Chance Please? Will Chance Back!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Just a prediction of “Accepted”, “Deferred”, or “Rejected” for each. Thanks. Applied in Computer Science/ Computer Engineering to all, so schools/colleges of engineering.

Applying to…
University of Michigan - Accepted EA
University of Maryland
UC Berkeley
UCLA
Washington University in St. Louis
Georgia Tech
Columbia University
Harvey Mudd College
Cornell University (5 legacies, parents, grandparents, great grandparents)
Carnegie Mellon University (Applied to school of CS)
Johns Hopkins University (Applied to BME Program)
USC
Princeton University (2 legacies, both of whom are very connected with the school.)
Stanford University

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 1580 (790 M, 790 R/W, 23/24 Essay) (1 Sitting)
ACT (breakdown): 35 (35 Math, 36 Science, 34 English, 33 Writing) (1 Sitting)
SAT II: 800 Math II, 780 Bio
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.80 w/o freshman year , 3.7 with.
Weighted GPA (Out of 5.0): 4.7 w/o freshman year , 4.5 with.
Lots of the schools i’m applying to cut out freshman year from their GPA calculations.
Weighted and capped GPA (For UCs): 4.03
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Top 10%, extremely competitive magnet program school

AP (place score in parenthesis): National AP Scholar, Computer Science (5), Biology (5), Physics (5), Chemistry (4), Statistics (4), BC Calculus (5), English Lang (5), World History (4), NSL (5)

IB (place score in parenthesis): N/A
Senior Year Course Load: Linear Algebra, Mathematical Physics (Crazy hard), Marine Biology, Political/Sports statistics, Honors English, AP Macro, Research Project

Pretty crazy course rigor throughout HS: Quantum Physics, Organic Chemistry, Linear Algebra, Discrete Math, Cell Physiology, Immunology, Analytical Chem, Physical Chem, Bio Chem, and all AP english and social studies’.

All the math/science courses i’ve taken are college level, above AP.

Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National Merit Semifinalist, National AP Scholar, AP Scholar with distinction.

Subjective:

Extracurriculars (leadership in parenthesis):

Debate Team (Captain of school team), Also on an independent team. Top 200 in the country, made NSDA Nationals and a bunch of other national tournaments. Round of 16 at a big international debate tournament, have gone far in a bunch of other national tournaments too.

3rd degree Black Belt, Have won a few sparring competitions

Independent Soccer Team (Captain, Goalkeeper) On it since kindergarten
Independent Baseball/Basketball teams, Low-level

Surf and Rock climb a lot, wrote some essays about the rock climbing community.

Job/Work Experience: Interned in a well-known Parkinson’s disease lab over the summer at UCLA, invented something to improve their research… Possible that I may get a patent on it.
Camp counselor the previous two summers

Volunteer/Community service: Lots of miscellaneous stuff, but the Camp counselor work experience was as a volunteer.
Summer Activities: (See above)

Essays (rating 1-10, details):

Essays are 9+, both parents are writers and I have them working with me on them. I’ve got a lot of dramatic, good stories about how my grandparents have Parkinson’s so I did Parkinson’s research, carried a kid out of a valley on my back during a camping trip when he gashed his knee open, etc. I pretty consciously tailored my essays to what the different schools I applied to were looking for in students.

Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):

Teacher Rec #1: Computer Science Teacher, 8/10. He had everyone he gave a rec to fill out a form, so I gave him a bunch of good material to write about. Very eloquent guy, Harvard journalist turned CS major, should be a good rec.
Teacher Rec #2: Economics teacher: 9-10/10. Loves me, I get hundreds on everything in his class.
Counselor Rec: 8/10. I talk with her fairly often, she likes me. Gave her some good material to write about
Additional Rec:10/10 From the PI of the lab where I worked, well-respected researcher. Said he would write a “Glowing” rec for me at the end of the internship
Interview: I interview well, have had a few and they’ve gone well so far.

Other

Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes, but don’t really need it
Intended Major: Computer Engineering/Computer science/BME, maybe double major with econ/business
State (if domestic applicant): MD
Country (if international applicant): N/A
School Type: Public, Magnet
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: Upper
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): No real hooks

Thanks for reading this far. Again, just a Accepted, Denied, or Deferred for each college… I know some are hard to predict.

2

strong applicant but your major really works against you, as i’m sure you know. these are my predictions:

u maryland - accept
ucb - reject if applied to eecs, accept/waitlist if applied to l&s cs
ucla - reject or waitlist maybe
wustl - accept
georgia tech - accept
columbia - reject
harvey mudd - reject
cornell - accept
cmu - probably reject because scs is insanely competitive
jhu - reject probably because BME is #1 in country and extremely extremely competitive
usc - accept
princeton - probably reject/waitlist, but the legacies could push you over the edge
stanford - reject, as you are probably prepared for

this is in no way meant to be completely accurate or anything, i’m just a high school senior who’s applying to colleges as well. you’re a strong applicant but you’ve chosen literally the most competitive major so it’s unpredictable. i am confident you’ll end up somewhere great tho! chance back? http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-general/1952689-what-are-my-chances-at-ucs.html#latest

3

Hi, I’m also applying for computer science related majors, so I can give you some insight with my current knowledge in this process.

With your SAT score and GPA, there’s a great chance that you will have for some of the colleges listed. Furthermore, your rigorous courses will really stand out in the college application process.

However, what will really kill your application, is your lack of computer science related extracurricular activities.

I do see very good ECs that will boost your chances, but barely any of them relate to the computer science field (which will be very hard when colleges are trying to compare you to other applicants).
Though, you are very well-rounded from what I’ve read (especially with physical activities).

Here are my predictions to each college:

University of Michigan - Accepted
University of Maryland - Accepted
UC Berkeley - 50/50 chance of Accepted and Deferred
UCLA - 50/50 chance of Accepted and Deferred
Washington University in St. Louis - Accepted
Georgia Tech - Accepted
Columbia University - Deferred
Harvey Mudd College - Deferred
Cornell University (5 legacies, parents, grandparents, great grandparents) - Accepted
Carnegie Mellon University (Applied to school of CS) - Deferred
Johns Hopkins University (Applied to BME Program) - Accepted
USC - Accepted
Princeton University (2 legacies, both of whom are very connected with the school.) - Deferred
Stanford University - Deferred

I don’t want to say rejected for any of them because your application stands out to all of those colleges (and would have a really good chance of getting in), but it’s difficult with your ECs…

Please chance me back (I would love a % chance and explanation with anything to improve on),
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20200175#Comment_20200175

4

@Shadowsych thanks for your feedback. On what I know for comp sci, although I’ve got somewhat limited ec specifics, I’ve taken a lot of coursework in it, and that’s relevant to it; analysis of algorithms, data structures, discrete math, linear algebra, etc. I also know java, python, HTML, JavaScript, some swift, and a bunch of other languages, and mention some projects that I’ve done in my essays.

5

You have great stats! However, as mentioned before, your lack of subject focus in your EC’s is kinda weird. I get that you know all those programming languages and have done some projects, but realize that ALMOST ALL CS applicants to those top schools have done those AND done much more such as the Intel competitions or the Google competitions. Your academics surely aren’t an issue, however.

University of Michigan - Accepted
University of Maryland - Accepted
UC Berkeley - Most probably accepted, could be deferred
UCLA - Accepted
Washington University in St. Louis - Accepted
Georgia Tech - Accepted
Columbia University - Rejected
Harvey Mudd College - Deferred
Cornell University (5 legacies, parents, grandparents, great grandparents) - Accepted
Carnegie Mellon University (Applied to school of CS) - Rejected
Johns Hopkins University (Applied to BME Program) - Deferred (remember that their BME program is top notch)
USC - Accepted
Princeton University (2 legacies, both of whom are very connected with the school.) - Deferred, possibly rejected
Stanford University - Rejected

Take my advice with a grain of salt though. With stats as great as yours, you will possibly get into most of those unis, but if you had more focused EC’s on computer science, or programming, I’d bet my tongue you’d get into every single one of those unis.

I too am a senior (international applicant) trying to get in. Chance me?

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1952643-chance-me-guys-please-i-cant-sleep-at-night.html#latest

6

@SATHATER6969 Chanced you. On my applications, I’m marketing myself is as someone who wants to apply computer science to a lot of things; I know that’s what a lot of these schools look for, rather than somebody who’s only good at one thing (Columbia, Princeton, and some other places all talk about that). That’s essentially what my internship was, where I wrote out a ton of code, to make it so the lab could fully automate their research, and they’re actually using it now. I’ve gone to a bunch of camps and things, but I actually explain my lack of emphasis on pure CS in my essays: I wanted to do neuroscience for a while, but switched to want to do CS/Engineering after my internship. I’ll have recs from a few people testifying to my being good at CS, and have some other school projects where I coded a ton of stuff that I talk about. I also mention applying to BME as a secondary major in a lot of my applications, so I guess I’m marketing myself differently from how a lot of people do. We’ll see how it works out, but that’s the reason I don’t have the ECs focused on it.

7

Oh, that makes a lot of sense then. I was wondering why someone as accomplished as you didn’t seem at focused, but you were just exploring interests and I think that’s a very normal thing that colleges won’t mind. Good luck!

8

Oh, and for the ucs, my capped gpa is 4.03, and uncapped is 4.7

9

U maryland - accept
Ucb - I would say accept
Ucla - accept or perhaps waitlist
Wustl - don’t know much about this school
georgia tech - accept
Columbia - reject
harvey mudd - reject
cornell - accept
cmu - probably reject
jhu - reject/waitlist
usc - accept
princeton - reject
stanford - reject (But you never know for this one!)

10

@leeelz thanks.

11

1st off, wow!
I’ll speak primarily for the Cali colleges bc I don’t know as much about the rest.
1 big prob I forsee with UC’s is that they may not recognize all of your courses or won’t see them as honors, thus the lower UC GPA

UCB- idk, its close. If you applied CS accepted, CE- deferred/accepted, UC GPA is a tad bit low
UCLA- accepted (a lot of people apply tho, so still pretty iffy)
GeorgiaTech- accepted
Harvey Mudd- idk, its a ridiculously small school. Accepted
USC- accepted
Stanford- who knows, its Stanford. You have a good shot tho, I’ve seen people with resume’s similar to yours get in, your GPA is just a little low. Deferred or Accepted

12

@Hershey890
1st off, thanks!
For the UC colleges, I made it clear in my application that the things were UC approved honors+ courses, as an admissions representative for them said I should. (I’ve also got a little bit of an in at UCLA since that was where I interned) Yeah, but capped GPA is low, but do you have any idea how much they look at capped GPA vs as uncapped? My uncapped for them will be 4.6-4.7, so I was imagining there being a balance somewhere between the uncapped and capped; I may be completely wrong. thanks again!

13

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1710354-uc-capped-gpa-vs-uncapped-gpa-vs-9-12-gpa-what-is-the-truth.html I found this helpful, essentially they look at all 3, and uncapped is looked at to determine academic rigor.

14

I’m no expert, so I mostly based this off of the people I know who have gotten into these schools and their stats compared to yours (which are really good).

University of Maryland - accept
UC Berkeley - accept (quite a few from my school go every year, even to eecs, with lower stats)
UCLA - accept
Washington University in St. Louis - accept
Georgia Tech - accept
Columbia University - reject
Harvey Mudd College - defer
Cornell University - accept
Carnegie Mellon University - defer
Johns Hopkins University - defer
USC - accept
Princeton University - reject
Stanford University - reject

15

Umaryland-Accept
umichi-accept
berkely-Accept/deferred
Ucla-Accept
Washington University-Accept
GA Tech- accept
columbia-rejected
Harvey Mudd-Accept
Cornell-Accept Legacy have good advantage especially with amazing portfolio
CMU-Reject
JHU-Accept
USC-accept
Princeton-Heavily involved prob accepted but could be either or. depending on your parent’s relationship with admissions officers
Stanford-Accept or reject 50/50

16

University of Michigan - Accepted EA
University of Maryland -Accept
UC Berkeley - Accept/Deferred, very competitive for every applicant
UCLA - Accept
Washington University in St. Louis - Accept
Georgia Tech - Accept
Columbia University - Deferred
Harvey Mudd College - Deferred, possibly accepted. Tough one
Cornell University (5 legacies, parents, grandparents, great grandparents) - Accepted
Carnegie Mellon University (Applied to school of CS) - Defer
Johns Hopkins University (Applied to BME Program) - Defer
USC - Accept
Princeton University (2 legacies, both of whom are very connected with the school.) - Accept, legacies should help but very competitive for every applicant
Stanford University - Defer but have a great chance bc of your strong application

Wish you the best of luck! you’ll have a tough choice of where to attend college with your terrific stats and potential choices

17

@lepidopteran Thanks a lot, I think that’s really the best anyone can do

@nocontest Thanks a lot, it’s actually not my parents, but my grandparents.

@FLapple355 Thanks a lot, a lot of choices is really all anybody can hope for.

18

Maryland: 80%.
UC Berkeley: 60%.
UCLA: 70%.
WUSTL: 65%.
Georgia Tech: 70%.
Columbia: 55%.
Harvey Mudd: 55%.
Cornell: 65%.
Carnegie Mellon: 60%.
Johns Hopkins: 55%.
USC: 65%.
Princeton: 50%.
Stanford: 40%.

19

Thanks

20

I’d say all for sure except Columbia, and Stanford.