Chance Me for CompSci/EnvSci - CMU/MIT/Cornell/Princeton/Stanford (yikes!)

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • US Citizen
  • Washington
  • Public school, decently well known
  • Asian Male (in CS no less :frowning: )

Intended Major(s) Environmental Eng and/or Computer Science + minoring in deisgn?

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.97 (one B+ in 3rd year comp sci class)
  • Weighted HS GPA: HS doesn’t weight
  • Class Rank: HS doesn’t rank
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1570 SAT - 770 ERW & 800 Math

Coursework
10 APs - my school has many continuation classes beyond AP such as 4 years in CS and pre-med
4/5 on Bio, CSP, CSA, Physics C, USH, Calc AB,
Taking Calc BC, Stats, and English Lang next year

Awards

  • ISEF Finalist - Robotics and Intelligent Systems

  • Nat YoungArts Winner (nominee round for pres scholar of the arts)

  • FBLA state champion in two events

  • Scholastic Art & Writing gold keys

  • Congressional App Challenge winner

Extracurriculars

  • Tech-related cofounder, raised 500k on 5mil evaluation (currently looking at a gap year), 15,000 users rn

  • Eagle Scout, Senior Patrol Leader managing troop of 150+ scouts

  • Thru-hiking, backpacked a few 100+ mile mountain stretches and built my tent/pack/climbing gear

  • President of a startup-related club, raised $10k Kickstarter with some friends for a portable wind turbine battery (alternative to solar cells)

  • ML Transportation research group @ a UC, invited to join after presenting at ISEF

  • 20-21 Captain for club soccer, ranked highly in the state but not recruit-level

  • VP of the largest club at our school, participates in tech competitions

  • Spent 4 weeks backpacking in Yellowstone to help park staff survey Pika populations (hella cool, check out their citizen science program if you want to contribute)

  • independent art/design stuff, did some package design work for three local companies

  • robotics, electrical subteam member, stopped after 10th grade cause of other commitments

Essays/LORs/Other
Still a junior, but I love creative writing and feel confident with the essays and LORs.

Cost Constraints / Budget
My lovely parents are offering to pay a pretty sizeable percentage of my tuition, so this isn’t a big concern.

Schools

  • Safety *: ASU EA, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, WSU

  • Match: UW CS (in-state), Purdue EA, USC, Northeastern EA, UC Irvine, UCLA, UCSD

  • Lower Reach (compsci majors have it rough):Georgia Tech EA, UIUC, Duke, Umich, UT Austin, Rice

    In-between: Cornell CoE (ED? or aim a tad bit higher?)

  • Reach: CMU, Stanford, Princeton, MIT EA, Caltech EA, Berkeley, Yale,

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Your list looks solid to me. One could argue the classifications may be off but you have schools on this list you will definitely get into.

Not saying the ECs are embellished but be careful to show detail because I don’t think a single person could do all this and go to school. Others may think so too.

Overall it’s very impressive. Good luck.

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I think this is a very reach list. Many of the schools are much harder to get into from OOS for your intended major.

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Totally agree hence my note on classification. I laugh when people put Ga Tech anything below reach and yes, we’ve seen #s that for CS Purdue is a match for no one. In fact someone recently wrote with a similar GPA and 1550 or close that they were rejected for CS. And UCs are test blind and not easy in state let alone OOS.

I made my comment based on WSU and ASU. I think both would be in and if OP can be happy at either, well the rest matters little. They can certainly take their shots (imho).

But I 100% agree with your assessment.

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You need to put a little more thought into what you want your college experience to be like. Your 4 years will be VERY different at a big state school like Texas or Berkeley versus a school like Rice. Neither is better or worse. It depends on what you value in an undergraduate experience.

MIT, Caltech and CMU are in their own category. They are all good schools, but very much not for everyone. You need to dig in a little to understand what you’d be getting into.

Env E vs CS, they are different and will have different barriers to entry at some schools. At my son’s alma mater, Cal Poly, for example, CS has about a 6% admit rate and Env E has about an 18% admit rate. It’s not a signal that one is better, just that one is more popular. You need to decide which one speaks to you. The curricula do not overlap much.

Design is a broad term. It has many different meanings. For now, you can just leave that off the table. You’ll get appropriate design preparation in either curriculum in context with the major.

Lastly, speaking of Cal Poly, looking at your background, I’d give it a look. It’s not that you don’t have plenty of great Env E and CS options on your list, which they do well. It’s that they have what I feel is one of the most underrated majors in the country, Industrial Technology and Packaging. There are very few in the country that offer that. It’s in high demand and it pays well. CS would be a reach at CP, but IT would be a safety. It’s in an idyllic location. It wouldn’t hurt to check out all three majors there, especially given your packaging experience.

Good luck!

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Thanks for all your thoughts. I’ll definitely take a look at Cal Poly’s program, and I also plan on looking more into UMass, UW Madison, and U Maryland’s programs.

Also, I’d like some advice on whether or not I should apply ED to cornell (engineering). From viewing stats and personal experiences, applying early provides a significant advantage, whereas their college of engineering seems to accept people about as often as CMU or even Stanford during the RD round. I’ve seen 5 pretty strong students accepted to Cornell eng ED while the vast majority of my strongest friends, who were accepted to schools in my high reach category, all rejected by Cornell RD.

If I take the ED and succeed, I’ll be delighted but probably carry some regrets about not applying to the few schools I hold above it (Princeton/CMU/Stanford/MIT). If I don’t end up applying ED to cornell and get rejected from those four reaches, which is very likely, then I’d certainly regret not applying early to cornell.

Any opinions are appreciated!

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Small correction: if you apply ED to Cornell you can still apply EA to MIT and Caltech (but not to the others because they offer ED or REA but not EA). But if you end up with an acceptance at Cornell and say, MIT - you have to be prepared to decline MIT. (Yes I know MIT is a super reach and this is a low probability scenario but you need to be aware of it).

I would definitely add U Maryland but apply early because they fill 95%+ of their class through EA!

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Yes, don’t ED anywhere, unless you are prepared to reject all of your other options. You should know every nook and cranny of a school you ED, all the goods, and more importantly, all the bads. Every school has them. Only ED once you are 100% comfortable.

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What you are talking about us that at most schools ED has a higher acceptance rate abd many schools today are gathering half the class or more through ED. Penn just announced that their ED class will make up 51% of the total
at least that’s their plan.

But that means half won’t be ED and most cannot pull 50% like Penn in ED.

Bottom line - what do you know about these schools? Are you just chasing acceptances?

And what do you want to pay ? You can afford more but do you want to pay $340k if you can pay $100k ?

ED for sake of acceptance into a high rank school is dumb if there’s no certainty you’re a fit and that includes finances. I don’t think anyone can say there’s a school you listed that you can’t get into
at least I don’t believe that. I think that every school you listed short of ASU and WSU there’s a logic that you could get rejected.

I think adding a Wisconsin, UMD and UMASS
.all fine schools
adds to your pools of likely acceptance from excellent programs.

But again, what do you know about them other than you see them in a rank ?

Is a huge college right for you or small ? Is a big sports or Greek campus right for you or not ? A cold weather vs warm ? Suburban vs rural and so many other aspects !!

I think you need to dig deeper than listing schools you read are ranked highly or otherwise ? Or have you done this? After all, you have to spend four years there, day after day after day.

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I get what you’re saying about putting thought into what the college experience will be like, but I think for many kids there is not one school that fits everything they might want so they have a variety on their list. My D ruled out some schools based on what she thought the experience would be like but her overall list probably looked a little crazy to outsiders because she could see the value in a variety of experiences. In fact, when she was ending the process her top two choices were Michigan and Rice. While at both she’d get a great education, they were very different in terms of the experience she’d get and she felt there were pros and cons of both. She loved the idea of the traditional, “college town” campus and school spirit at Michigan. In addition she could continue with her sport and it was driving distance from home. But she also loved the pretty campus, the residential college system, and the size of Rice. She ultimately chose Rice and while I absolutely think it was a great choice for her and she loves it, I am sure she would have been very happy at Michigan too.

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UC Davis and Santa Barbara are not safety schools especially for CS/Engineering so I would put them closer to Match schools since UC admissions tend to be very unpredictable even more so since going test blind.

Best of luck and make sure your parents are comfortable in paying $67K/year to attend any of the UC’s.

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I agree 100%! My son’s list was crazy from the outside too. I don’t know that rankings are the only factor for this list. I’m hoping the OP will look beyond them though to avoid landing at a school they don’t like because it wasn’t fully vetted.

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You sound like a very strong candidate who will have great options.

If you were going to apply ED to Cornell, I’d be expecting to hear more about what makes it a best-fit first-choice school for you. If the ED app is just to increase odds of a T20/Ivy acceptance, I don’t think that’s a good enough reason, especially for a school that’s such a long slog from the PNW. One thought exercise would be: Rice is similarly ranked to Cornell and also gives a good ED bump; if it were down to just those two, why would Cornell be your ED choice over Rice? Is it just the “Ivy factor” or are there real attributes of the Cornell experience that you would prefer?

Have you thought about Harvey Mudd? CS is fantastic there, and there’s a great Human-Centered Design course sequence that begins with the E4 Engineering Design class that everyone takes, and other really interesting art/design opportunities via The Hive, the cross-consortium design center that hosts the HCDE classes. Lots of enviro-oriented classes available too; it could be a good school for finding crossover opportunities, no matter which major you ultimately landed in. HMC itself is small, but the close-knit Claremont Consortium has around 7000 undergrads altogether.

If you land a direct-admit spot in CS at UW-Seattle, that’s a highly-coveted opportunity to attend a top-10 CS program for a bargain in-state price. Most of the other schools you’re considering will cost more than double. Maybe (maybe!) MIT or Stanford would be worth the additional cost if your parents are willing and able to pay, but I certainly don’t know why you’d pay the OOS cost of a UC if you had the UW CS option. Even full-paying for Cornell seems like a dubious investment of what would likely be a $200K cost differential before you’re done. (This alone would deter me from applying ED. Do the math of what that $200K could be worth down the road, if you invested it and went to UW for your undergrad. Cornell et. al. will still be there for grad school!) I know how powerful the “familiarity breeds contempt” effect can be, and how gratifying it feels to go somewhere more exclusive when so many students from your HS probably go to UW
 but CS there really is exclusive and every bit as highly-regarded as most others on your list, or more so.

Northeastern CS+Design is a terrific combined major, with great opportunities through their student-led design studio, “Scout,” in addition to great co-op options. You didn’t mention National Merit, but your scores seem in line with being a semifinalist if your PSAT was similar - did you take the PSAT this year? NEU has substantial automatic merit for finalists.

Olin could also be worth a look, if their curriculum appeals and you think you could enjoy such a small school. For that matter, the HCDE major at UW is somewhat Olin-like, without giving up the large-university experience.

You’ll have great options. I don’t think you should limit them by ED-ing to Cornell unless it’s your true #1 choice, and you honestly don’t sound as if it is.

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Applying early boosts your chances by quite a bit. Binding ED is better than EA. As mentioned above, you can apply EA + ED in the first round. Then don’t forget that some schools offer ED2 (CMU and Chicago). This gives you three shots during the early round. The RD rounds have become very competitive at the top colleges, so plan accordingly.

If Rice moves to the top of your list, make sure you visit in person, as they attention to demonstrated interest.

Have you thought of any schools outside of the US? U Waterloo is well known for CS. Then also Imperial College London (degree program is only 3 years long).

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You’d make an excellent ED candidate for Cornell’s COE, and they have a strong environmental engineering program offered in conjunction with CALS. Good luck.

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Most of your schools are reaches.

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Which does not mean you aren’t qualified. You’re very well qualified. It’s just that most of those schools receive FAR too many applications for the spots they have, especially for CS. They reject the vast majority of fully qualified applicants. It’s not a criticism of your record, but rather an acknowledgement of the numbers game.

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Exactly

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To me this does not sound even close to: “Parents will pay full price at Cornell with no problems and no debt at all”.

Given how exceptionally strong the University of Washington is for CS, and given that you are in-state, I would not take on any debt to attend Cornell if you could attend U.Washington without taking on debt. I am not familiar with environmental engineering, but I do note that U.Washington is ABET accredited for environmental engineering which is important if you take that path. You might want to check whether the other schools that you are considering are also ABET accredited for environmental engineering.

Do not underestimate the University of Washington. It is a very good university. UW graduates will work alongside MIT and Stanford graduates and no one will care where you graduated from (and yes this is from personal experience as a graduate from two of those schools).

To me this argues for not applying ED anywhere unless you wanted to ED to U.Washington and give up your shot at MIT/Stanford/CMU (at least until graduate school).

I agree that UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara are not safeties. However, two safeties are fine and while I am not from your part of the USA I would nonetheless expect that Arizona and WSU probably are safeties, and good ones.

You have a very long list. I would certainly leave WSU, ASU, and the U of Washington on the list, and I would think hard about which other schools you want to leave on the list.

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Being from WA, Your chances are higher in UW than Cornell. paying extra 200K for a Cornell -CS is not worth if you get UW-CS. Also your chances of internship in MSFT or Amazon or Google are really high in second year. But it will be HS2.0 since you will see most of your classmates again for four more years