I have a projected 3.57 uw gpa and 4.0 w gpa. I had a drop in my gpa sophmore year and got a 3.2 uw and 3.5 w. My junior has an upward trend with a 3.9 uw and 4.4 w. As far as rigor goes I will have taken 10 ap courses and 3 community college courses in high school. The drop in my sophmore year was mainly caused by overextending myself ans taking on to much. As far as testing goes I have a 35 act 800 math 2 and 780 physics. And I should have decent l.o.r.'s.
My extracurriculars
Varsity polo 4 years
Varsity swim 3 years
I started a non profit to help expose middle and elementary students to coding. (2 years)
Created a company and have a patented product. Trying to raise funding.(2.5 years)
Research I did over the summer with with a prof at mit
I had a part time job as a swim coach (3 years)
Build lead on on my robotics team (2 years)
Coding club 4 years
Habitat for humanity 4 years
Have a few published apps(an app for the nonprofit swim organization I coach at and a few games)
Would I be competitive for top 20’s. Hoping to major in cs.
Thanks!
As a programmer myself, I can say the tech industry doesn’t pay attention to prestige or college rankings. In fact, no employer really does in the professional world. The worst thing about prestigious universities is that, once you get in, you have to compete for a CS degree like some kind of academic version of the hunger games. It’s both degrading and pointless. I would just focus on an affordable university in your home state. Most employers recruit locally and regionally, because it’s more cost-effective. The goal is to get enough training for an entry-level job. After a few years of work experience, your salary worth can easily go up by 50% or more, depending on your specialty.
To put it in perspective, I graduated from a regional state university some years ago. In my most recent job search, I interviewed at Google, Amazon, USAA, Target Corp, GA Tech, Univ of KY, and Stanford…just to name a few.
@coolguy40 Thanks for the advice! I actually live in California and would love to go to UCLA or UC Berkeley but I’ve been told my gpa is far to low for those two. Do you think that these schools would read my whole application or trash it because of the gpa?
Your gpa is going to be a problem. Create your list of safeties and match schools based on the weakest part of your application and then throw in a few reach schools.
Will you need financial aid? If not then consider T20 schools that are need aware. Having a full pay student can be the tipping point. Especially next year the colleges will have a reckoning due to COVID19 losses. Schools like Vanderbilt, Emory, WashU, Rice might give you a decent look.
I think I would need financial aid. Would it still make sense to be applying to these top schools.
@momofsenior1 yup I am definitely looking at local safety and match schools. Do you think that having an upward trend can help off set my gpa?
If you need FA, then I honestly don’t see it happening with the need-aware colleges. Shift your attention to safety schools and others that have a strong CS department. Focus on schools that will be affordable. You might also consider the community college route. Do that for 1-2 years, then you should be able to transfer to a UC system college.
UC’s use 3 GPA’s in their application review and since SAT/ACT test scores have been suspended for the 2021 admission cycle, GPA will be an even bigger factor in their decisions.
Below is the UC GPA calculator to help you determine all 3 GPA’s. 6 of the 9 UC’s have average GPA’s of 4.0+ and with CS being one of the more competitive majors, a GPA below that threshold will limit your UC options but there are plenty of very good Cal states that have reputable CS programs to consider. UC Capped weighted GPA= CSU Capped weighted GPA
https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
2019 Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 3.40-3.79 capped weighted and not major specific:
UCB: 1%
UCLA: 2%
UCSD: 9%
UCSB: 6%
UCI: 7%
UCD: 9%
UCSC: 40%
UCR: 53%
UCM: 80%
2019 Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 3.80-4.19 capped weighted and not major specific:
UCB: 12%
UCLA: 7%
UCSD: 33%
UCSB: 32%
UCD: 47%
UCI: 35%
UCSC: 72%
UCR: 87%
UCM: 96%
2019 UC capped weighted GPA averages along with 25th-75th percentile range:
UCB: 4.23 (4.15-4.30)
UCLA: 4.25 (4.18-4.32)
UCSD: 4.16 (4.03-4.28)
UCSB: 4.16 (4.04-4.28)
UCI: 4.13 (4.00-4.25)
UCD: 4.13 (4.00-4.26)
UCSC: 3.96 (3.76-4.16)
UCR: 3.90 (3.69-4.11)
UCM: 3.73 (3.45-4.00)
I also agree with @coolguy40 that where you go to school will make little difference when it comes to finding jobs. My younger son attended SDSU as a CS major and after 1 1/2 years post grad is working at his dream job with a Cybersecurity company in SD.
Best of luck.
What safeties do you have? Are you only looking to apply to UCs or out of states as well?
@apcookie I’m not planning on going out of state unless its highly ranked school like t20’s . would probably be to expensive. As for safeties I was thinking lower tier uc’s and cal states.
As @coolguy40 said, you’ll do great wherever you go. UCLA and Berkeley will be hard to get into (they’re very elite schools!), but success is not measured by the prestige of the school you go to. Best of luck.