Chance Me

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello CC! In the summer before senior year, I am preoccupied with the prospect of going to one of these colleges. Could you please help me out and chance me to see if I have a realistic chance?

Please chance me for: Georgia Tech, Purdue, Ohio State, Carnegie Mellon, UW Seattle, Virginia Tech, and UIUC.

GPA Scale: 4.0 for regular class, 5.0 for Honors/AP classes
UW GPA: 3.92 / Weighted GPA: 4.12
SAT: 1450 (Superscore: 1460)
ACT: 34 (Superscore: 35)
Class Rank: Top 15%

APs: 10 with the end of junior year (includes APUSH, AP Chem, AP Macro, AP Psych, AP US Gov, AP Calc BC, AP Physics C both, and AP English Lit). Also self-studied AP Comp Sci.

Senior Year Schedule: AP Micro, Honors Philosophy, AP Spanish, AP Stats, AP Bio, AP Lang, Honors Organic Chemistry.

I also took community college courses beginning with the ninth grade, mainly in computer science. However, this summer, I am taking business writing, business math, database management, and Western civilization. In senior year, I plan on taking a college physics or math (linear algebra) course.

ECs: (Decent)
Science Olympiad 9, 10, 11, 12. Won school, regional, state, and national awards.
Speech and Debate 9.
Academic Team 11, 12. Participated in many GWOC (Greater Western Ohio Conference) tournaments.
Model UN 11, 12.
Band 9.
Chem Buddies 10.
Computer Science Club 11, 12. I am a leader in the group, and I teach HTML and CSS to beginners.
National Honor Society 11, 12.
Boy Scouts of America 9, 10, 11, 12. I have held numerous leadership positions and am an Eagle Scout.

Volunteering:
Accrued 50 hours from volunteering at local hospital.
Study Buddies 10. Tutored middle school students in subjects like math, science, social studies, etc.

Work Experience:
Part-time job at Kumon, 3 hours a week.
Summer internship at a software company in India.

Essays and teacher recommendations should be pretty good at the time of application.

I am an Asian American (Indian) and Ohio resident applying out of state to all of these schools except Ohio State.

Applying for Computer Science / Engineering (early action).

I know my stats may be mediocre, but I really want to know how realistic my chances are. I would be grateful if you could chance me for all of these schools. Once again, thank you so much!

2

Can someone respond to this post?

3

sure

4

Your SAT score is low for CMU and I suspect it is low for UW, GT and UIUC as well since their CS programs are super competitive. You probably will want to go 1500+ to be competitive at those schools.

5

if you can increase your SAT score, I think you have a very solid shot! Your ECs are great and it’s good that you’re so focused on computer science. If you can’t bump up that SAT score, write killer essays and you will probably get in.

6

I second what @ProfessorPlum168 says. You are in a competitive demographic for a competitive major at competitive universities, but have mediocre stats, relatively speaking. I have personal experience with this with my own kid. It meant going to slightly lower tier institution, because the cs majors have higher stats than the university overall. You may have a shot with a 1500 plus sat score. Is comp sci an impacted major at Ohio state.

Your gpas seem inconsistent, how can you have 3.92 uw, but only 4.12 weighted with so many so many ap classes you took. Unless a typo or you are miscalculating.

7

Check each school for what standardized test scores they require. Your ACT score is excellent. With respect to your W vs. UW GPA, ae you mostly an A student, with occasional Bs?

8

Your EC’s don’t really stand out to me except for Science Olympiad, but that’s unrelated to computer science (closest thing is Game On and that doesn’t count).
You want to pursue computer science, but I don’t really see a theme appearing around your computer science passion. A lot of what you did seem to just check off the “I did that” list, like volunteering, clubs, and internship.
I think you could get into these schools, but for the especially competitive ones (like CMU) you need to make yourself unique as an applicant. To me, there’s nothing that stands out from the other extremely qualified candidates.

9

You should be admitted to Virginia Tech.

10

I think you’ll be a competitive applicant for every school on your list except CMU which would be a reach. That doesn’t mean you’ll get in everywhere so have some solid safety schools on your list too.

11

May make a difference if you are applying for direct entry as a CS major as this major tends to be very competitive–especially at the University of Washington & Georgia Tech. Your list of seven universities is reasonable in light of your qualifications. But Georgia Tech does give weight to state of residence.

12

Thanks everyone! @ProfessorPlum168 Is my ACT ok for these colleges? I’m considering not sending in my SAT.

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@Rivers4 Yes, I am an A student with occasional Bs. The GPAs are what my school reports.

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@momprof9904 The GPAs are what my school reports. I know our school’s grading scale is kind of off with the Honors and AP classes.

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@ProfessorPlum168 I also thought that Georgia Tech does not admit by major, as stated by an admissions officer during my visit.

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@pieguy54321 Thanks for your insight! I forgot to mention that I taught myself several programming languages.

17

I would omit the SAT at this point. Your ACT is way better, the concordance for 34 is probably around 1510-1530. Make sure to apply to some private closer schools like CWRU, as well as some safeties. The OOS costs will be almost the same as the privates.

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@Nvijai Re: your gpa - competitive universities like CMU and GA tech will look at the actual grades from the transcripts, not just the GPA. Do you have many B’s in honors/ AP core courses in STEM (4.19 W-GPA out of 5 suggests that - but I may be wrong)? That may not be a positive for the competitive universities.

You may want to check out the Admissions Blog from GA tech and see what they look for.

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@ProfessorPlum168 Thanks for the input! I was also planning on applying to CWRU and some Ohio safeties as well as the ones in this list.

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@momprof9904 Good to know. I’m glad to say that my grades have been improving over the past couple of years. I definitely hope that my course rigor can help.