this startup?

Trombone- Principal Trombone, local brass band, 2 years, collaborated w/ Juilliard + other conservatory students on quartet recording during pandemic

North Carolina Governor’s School- attended NC Governor’s School for Instrumental Music- acceptance rate about 15% or so I’ve heard?

Swim Team- Competitive swimming for 5 years, some small club awards

President, Web Design Club- Led meetings teaching members how to create and style websites, redesigned club website

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)

Common App Essay- not finished yet, but I think it’s pretty unique to me and represents my personality well

LOR 1- teacher taught me in Precalc, Calc AB, and Calc BC, guess 8-10/10 recommendation

LOR 2- teacher taught me in AP Lang, guess 7-8/10 recommendation

Counselor- met with her a lot and we’re on good terms, hard to judge because each counselor in our school has around 400 students

Cost Constraints / Budget

Parents will pay half cost of attendance for any of the listed colleges, no financial aid expected from any school due to high assets

Schools

Reach: CMU (ED), Waterloo, Stanford (Symbolic Systems), Princeton (BSE CS), Cornell, UC Berkeley (EECS), UCLA, UCSD, UIUC (legacy), Georgia Tech, Northeastern (CS+Business Admin), CWRU
Target: Purdue, UMass Amherst
Low Target: UNC Chapel Hill (in-state)
Likely: NCSU (in-state), UPittsburgh

All schools except Waterloo, Princeton, Stanford, and Cornell are EA

1 Like
2

Your list of schools looks fine.

What does this service say your chances are?

Where will the other half come from?
CMU costs $84k/year. You are ED’ing there. How will you fund $42k x 4 = $168k that your parents aren’t paying for?

6 Likes
3

I agree your list seems balanced…except for cost. And there is a big difference between half of the cost of CMU and half of the cost of NCSU. Where will the balance of the cost funds come from?

You can take the following loans in your name…anything over and above will need to be taken out by your parents or cosigned by them. Will they do that!

Direct Loan Amounts:
Freshman $5500
Sophomore $6500
Junior $7500
Senior $7500

3 Likes
4

That could make even an in state public university difficult to afford, unless it is in commute range and they continue to subsidize your cost of living at home.

5 Likes
5

Total cost for the upcoming school year is 26,814 for NC State and 26,118 for UNC. It will go up a little by the time you begin.

Half will be just under $14,000, which your parents will pay. Where will the other half come from? You can take out $5500 in loans, but will still have to come up with the rest.

If your parents are willing to pay half at CMU (about $42,000 a year), would they be willing to pay for the total cost of an instate school? Where would you get the rest of the money to pay for CMU?

Based on what you are saying, it seems that every school on this list will be too expensive.

2 Likes
6

Even more worrisome are the UCs on the list…They’re upwards of $70K - $80K for out of state students…How would the OP come up with $40K on his own?

Unless he is collecting significant income from his nonprofit and/or start up jobs, which I suppose is possible.

1 Like
7

Unless there was miscommunication between student and parent, the OP cannot afford to attend their instate school.

OP needs to ask whether the parents will pay for UNC or NC State.

I agree that the UCs need to be dropped.

4 Likes
8

Why are your parents, one of whom has a PhD from Chambana, willing to pay $45,000/year if you attend a no-merit-aid private but only $15,000/year if you attend an in-state public?

1 Like
9

I also recommend you be accurate and truthful about your ECs. The fancy C-suite titles may seem impressive to you but AOs at the top schools see hundreds, if not thousands, of these and they’ll be more interested in knowing what you actually contributed.

For example, when you say “won $124k in recurring yearly grants from Google and Microsoft” - did you personally help secure that amount or is that what the organization raised?

Since you’re a full time high school student it’s not surprising that you worked only part time. And mentioning RSUs isn’t particularly impressive - it’s common for startups to hand out stock options and RSUs.

Your stats, ECs and accomplishments are all very good. Your main issue is affordability. You need to explain how you plan to bridge the gap in cost.

One other thing:

UIUC’s website says:

Although it is difficult to define all of the factors that are excluded from the admissions review process, in order to promote fairness, we do not consider legacy/donor status, financial need, demonstrated interest, social media presence, counselor/ teacher recommendations, or third-party advocate statements.

But it doesn’t matter. You’re strong enough to get in to UIUC without requiring a legacy boost.

4 Likes
10

I think sometimes parents make deals like that to motivate their children to work, although it seems more common in the context of buying a car, rather than paying for four years of college. Again, it is possible the OP is earning an income through the start up he works at? Or possibly through the nonprofit positions? He did not indicate that any of that was volunteering and if his descriptions of his position and contributions are accurate, he could possibly be making good money.

2 Likes
11

@Yonkers6thBoro need blind is an admissions term. It means that financial need is not considered when the application for admission is reviewed. Did you mean this…or did you mean schools that guarantee to meet full need?

1 Like
12

And that very well could prevent him from getting any or much need based aid.

13

OP said:

And also for this reason, need blind vs meets full need is irrelevant to OP

14

Well…there you go. But that doesn’t explain how the OP plans to fund half of his college costs…anywhere.

2 Likes
15

Unless he has sufficient savings or income to bridge that gap.

2 Likes
16

My fault. It’s important to be precise.

I meant to refer to colleges that award aid strictly based on financial need—including the college listed as his ED choice.

1 Like
17

I agree. When I see titles such as these, I’m more skeptical about what was actually done. Avoid listing a title and telling what the org did.

Work on how you are telling colleges

  • what you (not the org) did
  • why you did it
  • how you did it
  • obstacles you (not the org) overcame
  • your (not your org’s) impact
  • what you learned from the experience(s)
1 Like
18

These two do not go together. You as a student cannot pay half the cost of attending CMU. You cannot borrow enough to pay half or even a quarter of the cost of attending CMU. The same will be true at most of the other universities on your list (but at least the rest are not ED).

If you are paying half the cost, then I think that you are going to either need to attend UNC (or NC State or a different in-state public university) if you can even find a way to afford to do this, or find a university that will give you a huge merit scholarship. You might even need to start at community college and transfer after two years.

My suggestion is that you do not ED anywhere, expect to attend UNC, and when all the acceptances and costs are in-hand see if your parents will agree to anything that makes it financially possible for you to attend any other schools that you got accepted to.

UNC is however, very, very good for CS. I have worked with UNC graduates who were excellent. When I was getting my master’s degree (at Stanford), one of the stronger students in the same program and a good friend was a UNC graduate.

I suppose that if you personally happen to have $1,000,000 in the bank then you can disregard this post, but this seems unlikely for a high school student.

3 Likes
19

Impressive achievements! You and your parents must be very proud of you, regardless where you go to college.
CS students have plenty of opportunities to earn a decent income while in college. I know more than a dozen CS students (in UT, Rice, UT Dallas, Stanford, Northwestern) who have worked in summer to earn enough to cover their living cost (rent, food, entertainment, etc.) for the next year. Several claimed to have earned 30k in 3 months.

20

Hi everyone, I just talked to my parents again about financials for college.

They said they’d be willing to fully fund cost of attendance if the school I attend is a T20 for CS.

2 Likes