Chance an Indian Male for CS

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to start off with my demographics because I know they will strongly affect my applications:

  • Indian Male from competitive Bay Area high school
  • Intended Major: CS, Applied math for some
  • Family Income: 180k

GPA: 3.94 UW, 4.4 W, 4.2 UC GPA
School Rank: Somewhere around 70/400 based on UW GPA
SAT: 1540, 800 Math, 740 English, 20 Essay
SAT Math 2: 800
SAT Physics: 780

AP Classes:
10th: AP Calc BC, AP Comp Sci A
11th: AP Stats, AP Physics C, AP US History
12th: AP Chem, AP French, AP US Gov

Community College Courses:
Intro to CS summer after 9th grade: B+
Intermediate CS during 11th grade: A
Multivar Calc during 12th grade: A

I got 5’s on all the AP Exams
None of my B’s in school were in STEM Classes: One B in Freshman Year Art, 2 B’s in both semester of Sophomore year English

Extracurriculars:
Robotics - Member of school’s award-winning robotics team. I was a member of the hardware team, even though I will be majoring in CS. I have been a Lead Designer, and I am currently the Treasurer as well as a Strategy Lead.
Robotics Volunteering - Have mentored at local middle school for past 3 years, Held robotics camp in underserved areas, Created YouTube channel with friends teaching robotics videos
FBLA - Regular Member, have won local awards
Indian Classical Music - Played harmonium for 10 years, participated in competitions and performance as an accompanist and soloist, have taken tests of certification, close to a diploma in Indian music.
Dance - Have been a member of a Bollywood dance team for 4 years and participated in school dance performances
Link Crew - Lead a group of freshmen during orientation, volunteer in events to help them
National Honor Society - 11th, 12th Grade - Did volunteering through peer tutoring in APCS
French Honor Society - 12th
Won Gold Medal in National French Contest 2 years in a row
Internship at a Medium-sized Software Company summer before 11th grade, worked on demo applications for company’s software
Paid Job teaching Web Development and Business at a summer camp, now work on administrative stuff as co-owner of the same summer camp company

Assume that my essays and recs are ok, but not excellent or terrible

College List (Major is CS unless mentioned otherwise):

Stanford
MIT
CMU (not School of CS, probably applied math at Mellon College of Sciences)
USC
UC Berkeley L&S (Not sure between Applied Math and CS)
UCLA L&S (Applied Math)
Rest of UC’s except Riverside and Merced
Cal Poly SLO
SJSU
UIUC
UT Austin
UMD College Park
University of Washington

2

2017 UC admission rates by UC weighted-capped GPA, derived from http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/freshman-admissions-summary :


Campus  4.20-   3.80-   3.40-   3.00-
        higher  4.19    3.79    3.39
UCB     43%     13%      2%      1%
UCLA    47%     12%      2%      1%
UCSD    84%     39%      7%      1%
UCSB    82%     45%     10%      1%
UCI     94%     52%     11%      3%
UCD     90%     56%     17%      4% 
UCSC    93%     76%     44%     14%
UCR     98%     90%     63%     23%
UCM     98%     96%     89%     57%

Of course, getting direct admission to the CS major will be more competitive than these admission rates suggest. Note that students who enter as general undeclared or in a non-CS major may need a high college GPA or another competitive admission process to get into the CS major later – check each campus on the difficulty of doing so.

SJSU fall 2018 eligibility index thresholds are listed at http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/impactionresultsfreshmen/ . Eligibility index is GPA * 800 + SATR + SATM = 4900 for you (4930 for the engineering version). Thresholds listed for fall 2018 were 4725 for CS and 4200 for software engineering. Obviously, may change this year, depending on strength of this year’s applications.

UIUC, UT Austin, and Washington should be considered reaches for direct admission to CS; getting into the CS major after enrolling as a non-CS major or undeclared will require a competitive admission process.

ASU should be an admission safety, since you meet the automatic admission criteria listed at https://admission.asu.edu/freshman/apply and meet the higher standards for CS listed at https://webapp4.asu.edu/programs/t5/majorinfo/ASU00/ESCSEBS/undergrad/false .

3

I think you’ll be an excellent candidate. Your school must be extremely competitive for you to be in the 70-spot with your stats. You’ve got a nice variety of ECs - love the Bollywood Dance! Make sure you add some match and likely schools, though. UIUC has about a 10% acceptance rate for CS direct-admits, so don’t be fooled by the much higher general acceptance rate. Good luck!

4

MIT - super reach
CMU (not School of CS, probably applied math at Mellon College of Sciences) - reach
USC - reach
UC Berkeley L&S (Not sure between Applied Math and CS) - low reach
UCLA L&S (Applied Math) - low reach
Rest of UC’s except Riverside and Merced - matches except maybe UCSD and UCSB?
Cal Poly SLO - match
SJSU - safety
UIUC - reach
UT Austin - reach
UMD College Park - match
University of Washington - reach if applying directly to CS

5

You have very impressive stats and you seem to be very involved, but CS is one of if not the most difficult major to get into. I think you definitely have a shot though, good luck!

6

Your rank is outside the top 10%. Though many hs dont rank, if yours shows, they’ll see it. You’ll compete against many bright, achieving Bay Area kids who want stem. Maybe some from your school.

For S and MIT, maybe others, your ECs lean unilateral, except for the cultural dance/music. You need a twist here. Not a spike or “passion.” What else have you done that you omitted here? Any other community activity, not just stem or tutoring/younger children? Just think about it. Try to understand what the tippy tops look for, after stats, rigor, and ECs related to the major. I do agree the cultural is good. But tippy tops like a kind of stretchy breadth.