Female
NJ
From high ranked public high school
Indian
Pretty High Income (150k+)
Intented Major: Comp Sci
SAT: 2140 (will take again)
SAT II: Bio-760 Math II-740
GPA (UW): 3.71
GPA (W): 3.95
(with strong upward trend)
No APs taken yet but about 50% of my classes were honors
ECs:
-NHS
-Tri-M
-200+ volunteer hours (Best Buddies, Local Youth Council, Public Library)
-Silver Service volunteer service award
-Fundraising chair of said Local Youth Council
-Supervisor for library volunteer group
-Treasurer of Class Council
-Stage Crew Drama Club for 9th and 10th grade and Lead Role in 11th
-Choir for 4 years
-Choir internship junior year teaching elementary school children
-Tutoring middle schoolers
-President of SAVE club (environmental club)
-Playing Guitar and Piano for 3+ years
(i know my ECs don’t scream comp sci )
Senior Schedule:
AP comp sci
AP calc AB
AP econ
Eng 1&2 (dual credit through cc but still taught at high school)
Physics H
Choir
Current college list (may change bc I’ve realised a lot of my targets may become reaches)
Safeties: Rutgers, Penn State, Elon
Targets: UMD, U Miami, BU, ohio state, northeastern, illinios, UFL
Reaches: NYU, USC, UCSD, Tulane, GW, UNC Chapel Hill, UCLA
I know my college list is too long and I need to remove a couple but I just want to know if I’m being realistic. Thanks!
Are you in need of financial aid or merit aid? Can you afford you OOS schools?
You look to be a very good candidate for all of your safeties and targets. NYU is not a reach for you, I’d say you have a good chance at being admitted there. Same with Tulane, USC and George Washington. UCLA, UNC, and UCSD could be considered reaches I suppose, but I think you’re in good shape for all of the schools you’re interested in. Only thing that MAY keep you from getting in is a lack of AP classes, but if you’ve taken honors classes I doubt that will be a big deal, especially with your senior year course load.
Im fairly sure that I can afford college with very little financial aid. SInce most of my colleges are private or out of state I left Rutgers as a financial safety.
And wow thats good to hear. I think I may have been underestimating myself. My biggest flaw is definitely my course rigor (esp freshman and soph year) but I hope I can make up for that with strong essays.
UCLA would be a Low Reach/Reach especially for CS since the acceptance rate is around 10%.
UCSD would be a High Match/Low Reach again since CS is impacted.
Also UC’s are very big on course rigor. Are there a lack of AP classes at your school? If you have many available, but not taking advantage, this will impact your chances at the California UC’s.
Your list is pretty much perfect. UCLA may be a little tough just simply because Cal public schools favor GPA heavily, but even then it’s certainly a good reach school. If you are going to remove any I would remove Elon; liberal arts schools aren’t usually the best for computer science. Good luck!