Chance Me? (All UCs, some other schools)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I know that some of you might have seen my other thread, but this is the last one I will make before the start of next school year (:P) since I have more or less finalized what I am doing this summer to make it even less of a “what if I do this” ordeal.

Previous one was also pretty hastily written so I forgot to put in a ton of stuff I should have.

Unweighted GPA: 3.88 or 3.93 (all depends on if I get a B in APUSH)
Weighted GPA: Somewhere around the 4.4 to 4.5 range.
UC GPA: 4.15 - 4.25, somewhere around that. It all depends on APUSH :frowning:

SAT: 1550 (800 Math, 750 Reading/Writing, Essay 17 LOL)
SAT Subject Tests:
Math II - 800
Physics - 800

AP tests:
Already Taken:
AP Music Theory - 3
AP English Language - 4
Hopeful future test scores:
AP US History - 4 or 5
AP Physics C: Mechanics - 5
AP Calculus BC - 5
AP Chinese - 5

Senior Year Courseload:
I’m not entirely sure how much this matters to UCs, but I’ll put it here anyways:

Mythology Folklore / Literature
AP Statistics (no higher math class than BC)
AP Chemistry
Principles of Engineering
PE (dust off those PE credits LOL)
US Government / Economics (each is 1 semester)

Extracurriculars:
Piano (8 years, 2 of those years during high school):
CM Level 10 (passed in 9th grade)
3rd place in a local duet competition

Python (2 years):
I like to program a lot in my free time and I’ve coded a lot of Python programs just for the fun of it. This summer, I’m planning to put it to good use in furthering my experience in my primary interest (see below).

Table Tennis (nearly 6 years, 3 of those in high school):
Somewhere around 200th for under 18 boys (not sure how much it is supposed to mean)
Multiple state & international competition awards (one of which is at the US Open)

Summer after 9th grade:
Teacher Assistant at a local academics / tutoring center. I was responsible for helping teach an introduction to programming to kids that used Scratch. This is around the time I begin programming in Python, and I take a class over the summer at a community college.

Summer after 10th grade:
I volunteered at a Chinese Folk Arts camp for a week as a teacher assistant. I taught some Chinese Folk Arts, led them in related activities, and I was noted by a supervisor for taking initiative and communicating with other groups of teacher assistants every day on how to increase efficiency in getting daily tasks done (e.g. filing kids into the gym, etc). I also continue to program in Python and take another class in it.

This summer:
I am interning under a professor in the UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering department and will be putting my Python skills to good use. I’m also taking a Chemistry class at a community college to help me get ready for AP Chemistry. Of course, more Python tinkering on the side because I love Python!

Demographic: inhales, then exhales Asian Male. cries
Location: NorCal.

Schools: All UCs, Georgia Tech (CE), USC (EE), WashU (EE or similar), UIUC (ECE), Cornell (ECE), Cal Poly SLO (EE), UT Austin (ECE, also I’m out of state which sucks), Georgia Tech (CE), Carnegie Mellon (ECE), San Jose State University (EE), SDSU (ECE)

I’ll leave Ivies out of here since I have no chance at acceptance for those but if you want to chance me for those then go ahead. (Yale Engineering I heard is not so hot, but not betting on that).

For UCs, could you guys chance me for L&S admissions and EE / EECS or similar admissions? Thanks!

mutters to himself I’mma get rejected by UC Merced…

2

On your Cornell app, don’t say that you are not applying to any Ivies… You have good numbers, but so do most applicants to these schools. You’ll need some safeties, and none of those on your list for their CS/ECE programs (not sure about Cal Poly or SJSU) are in that category. It might not be worth going out of state $ wise, but you could broaden your search to include other public or private schools.

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If your internship under UCB prof is legit, than you’ll get in anywhere. If its not, then UIUC, Gerogia Tech , UCSD,
and UCSB are your best bet. UCLA is pretty grades based so you might get in there as well.

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@ripcity0 What is the definition of legit when it comes to this? A published paper? Professor recommendation letter that proves I did effective work, etc? (I’ll definitely aim for the second one).

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You are a competitive applicant. Your stats are good and your ECs are pretty decent. Write great essays and you could get accepted into any of these schools

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For UCB, if getting admitted is more important than the “prestige” of EECS, I would recommend going the L&S route. EECS routinely spits out 1600/4.0 candidates, why take a chance? Almost all of my kid’s friends (plus himself) got in via L&S CS intent with 4.05-4.25 GPA and 1530-1580 SAT. All Asian, from a local HS.

UCI and UCSD waitlisted my kid for CS with very slightly lower numbers than yours. I still think though that there are some shenanigans going on with how they are using the waitlists. They were letting in a lot of kids with way lower SAT/ACT numbers. Other than that I think you should be very competitive for the UCs.

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@ProfessorPlum168 I’ve been considering the L&S route for Berkeley as well since 1) no gender and race consideration e.g. asian male in engineering would be pretty disadvantageous to me in the admit process, 2) L&S has higher admit rates across the board.

At the same time though, I am really leaning towards the EE side of EECS, not really the CS component. Since the ECE track is really only there if you go through EECS, my problem lies there. I guess if I were to go L&S CS I’d just have to take more EE upper divs after satisfying the CS major requirements to have the same effect (my end goal is graduate school).

Also, your kid’s situation is indeed pretty puzzling. Maybe they thought that your kid’s stats were so high that he would definitely get admitted at a higher-ranked school, and decided admitting your son was pointless as opposed to admitting someone more likely to enroll? I had a friend this year who applied to MIT with astronomical stats and got in, but got rejected from Davis (LOL), and that was what I was thinking. I’m not sure since I am just as confused as you are.

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From what I understand, FYI most everyone who goes in via EECS takes mostly upper division CS courses as opposed to EE courses nowadays. You could of course take the same courses via the L&S route as well.

One of our good friends got rejected from UCB EECS with a 36 ACT and 4.27 UC GPA, but got into CMU SCS (decided to go to UCLA CSE).

As far as the second tier UC schools goes, it seemed somewhat random as far as who got in and who didn’t. We were nosy enough to get stats from most of the top kids at my kid’s HS and there really was no correlation. My kid’s GPA wasn’t all that great (4.05 UC GPA) and perhaps schools like UCI weighed that more than the other things. But then again, the theory that schools like UCI and UCSD waitlist “higher-rated” candidates as a way of managing their enrollment has also been a prevalent theory thrown around.

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@ProfessorPlum168 Ah, the UC GPA might shed some light on the situation. Ik there’s a CC poster that lurks around here with UC admit rates by UC GPA, and for 3.80 - 4.19 UC GPA the acceptance percentages were not too favorable for the higher ranked UCs.

Also, may I inquire what ECs your son / friends had? You of course do NOT need to be specific (privacy > some guy on the internet), but I’d like to figure out that aspect of the situation more. Lots of people post their GPA and SAT with their admissions results and end there, which is not super helpful because a 4.0 UW and 1600 SAT is of course going to get rejected from Ivies and higher ranked schools if he/she did not have many ECs.

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The UC GPA for UCSD, UCI, UCD, UCSB for the 3.8-4.19 is still above 30% for for those 4 IIRC. The way it was explained to me by an admissions officer is that the UCs have some sort of mathematical formula for determining entry. The numbers goes something like this (don’t quote me, this is probably different in reality)

Grade - up to 4500 points. So a 4.30 GPA is worth 4300. In most cases, the max UC GPA is more like 4.40.
SAT - back in the day, it was based on 2400, so now with the 1600, they probably just use a concordance table to get a number. So a 1550 might come out to 2280.
Essays - some number from 1 to 500?
ECs - some number from 1 to 500?
Other considerations - up to 300. For example, a student that is in a single parent family might get an extra couple hundred points. I also heard from this Admissions officer that UCB expected a minimum of 8 AP classes taken, though I can’t remember if that was for Engineering or for the whole school. Probably Engineering.
Add up these numbers to get a score.

IIRC UCB cutoff was like 7500 and UCSD was like 7000 (don’t quote me on this). I do recall these cutoffs because someone asked the question - what if a student had a perfect GPA and perfect SAT score (ie 6800 or 6900 points) could they automatically get in, and the answer was no for the first and second tier UCs. And obviously, the cutoffs can change depending on the number of applications and qualified applicants I suppose.

Obviously each UC can fudge this formula and I could be completely wrong on the evaluation points, but this is a rough idea on the evaluation. I bring up this formula because IMO the difference between say a 4.05 and a 4.25 isn’t all that much in terms of the evaluation and can be made up for with the other criteria. Although from what I’ve heard, some schools value GPA more than others. Also, GPA and test scores weigh much more than ECs and essays, though ECs and essays can certainly make up for a slightly less than optimal GPA/test score.

As far as ECs goes, for my kid, he had a decent hook as one of the top chess players in the country for his age group consistently over the last 9 years. And he had an internship at a startup (mostly routine Java stuff from what I could tell). Besides that, he had mostly regular stuff - President of the chess club, officer and team lead in FBLA, marching and symphonic band. A lot of volunteering installing solar panels in homes and with teaching chess. Other than that, nothing much else. My kid will wind up taking 10 AP classes, and he took a total of 10 dual enrollment/CC classes as well.

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@ProfessorPlum168 I definitely believe in the numerical system but I don’t think the cutoff for UCB is astronomical unless you are going the engineering route. I’ve had friends with 1500s and 3.8 UW / 4.2 UC W get into Berkeley for letters and sciences with not many ECs other than volunteering either. Hence why I am heavily considering L&S CS for Berkeley since I think I’d have a higher chance at breaking the cutoff through L&S as opposed to Engineering.

Your son has done a lot too! He definitely deserved to go to Berkeley. I pale in comparison to him :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hehe if only you knew him, you probably wouldn’t be saying that LoL…

I think if you took the L&S route for UCB you’re probably a very solid bet to get in. As long as you don’t get into any disciplinary issues. Just remember that you still need to have the 3.30+ GPA in your first 3 CS classes in order to actually be admitted into the CS major, which is a slight disadvantage over EECS, which is a direct admit.

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@ProfessorPlum168 My end goal is graduate school anyways, so I am definitely going to need a 3.5+ GPA anyways in major related coursework to reach that, regardless of EECS or L&S backdoor into CS.

PS your son has done waaaayyy more than I have lol, I pale in comparison. I stand by my statement :slight_smile:

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Your grades are good, but a lot of these UC schools are tough to get into. The good news is that in computers, the degree is employable, and it won’t matter all that much where you graduate.

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bump

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UIUC, Purdue, Minnesota