Chance Me for CS at Stanford, MIT, and CMU!

Yes, this is why I said CMU does. I assumed that would be clear, so I apologize if it wasn’t. When I wrote that CMU did, I did not mean for that to correlate to the other schools admitting by major as well. They don’t. In addition to the top schools that do admit by major and those that do not, there are also additional top colleges and universities that admit by a particular school within the university. If admitted to one of those, then you can just select your major from within the school you entered (A&S, Engineering, etc.) but if you want to go from Biology to Engineering, for example, then you’d need to fill out a form after the first semester (or possibly later) to change to a different major within another school at the university (in the case of Columbia, for example, they would require an internal transfer form). I do get it that they don’t all admit by major.

Stanford asks for three subject interests on the application, but those fields can be completely disparate, e.g. French/Native American Studies/Aeronautics or whatever, and the applicant is free to change them once there, of course. (Most highly selective schools give you four semesters to finalize your decision on exact major.) Highly selective schools not deciding by major (like Stanford) still want to know your interests/intended subject areas on the application. They do that to make sure they have every major or interest they offer fielded, as well as making sure the accepted applicants are intellectually diverse. Top schools (any school for that matter) simply can’t admit an entire incoming class with too many having the same subject areas/interests. If they did, some of their departments wouldn’t have enough people taking their classes and/or graduating in those fields. The departments need to stay vital and to do that they all need students with interests in every field they offer.

OP, I’m guessing you’re at TJ, one of the hardest high schools in the United States? MIT will know your school well, as well as the level of rigor that’s required there. I’d still pay attention to the things I mentioned. Remember, you’re also competing with very advanced classmates. Any core area that is made up/fixed before you apply next year could only be to your advantage, and a large amount of TJ students will be applying to MIT, as you well know. It’s hard for them not to compare, even at the universities that say they don’t.

Right. It’s one of the top, if not the top CS programs in the US. However, if said applicant happens to be at TJ, and I’m guessing he might be, and he’s an URM, and gen-1, I’m willing to still say he has a good shot.

Yes that is correct, I do attend TJ. Does that make anything different? I feel like if anything it would be harder for me to make it into a top college, unless I am mistaken?

You need to write the hell out of the application, but I still think it’s doable. I personally know someone who is also an URM, who went to TJ, had a GPA slightly lower than yours as a result of messing up some difficult classes freshman year, got his stuff together for the rest of high school, aced his testing, and is now studying CS at CMU. He’s worked the last two summers at Facebook and already has a job when he graduates. I stand by my comment that it’s doable in your particular situation and I wish you nothing but the best of luck. I agree that I’d sit for the ACT once more to see if I could hit that magic number. Your school is hooked up with CTY, so I’d fix that other stuff too. You’re super smart, obviously, so fixing this little stuff shouldn’t be a big deal.

I think all three colleges are high reaches for you. Your URM status helps in all three places but insufficient to meet the requirements at MIT and CMU SCS (you have a better but still long shot at Stanford). The reasons are that you didn’t take a challenging set of courses at a HS (TJ) that offers plenty of them and you didn’t even do that well, by these colleges’ standard, in them. Your test score also didn’t help.

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Wholeheartedly agree. This could be a potentially dangerous situation where you don’t get in any of your top schools (outright) at all, get waitlisted only at one of them (let’s say Dartmouth), then get ready to leave for someplace like, oh, I don’t know, Emory, and then get taken off the waitlist at the very last minute (by someone who isn’t really all that impressed with what he’s forced to take on). I’m hoping OP ends up with better situations in life, so I say he keeps trying and improving to get to where he wants, not settling bc that’s the easiest thing to do. People who care do the work and constantly improve.

Instead of applying to one, two, or three schools, I say he fills up the Common App with a blend of reaches, obtainable places, and safeties. Best of luck, OP! Let us know what happens later.

Please, step away and apply to RIT, Mudd, wPI, and many others. Every top student in your school will be applying to these schools, plus Caltech, Ga Tech, Cornell, u Michigan, …, Find some that are not on the same grid as your classmates.

Truthfully, there will be many from your HS that will be attending these schools, far more than from other schools. They are more prepared, etc. I doubt you will have a problem in any of the top 10-20 schools in CS