Chance me for UCI please!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Irvine
1

Hello, I just got a little scared because I just received a waitlist to UC Davis and it’s up there with UC Irvine. UC Irvine is my top choice so… yeah (>_<). Well here’s my stats:
Half Asian American/White Male
Low/Middle Class income

Planned major: Computer Science
Alternate Major: Computer Game Science

1530 SAT (790 Math 740 EBRW)
SAT II: Math level 2: 780 Physics: 640 (took this despite halfway through AP Physics 1 so that explains the low score)
4.54 Weighted 3.76 Unweighted (3.91 UC GPA)
School: Charter (Early College), CA
Rank: 7/94

All academic classes were either AP or Honors (very small class selection at my hs)
AP: AP European History (2), AP U.S. History (4), AP English Language and Composition (4), AP Calculus AB (3), (AP U.S. Government, AP Calculus BC, AP Physics 1, and AP Microeconomics senior year)

Essays: I’d say probably 8/10, got friends+parents to read them and they liked them.

Extracurriculars:

  • 5 years in MESA; competed locally for four years; 2nd place individual math '16 + 3rd place NEDC prosthetic arm '17
  • 4 years in Key Club; roughly 90 hours so far volunteering at local events.
  • 3 years in my school’s Academic Decathlon team; Division II Starter for Soph. year; 2nd place in Division II Super Quiz locally
  • 2 years in Physics Club and Running Club
  • Numerous awards in local Mathematics competitions
  • Webmaster for my school’s Key Club (Junior + Senior year)
  • Treasurer for my school’s MESA Club and Physics Club (Senior year)
  • Applied for two Associate’s degrees at the local community college that I take classes at (64 units including AP Exam credit)
  • Enough applicable college units to partial transfer to a four-year public California (I just need 1 more course to fully transfer)

Other colleges applied to:
SFSU (accepted), SJSU (pending), CalPoly SLO (pending), UC Berkeley (pending), UC Los Angeles (pending), UC Davis (waitlisted under CS+Engineering), UC Irvine (pending), Yale (Early Action: Denied), Columbia University: (pending), and MIT (pending).

Thank you for your time! I really appreciate it.

2

I think you are very competitive for UCI but as you have found out CS is ultra competitive.

Here is a link where you look up the average UC GPA and SAT scores for last year’s admitted CS majors.

Look under Admissions Selectivity and Yield: Undergraduates
New Freshman, then Average SAT and Average HS GPA by major

http://www.oir.uci.edu/applications.html

3

I suppose I overestimated myself… looks like most of the colleges I applied to won’t accept me at this rate.
I really appreciate the reply though! Fingers are crossed that I receive good news for UCI next week. Good luck to other applicants too!

4

I think the reason why you got waitlisted at UCDavis is because they don’t want to accept people who have over the top GPA’s that are obviously going to go to other schools and only want to apply there as a safety.

Your stats are really competitive man. I can say with 90% certainty you’ll get into UCI, or atleast from what I can see. 4.5 GPA is insane!

Good luck, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for this week too.

5

I can say my daughter got in 3 yrs ago as a CGS major with a 3.86 GPA and 1830 (2400) SAT. I think she made it in personally since she was a female in a very dominated male major (only 11% female) She did have awesome essays though and leadership positions.

6

Update for anyone wondering: Denied from CalPoly SLO, admitted to SJSU and Denied from MIT.

7

Waitlisted to Davis with all those EC’s? Damn

I got into Davis CompSci with 4.41 W/4.00 UW GPA, 1490 SAT and barely any EC’s

8

Rejected from UCLA, Computer Engineering.

9

@chincio did you get into mit

10

No, as stated above I was denied from MIT

11

Accepted to UC Irvine under Computer Science! :smiley: