PROFILE :
international student (request financial aid )
GPA 3.86
SAT 1410
Courses taken
AP Calculus BC
AP Computer Science A
AP Statistic
AP European History
AP Physics 1
AP Chemistry
AP Biology
Certificate:
comptia security+
Coursera machine learning by Andrew Ng ( Stanford University)
EC
Track & Field Gold Medal List
Tennis Provincial Championship
President Of High School Computer Science Club & Robotic Club
Captain and Programmer Lead of my high school robotic team
Software Engineer Intern while in Junior Year
Working as a Full Stack Developer while in Senior year
Won a 6 Different 24-hour Hackathon Competition
Do local research at university about Focused UltraSound and using develop machine learning model to onset estimations of transcranial ultrasound propagation.
Founded a non-profit organization of Biggest High school Hackathon in my country.
Founded a startup company that to find that the cheapest and coolest thing to do in your city.
Create website that weekly blog about Cyber Security Awareness and Computer Security Online Challenge Write-Ups
UC Berkeley is a public university and does not provide funding for OOS/international students. It is funded by the state and its taxpayers.
You need to be able to pay $65K per year to attend this school.
You are an international student asking for FA. Your chances are very low given the number of students applying to these schools.
I don’t know why international students have these schools tattooed to their foreheads and assume that only these schools are acceptable. These schools are EXTREMELY difficult to gain admission. Figure a 1-2% chance if any chance at all and a lower chance if asking for aid.
All high reach at best. Note that for UCB, you are aiming for a Regents’ Scholarship, not just admission, since there is otherwise no FA for non-California residents.
I would aim for something lower. Three of the schools are the top CS schools in the country and the 4th school is well, Harvard. Your stats would be well below average for 3 of the 4 schools, and the 4th school UCB you have pretty much zero chance at getting financial aid.
Your chances at any are, as @“aunt bea” wrote - no more than 1% in any of these. Aside from the reasons she wrote, your SAT score and your GPA are simply too low for CS in any CS department which have as low acceptences rates as these four…
These are the stats of the people against whom your are competing:
Harvard: mid 50% SAT 1460-1590, Average GPA 3.9
Stanford: mid 50% SAT 1420-1570, Average GPA 3.95
CMU CS: mid 50% SAT 1500-1570, average GPA 3.96
UCB: mid 50% SAT 1340-1530, average GPA 3.92 -
For all of those colleges except CMU, those are the SATs across all admits. The SATs of the CS majors are far higher. I do not think that there are very few, if any, CS majors with SATs under 1500, or maybe 1450.
As an international students with a GPA of 3.86 and an SAT of 1410, your chances are almost nonexistent. You are competing against American citizens who have a similar list of ECs, but much higher SAT scores and GPAs. I’m sorry.
Where are you from, and why have you decided to do your undergraduate in the USA?
On top of what’s been said above, most of your ECs simply require too much time to have meaningful achievements. You better pick and choose some when you apply.
I’m going to be very honest with you. I don’t think you have a good shot at any of the schools you listed. Stanford, CMU, UCB, and Harvard all have single digit acceptance rates for their CS programs, which by the way, are top notch. Without any serious awards such as olympiads and a slightly low SAT score, it will be very difficult for you to get into these schools. I would suggest aiming for some matches and safeties. Here are some recommendations:
