Chances for anxious applicant: CMU, Cornell, Rice, Stanford, others

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Anxious senior here. Yay stress!</p>

<p>School: Public, mildly competitive
State: TX
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
Full IB</p>

<p>Objective Stats:
-GPA: 3.79 (10-12th grade) unweighted
-Rank: 10 of 549
-SAT I: 740 CR, 800 W, 790 M (1530/2330)
-SAT IIs: 800 Physics, 800 Math II
-APs: 5 US History, 5 English Language
-IBs (out of 7): Computer Science Standard Level - 7</p>

<p>**Senior Year Courses:<a href="Planned%20testing%20level%20in%20()'s">/b</a>
-IB Physics 2 (HL)
-IB World Topics (HL)
-IB Spanish V (SL)
-IB Math (HL)
-IB Computer Science 2 (HL)
-IB English V (HL)
-IB Theory of Knowledge</p>

<p>Honors:
-National Merit Semifinalist
-National Honors Society (11-12)</p>

<p>Activities:
-Website creation for an online community for holding online competitions
-Academic Octathlon(Texas thing; 9-10)/Decathlon(11-12); Co-Captain(10); Captain(12); 1st Place District Competition (10-12); 1st Place Regional Competition (11)
-Mu Alpha Theta (11-12); President (12)
-UIL Mathematics and Calculator (10-12); 10th grade, district: 3rd math, 3rd calculator; 11th grade, district: 3rd math, 1st calculator
-UIL Computer Science (11-12); 1st Place District (11)
-Orchestra (9-10); Honors Orchestra (in-school); All-Region Orchestra (9)</p>

<p>Essays:
Very polished Common Application personal statement, Good for the rest</p>

<p>Teacher Recommendations:
-Physics teacher I've had for 2 years who also is my Theory of Knowledge teacher. Should be very good. (one of the top students in both of his classes)
-World Topics (IB world history, basically) teacher. Should be decent. (This one only goes to Cornell and Stanford)</p>

<p>Schools:
-Carnegie Mellon University (SCS) (Did a Sleeping Bag Sunday visit here)
-Cornell University
-Rice University
-Stanford University
-University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
-Georgia Tech</p>

<p>Applying for Computer Science at all the schools.</p>

<p>Thank you so much for your time!</p>

2

<p>Buuuuuuuuuuuuuump. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.</p>

3

<p>your resume is quite outstanding…
your UW gpa is OK, but not the best…however, that is offset by your very high rank
(top 2%)</p>

<p>if your essays show how passionate you are about computer science, i think you have a pretty good chance at your colleges</p>

<p>-Carnegie Mellon University : Match
-Cornell University: High Match
-Rice University: High Match
-Stanford University: (don’t be surprised if you get rejected) : High Reach
-University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Match
-Georgia Tech: Match</p>

4

<p>Thanks for the response. :)</p>

<p>Do they just look at the calculated GPA or do they look at the grades that earned it? Every single B I have past freshman year is an 89 (and everything else consists of A’s). Would that matter? Also, all of the B’s are in languages or history (nothing in the sciences or maths), so I’m hoping that helps a bit in light of my intended major.</p>

<p>Concerning passion for computer science, my personal statement essay is about using my programming abilities to help a community (the top EC up there), and my supplement responses to why I’m applying to a particular major or school all show passion thoroughly, I believe.</p>

<p>Any other opinions?</p>

5

<p>Only a 2330 on the SAT? I would be anxious too if I were you.</p>

6

<p>Scores aren’t everything. It’s not like I’m getting in to all my schools from that (…or at all).</p>

7

<p>But a 2330 is very low. A whole 70 points from a perfect score.</p>

8

<p>i think u have a good chance, the thing that might hold u back is a lack of leadership positions, but id still say in everywhere</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/627471-chance-sista.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/627471-chance-sista.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

9

<p>Thanks for the response.</p>

<p>Any other opinions?</p>

10

<p>is computer science under the engineering colleges for all your schools?</p>

11

<p>At CMU (School of Computer Science) and Georgia Tech (College of Computing) - no.
Cornell, Stanford, Rice, UIUC - yes.</p>

12

<p>Anyone else? </p>

13

<p>I can’t imageine you’d run into trouble anywhere except standford.</p>

<p>Chance me: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/622237-so-am-i-totally-screwed-3.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/622237-so-am-i-totally-screwed-3.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

14

<p>a 3.79 in top 2% isnt that impressive, means your school is weak, but yes I think you’d be fine for most holy bumps are Stanford and Cornell, and dont be surprised by Carnegie Mellon or Rice…they are tricky</p>

15

<p>The GPA thing is…interesting.</p>

<p>Our school does out of 5.0 for AP, and out of 6.0 for IB. And then, if we’re just looking at the regulars credit part, 97-100 = 4.0, 94-96 = 3.6666, 90-93 = 3.3333333. Same thing in the 80s and 70s shifted down by 1.0.</p>

<p>So you could have all A’s and have an unweighted GPA of 3.33.</p>

<p>The reason I’m rank 10 out of 549 (I started at 34 freshmen year and have been moving up since, because I began to care) is because all of my B’s except for one are above 87. Weird system. </p>

<p>Also, our school has double digits of National Merit Semi-Finalists, and an 4x people in the full IB program. I don’t consider it weak (…in most facets). It’s just a weird system that is hopefully explained on the letter with the transcript.</p>

<p>Schools recalculating GPA should also help (there’s no unweighted GPA on our transcript o_O 4.954545 is the only thing listed)</p>

<p>Thanks for the chances.</p>

16

<p>Any more…?</p>

17

<p>i would say you’re in for everywhere but Cornell and Stanford. Cornell is a high match and Stanford is a reach.</p>