Chances for CS at Purdue, UWash and UCs

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi,

I’m a junior in High school and wanted to know if I can get into Purdue, UWash, or some UCs for Computer Science with my stats. The UCs are UCR, UCSC, UCI, UCSB,UCSD, and UCD

Unweighted GPA: 3.23
Weighted(uncapped): ~3.6
UC GPA: ~ 3.5
SAT: Taking in June, diagnostics around 2130, working for higher scores
Planning to take SAT 2: US History, Math Lvl 2, and Chemistry
State: CA
Highly Competitive High School, top 100 in nation
Honors/AP: Chem Honors, AP Chem, APUSH, Spanish 4 Honors, Precalculus Honors
Senior Year Courses (Most Likely): AP Calc AB, AP Gov, AP Econ, AP Spanish, Physics, AP Comp Sci
I’ve taken 4 CC courses during the school year all in CS and plan to take 4 more
CC GPA UW: 3.93, 3 As and 1 A-

Extra-Curriculars:
Treasurer of School Music Club
Indian Vocal Music for 8 years, have given a few solo concerts in it.
-Have one music competitions for Indian Music
~200 Hours of Volunteering
-Play Indian Flute for 3 years and Western Flute or 5 years
-In school’s highest level band as a flute player

I still have this semester and the summer to improve my grades but wanted to know where I stand and what I can do to improve myself at this point. Also, do first semester senior year grades affect college admissions?

2

For the UC’s: UCR and possibly UCSC would be your best chance.
UCI/UCSB/UCSD and UCD would be reaches since your GPA is below the average of 4.0+
Predicted SAT scores are useless until you get your real score, but even it is close to your predicted, you GPA will hold you back. You need to somehow improve that GPA to at least a 3.8, but even with that GPA your chances are low. All you can do is work hard and try to add more matches to your list based on your final Stats. Consider SJSU/CSULB/SDSU or CPP if you are in-state for California.

3

How about Purdue and UWash?

4

Purdue, UCR, and UCSC are definitely doable. University of Washington, maybe. They do value your GPA higher than test scores, but you seem like an excellent student if you are taking so many APs. The other UCs may be out of your reach, not sure though. UCSB and UCI would be low reaches, and SD and Davis would be a bit tougher. First semester grades do not affect decisions for UCs and UW. Some Common App schools (like Purdue) may take first semester grades into account but none of my schools did. You are required to send your first semester transcript to all Common App schools and if you have anything lower than a C that could be bad.

5

Does going to a top ranked high school help in the admission process since getting better grades would be a bit more difficult?

6

Going to a top school doesn’t help until you have a good GPA anyway. Yes, you certainly have to work for your GPA if you wanna get into those top UCs. A high SAT score would help

UCR: Match
UCSC: Match
UCD: High Match
UCI: High Match
UCSB: Low Reach
UCSD: Reach

7

What SAT score range would help to balance out my low gpa?

8

I don’t know about UWash or Purdue but if your GPA stays the same and you get 2100+ SAT UCR, UCSC, and UCI are pretty good chances. UCSB values GPA/SAT’s a bit higher than other schools so thats definitely a bit harder to get into so I would call that a low reach. You have reach at UCD and a high reach for UCSD.
-Good luck!