Chance an Indian American in CS and econ for T25's

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Demographics Indian American

  • US domestic (US citizen or permanent resident) or international student Domestic
  • State/Location of residency: (state is important if you apply to any state universities) Connecticut
  • Type of high school (current college for transfers): Public semi competitive
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional):Male
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.):None

Intended Major(s)
Computer Science/Economics
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.96/4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.49/5.0(A+ in honors is 4.67, normal A+ is 4.33, A+ in AP is 5.0)
  • College GPA (for transfers):
  • Class Rank:N/a
  • ACT/SAT Scores:
    1540

Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))
12 APs, AP Calc BC as a freshman, also took APCSP and CSA, APUSH, Psych, Physics and a few others
Awards
Eagle Scout

OpenAI API hackathon third place(created a project which helps job applicants get arround the ATS system)

Third place in my state for debate

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)

  1. Launched a high school specific mental health application which builds school community at high schools, launched to three high schools in my area, 1300ish active users, recieved a $1000 grant from a VC fund.

2.Organized a large Edtech hackathon, had a lot of cool guests(billionaires, researchers, activists) raised $6000 in prizes, 300 participants, 35 teams submitted projects

3.Debate Captain

4.Founded a hack club at my school, 50 participants, organized online meetings for ppl around my town

  1. Interned at a coding framework, helped organize events, did a bit of code work, helped w documentation, marketing etc, was around 5 months

  2. Model UN president

  3. TaeKwonDo since I was 6 years old, was an junior instructor from 9th grade to early 10th grade, recieved third degree black belt in the 11th grade, currently working towards 4th dan which is master

8.President of Stock market investing club at my school

  1. Volunteered for a local political campaign for around 6 months, tech focused candidate pushing for tech reform, cared a lot abt it, worked 15 hours a week consistently

  2. Created a new type of research journal, led a team of five people, and launched the platform recently, have around 120 researchers on our platform, currently focused on economics related research, expanding to other topics soon. We recieved $1000 in funding.
    Essays/LORs/Other
    (Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)
    Essays are p good
    LOR from CS teacher is strong
    Have an LOR from a billionaire who I interned for, and have had a close relationship since freshman year,
    Cost Constraints / Budget
    (High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)

Schools
Basically all T25, will probs ED to stanford
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)

  • Safety (certain admission and affordability)
  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
  • Match
  • Reach
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Budget?

Geographic, size, religious or not, distance from home, possible career goals?

Do,you have any schools NOT in the top 25 that you are considering?

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Are you a senior applying this year, or are you asking for the future?

You can’t. They don’t offer ED.

Why? Many of them aren’t even the top CS schools

You can submit an “outside” LOR like this only at some schools. You still need two teacher LORs at most.

This list is empty? That’s very worrisome.
To answer your main question: acceptance rates are very low at all these T25s as I’m sure you know. So none of them are a sure thing for you.

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You will be a strong applicant wherever you apply. That does not mean, however, that you’re a lock to get in or that any T25 school is a safety for you. You need to make sure you have at least one (if not more than one) school where you are extremely likely to be accepted, that is affordable for your family, and that you would be happy to attend. We don’t know your budget, but if your list is only the T25, then none of them are extremely likely admits.

Also, you want to make sure you select schools that are the right fit for you. If you have to power-out 25 essays (and some schools have multiple essays just for them), the quality will not be as high as if you focused on 8-10 of them (which would still be a lot, but much more manageable).

If you let us know your budget, what you’re interested in, preferences about geography, size of school, etc, then we could be helpful in trying to narrow down your list. Also, if you have particular interests in CS, that can also help in providing suggestions of schools if their area of expertise overlaps with your interests.

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Stanford is very good for computer science, and very good overall. I am guessing that you might be applying REA since they do not have ED. It is of course a reach. You might be a bit stronger than the average application, but only a bit. Also, quite a few slots go to athletes, legacy students, and URMs. It is some distance from Connecticut, but at least IMHO worth the distance as long as it is affordable for you and as long as you feel that it would be a good fit for you. It was a very good fit for me for graduate school, which makes me think of the option of doing your bachelor’s closer to home and then considering applying to Stanford for a master’s degree.

I do wonder about your budget.

Otherwise, I am concerned when someone says “all top 25s”. I am concerned in a few directions.

One issue is that the top 25 for CS are not the same as the top 25 overall. I am guessing that the same is true for economics but I do not really know (I took a few economics classes, but never considered it as a major).

My second concern is that I find it hard to believe that all of the top 25 ranked schools are a good fit for you. You should be thinking about what you want in a university. Do you want a large school or a small school? Do you care about what winters are like (Cornell and Stanford are vastly different on this measure – I have experienced winter in both places). How far from home is okay with you and your family? Do you want a urban, suburban, small town, or rural location?

Also, if you know why a particular school is a good fit for you, then I think that this is likely to come through in your application (particularly in essays).

Clearly you are a very strong student and I expect that you will do very well wherever you end up. You do need to make sure that you apply to at least one and preferably two solid safeties.

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You have a great resume!

What are your AP scores? What APs are you taking this year? What AP classes offered at your school did you skip/not take?
Do you know if you are in the top 10%? How many kids each year get into T25s from your school?

EDIT: What year are you currently? In a post from Spring 2020 you first stated you were an 8th grader and then changed it to 7th grade. If you are only a 10th grader now, it is a bit too early for chancing, as so much changes.

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So your are in 10th grade? Are those things you have accomplished (1540 SAT & Eagle Scout?) or hope to accomplish.

Regardless it sounds like you are on the right track and since you are already interested in college. Erase the word Prestige and and forget about anything that is T##. Start looking at a bunch of different school types and majors and try to figure out what interests you. Look at small LACs like Bowdoin or Richmond, look at schools with Co-op programs like NorthEastern or Drexel, Look at schools with a project based curriculum like WPI, look at big state schools like Rutgers or Michigan. Look at private research schools like CMU or Rochester. Look at Service Academies like the Coast Guard Academy or naval academy.

Then as you get to your junior year you’ll start to have a better idea on all the choices that are out there and which one is the best for you

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Please do not present what you plan to achieve as though they are actual accomplishments which you have achieved.

Closing thread.