Chance me for CS Regular Decision at Northeastern, UNC Chapel Hill, USC, Cornell, Duke, and Harvard!

Chance Me / Match Me!
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1

Demographics

  • US citizen
  • Virginia
  • Top 5 Magnet High School
  • Hispanic/Latinx Male
  • First generation American and first-generation college student

Intended Major of Computer Science

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.63/4.0 with freshman, sophomore, junior year grades, 3.82/4.0 without freshman grades
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.075 (4.5 Honors, 5.0 AP weights) with freshman sophomore and junior grades, 4.43 without freshman grades
  • Weighted GPA Increase: Freshman => 3.314, Sophomore: 4.129, Junior: 4.786
  • No class ranks
  • 34 ACT Superscore (34 Math, 35 Science, 35 English, 32 Reading)

Coursework

  • AP Computer Science A and Data Structures
  • Post-AP Artificial Intelligence 1 & 2
  • Post-AP Computer Vision 1 & 2
  • Computer Systems Senior Research Lab (currently taking)
  • Post-AP Web App Development (2nd Semester Senior Year)
  • Highest level of math: BC Calculus (currently taking)
  • Highest level of physics: AP Physics C: Mechanics & Electricity and Magnetism (single class, currently taking)
  • Took 3 years of Spanish before high school

Awards

  • VEX Robotics World Championship Innovate Award (2019, International)
  • VEX Robotics CREATE U.S. Open Robot Skills 2nd Place (2019, International)
  • VEX Robotics CREATE U.S. Open Think Award for Best Programming (2019, International)
  • VEX Robotics Kalahari Signature Event Excellence Award - Highest Honor (2021, National)
  • VEX Robotics Mid-Atlantic Showcase Event Excellence Award - Highest Honor (2021, National)
  • VEX Robotics Night at the Museum Signature Event Think Award for Best Programming (2019, National)
  • Posse Foundation Scholarship: Finalist for UVA (State, 2021) withdrawn btw
  • CollegeBoard Hispanic National Recognition Program (National, 2021)
  • National Merit Commended Scholar

Extracurriculars

  • VEX Robotics, won 38 awards from competitions ranging from local to international levels (9hrs/week, 42 weeks/year, all 4 years)
  • Hispanic Community Club President (at school) (3hrs/week, 40 weeks/year)
  • PC (re) Builders President, fixes laptops and desktops and donates them into the community (at school) (3hrs/week, 40 weeks/year, member for all 4 years)
  • Former Advanced Course Director for non-profit that provides CS courses free, organization has 2310+ students; also former website developer for same organization (3hrs/week, 28 weeks/year, 11th and 12th grade)
  • Freelance web developer, created and sold 6 websites in 8 months (4hrs/week, 30 weeks/year, 11th and 12th grade)
  • Website developer for another ed-tech nonprofit, the organization has 15,000+ student registrations, 45% of which are low-income students (7hrs/week, 46 weeks/year, 12th grade)
  • AFA CyberPatriot Windows Server Team Lead, achieved Platinum league in junior and senior year (3hrs/week, 28 weeks/year, 10th, 11th, 12th grade)
  • Tutors my sister in various subjects, creates personalized lesson plans for her specialized learning style because she is differently-abled, so she has a harder time learning in a traditional classroom environment (3hrs/week, 48 weeks/year, all 4 years, technically since 6th grade)
  • Head Web Developer for a small business (2hrs/week, 48 weeks/year, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade)
  • GMU Aspring Scientists Summer Internship Program (40 hours/week, 8 weeks in the summer of 11th grade)

Essays/LORs/Other

  • Essays are strong, in my commonapp essay I talk about how I tried to seek acceptance at this top school after a really rough freshman year of “fitting into the stereotype” of a Hispanic by not getting great grades. I really turned stuff around my sophomore year and even more my junior year, but I realized that no matter how well I did I was still told I wasn’t good enough. So instead I seeked comfort with the minority, in Hispanic Community Club.
  • Letter of rec from humanities teacher is average, maybe slightly above average. LOR from CS teacher is amazing, really really great. LOR from research mentor/professor is pretty good (it gives insight into the level of research I did with him)

Schools

  • In addition to the ones listed in the title (Northeastern, UNC Chapel Hill, USC, Cornell, Duke, and Harvard) can anyone let me know my chances for the following:
  • UPenn
  • UChicago
  • Yale
  • Rice
  • BTW I’m already into a great safety, so I’m just testing my luck with these schools, I know they are all hard reaches.
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Great stats, congrats on your Vex accomplishments.

I love that you have your safety locked down and understand the chances of these high high reaches. Your trajectory in grades looks great.

First gen, URM, focused on CS/STEM with these stats you should be well positioned to be competitive and may very well see one or two offers of admission on your list and maybe some waitlists.

Look at the threads on CC from ED and EA rounds and apply with your ACT score to some and hold back on others - test the waters. It is a great score, but could throw things off by a college trying to maintain a high number while accepting TO applicants. (If already submitted, don’t worry about it.)

I am assuming you have all of these RDs applications almost ready - you can’t get them all five in the next two weeks. Prioritize is you are still writing.

Also, run the NPC on all of these so you understand what meets 100% of need means at each! Some will be more loan heavy than others is need based aid is needed.

Good luck!

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3

Awesome, thank you so much! How do I figure out which schools to send my ACT score to and which not to send it to?

4

For the test optional. (TO) high, high reaches, your score in theory should be above their 50% mark from the previous couple years. You are right there for many of these.

Because your GPA is a little lower due to Freshman year, I think you should send them other pieces of great info that you have to help them see you are ready for college work and you are going to add to the schools community.

As you make some final tweaks, picture an admissions officer (AO) at a table in February with others making final decisions - you need to help them do their job in explaining why you should be in the admit pile. Some high reach schools are admitting 50% or more test optional, but for you they may need that info.

You are hedging your bets by sending some your ACT scores and holding back on a few. You will never know what made the difference…unless an AO sends a note and tells you something about your essay or something else that was the tipping point.

This list will help for a quick look at the range:
https://www.graduateshotline.com/act/average-act-scores.html

Based on this and reading the threads from this year for these schools you would send the ACT scores to Cornell, but not Harvard. Send to Duke, but not Rice.

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This list has the average from the 2020 cycle - average is not perfect math but a quick reference for you is what you need.

6

Closing since this is OP’s 2nd account

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