Please #chance-me the following candidate for CS and/or Chemistry at GA Tech, UT Austin.
Demographics: white female
US citizen
Residency: TX
Type of high school: public, highly ranked in the state
Intended Major: CS, Chemistry
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.95
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 5.25 out of 6
College GPA (for transfers):
Class Rank: school is non ranking, most likely top 25%
ACT/SAT Scores: 36
PSAT 1500 (out of 1520)
Coursework
by the end of her seniour year will have 9 AP classes, 1 DC from community College, 1 IB.
Math: 4 years, highest level: AP Calc BC
English: 4 years
CS: 3 years, highest level: IB CS HL
Science: 4 years, Biology, Chem, AP Physics, AP Chem
Foreign Lang: Spanish 3 years, Russian equivalent of 3 years (APPLL test)
Awards
Most likely NMSF (results publish in Seprember)
AP scholar with distinction
National Forensic League Degree of Distinction (National Speech and Debate Association)
Extracurriculars
Debate 4 years: state level competitor
Team sport: 2yrs JV, 2yrs varsity
Dance: 4 years at the school dance team
Volunteering: up to 50hrs
Part-time summer work: a few months
Little to no leadership
No personal CS projects
Without top 6% rank for automatic admission to the campus, UT Austin is a reach. Additionally, the CS major at UT Austin should be considered a reach even if you are automatically admitted to the campus.
Your stats and accomplishments are quite impressive. For either school, the only concern might be your placement somewhere in the top 25% as opposed to, say, top 5% or 10% or even better. But I’m the end, even if you locked in at a higher class rank percentage, both are a reach unless you place high enough for some kind of in-state benefit at UT. You are out of state for Georgia Tech, which is a reach and a crap shoot for pretty much anybody. You’ve undoubtedly heard the advice to apply to your dream schools, placing heavy emphasis on things you can still control in the late stages of the game (like quality of essays) and hoping for the best, while also preparing applications to a wider range of schools that includes less competitive institutions.
The simplest way to categorize schools for unhooked applicants is to go by acceptance rate and stats.
Generally any school with an 20% or lower acceptance rate is a reach for any unhooked candidate even if they are at the top of their class academically. The quality of the HS also matters, including whether the school regularly sends students to highly rejective schools. Intended major, at schools that admit by major is also important, as some majors have lower acceptance rates.
Schools with acceptance rates between 20% and 40% or so can be matches if the student’s stats are at the 75% mark or so. And so on….categorization is an art, not a science.
Lastly we need to know your budget to make recommendations. You need at least one affordable safety school…what is that school for you?
Run the net price calculator at the schools on your list to get a cost estimate and determine affordability. NPCs may not be accurate if your parents are divorced, own a business, or own real estate beyond a primary home…are any of those the case for you?
Additionally, remember if you are applying to a competitive university that admits by major and you are applying for computer science, then a high reach becomes that much more selective. So, while chemical engineering at Purdue may be a reach, computer science at Purdue will be a higher reach. This is true across the board at the top computer science schools. Lastly, since many (but not all) top computer science schools are state universities and state universities often have a mandate to serve their in state populations, understand that as an out of state student you have two things working against you: cost and competitive admissions (by sheet numbers). For example, Texas A&M (which uses ETAM for admissions to engineering majors) is 5% out of state. While A&M has a total student population of around 70K, that is just 3500 out of state students, with approximately 875 in the freshman class (rough numbers, of course).
Something doesn’t make sense, it states that you attend a Texas public high school? Name me a public HS in Texas that doesn’t rank AT ALL? Yes, some only rank the top 10% and leave the rest unranked but given the importance of ranking for admission to TX schools, I can’t believe that you are truly unranked.
You have a good chance at both but neither one is guaranteed
However, there are cases where school-specific information is much more useful. For example, UT Austin school-specific information is that admission to the campus is automatic for Texas residents in the top 6% of their high school classes. However, others are then competing for the remaining small fraction of the admission class.
Other school-specific information that relates to UT Austin and many other colleges is that some majors like computer science are much more selective than the campus overall.
So it can be that, between two Texas students with similar GPA, the one with top 5.9% rank aiming for a non-competitive major may see UT Austin as a safety, while the one with top 6.1% rank aiming for the computer science major may see UT Austin as a reach.
As state universities, UT Austin and GT may also have different admission selectivity for in-state versus out-of-state students.
GA Tech isn’t even an option unless your parents can pay the out of state tuition without excessive debt. The first thing is to find out what the budget is. Also, if parents can afford a more expensive school, it doesn’t mean they should, or that it’s a good value. Being a parent myself, if my daughter got accepted into both these schools, she would go to UT. Because I won’t pay triple the tuition for a bachelors degree when a more reasonable option is available.
My advice, focus on Texas if you’re a resident. The best CS schools in Texas are UT, TX A&M, and UT-Dallas. In fact, UTSA has the #1 cybersecurity program in the nation. All of these will get you a strong career start with relatively low cost.