Chance me: Hispanic female interested in CS! (Good stats but barely any ECs)

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics
Hispanic (Colombian) female, rising senior, first-gen, average public school

Intended Major(s)
Computer Science

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.79
  • Class Rank: #2 out of ~480 students
  • Standardized Test Scores: 1570 SAT (800 Math, 770 Reading & Writing), 1510 PSAT

Coursework
Have taken all honors and AP classes (pretty much the toughest classes my school offers)
APs:
Freshman year - AP Human Geography (5)
Sophomore year - AP World History (5)
AP Environmental Science (5)
Junior year - AP Chemistry (5)
AP Calculus BC (5)
AP Computer Science A (5)
AP US History (5)
AP English Lit (5)
Will be taking 5 more APs senior year.

Awards

  • USACO Gold
  • AIME Qualifier
  • Congressional App Challenge
  • 6 hackathon/game jam winning projects
  • Math awards at my district
  • Art awards locally (nothing too prestigious)
  • Should get the National Merit and National Hispanic Scholarships

Extracurriculars
I honestly barely have any ECs. I’m not in any clubs and I mostly only focus on schoolwork. However, in my free time I like to work on my passion projects and hobbies. (I’m not really sure if you can count them as ECs)

  • Independent CS learning - Since I’m interested in CS, I like to do programming and work on my coding projects, and I’m entirely self-taught (using YouTube videos and online courses). I’m fluent in about a dozen programming languages and frameworks.
  • Projects in CS for social issues - Took inspiration from research papers and ISEF projects. Created a web app for vocal screening for depression using ML, a VR game to enhance motor skills in children, an open-source design system library for user safety critical applications, among others.
  • Electronics stuff - Nothing too impressive, a few hobby electronics projects using Arduino and Raspberry Pi.
  • Game development - I love making games. I have one on Steam and I’m currently working on an RPG game that will probably launch sometime later this year. I also make VR games and I have two uploaded on the Oculus Rift Store. I also do 3D modelling using Blender.
  • General programming - I have a whole bunch of cool projects including web apps, ML stuff and some low-level programming projects. I have them all listed on my personal website (along with their explanation and techniques used) and on my GitHub account.
  • Art - I’ve always loved to draw and paint as a hobby. I like making resin art and cute stickers and sell them on Etsy. Have won a bunch of awards locally.
  • Reading and Writing - I’ve been a bookworm for as long as I can remember. I’ve read around 300+ books by now. Love writing fiction and creative non-fiction, I have a website where I write short stories across different genres (and also sometimes on Wattpad lol).

Essays/LORs
Since I don’t really have much opportunities or connections, I’ve always focused on teaching myself skills online. I’m rather self-motivated and I only focus on things that I truly enjoy doing. I feel like I have a pretty clear idea of things I want to work on in the future and I’m also super into arts and humanities, so I feel like I can craft somewhat unique essays that are different compared to your typical CS applicant. LORs should be pretty good too, some of my teachers literally think I’m a genius (big fish in a small pond, really).

Cost Constraints / Budget
Max $40k-$45k

Schools

  • Safety - University of Illinois, Chicago and Illinois Institute of Technology
  • Target - Not even sure what targets to have at this point, maybe UIUC (I know it has a good CS program, but I REALLY don’t wanna stay in Illinois for college, trying to avoid this school as much as I can)
  • Reach - MIT, Stanford, CMU, Cornell, Caltech, and other T20s

Up until recently I’d always been told that I should be able to get in anywhere because of my background (which kinda hurts), but now that affirmative action is gone, do I really have any chance at top schools? I’m starting to rethink my college list. I’m also first-gen if that helps.

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Targets can be UMN-Twin Cities and UW-Madison. Reaches can be Purdue, UMass.
All these will exceed the 45K budget unless you can get merit.

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I wouldn’t choose those colleges over UIUC (I’m in-state, so it’d be easier and also way cheaper).

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Have you run the net price calculators - or rather have your parents run them to see if your reaches are affordable? If you find out for example you are full pay and they’re $90K+ a year for you, then you can’t appy. They have no merit based scholarships.

So that’s step one for you. You can’t choose a school list until you understand your finances - not just the budget but whether or not you will qualify for need based aid.

Step two is - you named schools and acknowledged top 20.

You need to find the right schools for you. Not top 20.

Is UIUC a target? I don’t know but with a 7% acceptance rate in CS, it’d be hard to consider it so. But you need other schools and you dismissed it, but @sfogooner gave you a fine list although Madison won’t make #s. UMN can and Purdue will be right at budget full pay and is excellent. You won’t like them - but a school like Alabama, for example, would be $20K with auto merit or you might even get them diversity scholarship which is four years free tuition, a year of housing and $1K a year. Or Arizona, with your 4.0, would be low 20s with automerit. Very good schools like Iowa State would also be inexpensive.

Have you visited these schools? Are you sure you want a large school and not a smaller one - like Rose Hulman or a mid size one like Missouri Science & Tech.

This is pulled from a chain from @DadTwoGirls . It’s good reading and it matches the experience my son had in engineering, choosing a lesser pedigree school and getting the same job as the pedigree kids (and same money). Bottom line - find the right school for you and the rest works out.

Also, once the job interview is over, people really do not care where you got your degree. I have trouble remembering where most of my colleagues got their degrees. People care what you can do. For the job interview, internships and coops are going to matter more than where you got your degree. I have worked with interns at multiple companies over several decades and in most cases the companies think of internships as approximately extensive job interviews. If someone does well in an internship then we can be confident that they will work out. Even internships at other companies look good when you interview with us.

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My family income is $90k, so definitely not full pay. I will need aid for OOS, but not for in-state.
Also I’m from Illinois so I think it should be a lot easier to get into UIUC, I know people from my school who had barely anything to show but still ended up getting in (and in CS too).

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Perhaps the rate they show isn’t accurate then.

The schools listed OOS make your budget - either at full cost (Purdue) or with merit aid. Again, if you think you’re in at UIUC, then fine but it’d be criminal to not have a back up.

You still need to do a net price calculator to see what your costs would be. Some will have income tables (assuming average assets) - for example, at Stanford, your full cost would be covered. See the link below.

I would have schools other than UIUC and your others. You had UIC and IIT (if you can afford it)…so if you are ok with those as safeties and willing to attend one, then you are ok.

Direct from the UIUC website:

Admit Rates, Undergraduate Admissions, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Stanford expands financial aid for 2023-24 - Stanford Report

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Even considering the difficulty with CS, I’m pretty optimistic for you. Definitely apply to UIUC and Purdue. You already have good safeties so I say swing for the fences especially if you add 1 more true safety.

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First of all, your hobbies and passion projects absolutely are EC’s! Secondly, yes, first-gen does help - perhaps even more so now that racial preference isn’t an option for colleges in their attempts to build a diverse class.

Secondly, with a 1510 PSAT, you should at least be a National Hispanic Scholar and probably a National Merit Semifinalist, right? (I don’t think there’s any combination of subscores for a 1510 that fails to clear the IL cutoff, but correct me if I’m wrong.)

If that’s the case, you could go to an excellent and diverse CS school like UT-Dallas or UCF for free. What would your net cost be at UIUC?

Since you’re interested in California schools, consider Harvey Mudd and/or Pomona in the Claremont Consortium (depending on whether you like Mudd’s lab-science-heavy core curriculum or not… although if you don’t, you probably won’t like CalTech either). CS is top-tier, and the 5C’s could be a great environment for a creative student like you. (The Human-Centered Design curriculum in “The Hive” might be of interest Human-Centered Design - The Hive ) FWIW, Harvey Mudd is one of the very schools, short of women’s colleges, where the CS major achieves gender parity and even leans slightly female. Also, run the NPC for USC. Some NMF applicants get full-tuition merit, so it might work even if the need-based aid isn’t good enough.

Speaking of women’s colleges, consider Smith, which is very strong in STEM and also offers cross-registration with UMass Amherst, which has already been mentioned as a very strong flagship for CS. Also if Columbia is of interest, consider Barnard as well.

Hopefully Rice is included in your “other T20’s” list?

Additional strong CS schools that meet need but aren’t as reachy as the T20’s - U of Rochester, CWRU, Northeastern, Tufts, Lehigh, Lafayette, Carleton, St. Olaf, Grinnell, Hamilton, Vassar, Wesleyan. Run NPC’s for these to see how your net price may vary. I can especially imagine you enjoying the student-led design organization at Northeastern https://scout.camd.northeastern.edu/ It’s very software-heavy even though it’s based in the design school. (The CS+Design major there is also very cool, if that appeals.)

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable about this will chime in, but I believe U of Waterloo, which is a top-tier CS school in Canada, recruits students with AIME/USACO distinctions with merit money. I don’t know the likelihood of getting to your price point, but it might work, and it’s just as respected in CS as your aspirational US schools.

Good luck!

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Wellesley is the one that came to mind for me. I’d put it ahead of the others if I where focused in CS.

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Sadly, I need to close this thread because it is a hoax. I’m unsure what motivates this bored kid to waste everyone’s time.

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