I’m entering my senior year and I was wondering what my chances would be for the following schools/majors. Thanks!:
Reach: Northeastern (Interactive Media/Game Design), USC (Game Design)
Targets: UC Irvine (Game Development), WPI (Game Design)
Safeties: UNH (CS), UMass Lowell (Interactive Media/CS)
Female Asian in NH
GPA: 3.73 Weighted (Freshman Year: 3.3 W, Sophmore: 3.7 W, Junior: 4.1 W)
SAT: 1350 (planning to retake it and hopefully boost it to at least a 1400)
AP’s/Honors: AP Comp Sci. Principles (4), AP Studio Art (5), AP Gov. (4), taking AP Comp. Gov, AP Physics 1 and AP Comp Sci. A in senior year + all my other classes were honors in Junior year
Extra Curriculars: CEO/Business Lead/Awards Lead/Design Subteam for FIRST Robotics Team, Secretary for Debate Team, Co-President for Art Club, Asian Culture Club, Tri-M, Social Media for Campaign + Political Campaign Volunteer, Honors Band, Volunteer+design/logo work for non-profit fund for animals, ELO @ school (interned for a humanities class), Painting lessons under a NHIA Professor, Founding a Women in STEM Club for the upcoming school year, 90+ hours community service,
Awards:
PTA Reflections 2016 Visual Arts - 1st in State for grade level, top 8 in Nationals (National Award of Merit)
Scholastic Art Awards 2018-19: Silver Key
Congressional Art Awards - Special Recognition
Won a faculty award in my High School
Robotics Chairman’s Award - I was on the presentation team the year the team won and created the video + wrote the essay
My son is a senior as Game Design major at Uconn. You should look into their program. He loves it and has managed to get a very good internships last summer and this summer.
For UCI, you need to calculate your UC Capped weighted GPA and Fully weighted GPA. Since you are OOS, only AP/IB classes taken 10-11th grades count for the extra honors weighting in the calculation. Here is the calculator: https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
Also as an OOS applicant to UCI, you will receive no financial aid so expect to pay $65K/year to attend.
Target UC capped weighted GPA for UCI Game Design: 4.11
Target SAT: 1467
When sleeting Universities it may be helpful to consider what other majors interest you. Most students do not graduate in the major they selected as seniors in secondary school.
What are you looking for?
How does one select majors… when can you switch? The fact majors are listed does not mean you can change to it. When and how does this happen?
Based on your GPA, WPI is a bit of a reach. The average GPA is about 3.9. Your other interests and activities are important. Why would you want to attend a particular University. Answering some of the above questions may help. Are Robotics also on your list?
Even with my EC’s is WPI still a reach? I know that the university values FIRST robotics a lot. Also WPI suggests submitting a portfolio for the interactive media major and I have strong technical/design skills, so could that make up for a lower GPA?
I’ve looked into both! The only thing is UC Santa Cruz (and all the UC’s in general) are expensive for OOS, so unless I get tons of financial aid I probably won’t attend them. RIT’s program is nice, but I’m not too in love with the area (my sister goes to college there). I would like to stay closer to home in the Massachusetts area.
Yes, your skills clearly count!
They are very into hands on projects from day one. Show them your work. Be critical of their system so you will know it well. They love an interactive, fired up student body!