I want to major in computer science (first choice) or computer engineering and I live in Connecticut (OOS for most schools obviously)
Schools listed by my personally estimated admittance chance:
Georgia Tech (Waste of money lol)
Rice (Reach)
UT Austin (Reach)
Purdue (Match)
UMass Amherst (Match)
University of Wisconsin-Madison (Match)
University of Connecticut (Safety)
Financial Aid:
I will need financial aid and since most of my schools are state schools I’m sure it will count against me quite a bit.
My numbers and stats:
Nothing spectacular
White (European heritage), Male
SAT I: 1460 (760 Math. 700 RW)
SAT II: Chemistry: 800
9 AP’s: AP Computer Science A, AP Calculus A, AP Lang, AP Lit, AP US History, AP Stats, AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Physics 2
I took the highest classes available and participated in courses offered in our high school by our state flagship (UConn). I might send that transcript since it is all A’s. Also note that higher level AP’s like Physics C and Calculus BC are not offered at my school.
Major Extras:
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5 years experience in Karate and Judo (black belt in Karate and unranked in Judo); I do Judo with my school’s police officer in the morning). I also had to travel across the country to test for my karate black belt; the test was quite arduous. Also it should be noted that my Judo skills are very good and ranks in martial arts really can not be compared across different systems. I earned my black belt in karate after 4 years of training 5 days a weeks for 1-2 hours a day (mostly 2). In judo earning a black belt is multitudes harder from my experience.
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Part time job since sophomore year (I had to pay for my AP tests and college classes because I didn’t want to burden my family with all the expenses)
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Tutor for my National Honor Society branch here. I stay after twice a week and aid anyone who comes with their school work. I know National Honor Society isn’t anything special but I do it for them,
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This summer I attended like a week long camp at a local university about cyber security. We did everything from learning python to learning how to properly secure basic networks and also ow to attack them. The teaching wasn’t extremely expansive but we spent about ~10 hours a day for 5 days so we did learn quite a bit. The Steganography was by far my favorite lesson and they showed us various ways of doing it. Pretty cool.
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While learning and practicing Karate I also taught 3 days a week for about 3 hours a day (some days more and some less, depended on the week and who was missing). Whether it was adult bare knuckle fighting, teen kata practice, or a stretching seminar I was usually involved or full fledged teaching.
Note: I am talking about my karate experience in the past tense because I was severely hurt in a Ju Jitsu studio where I was on the bad end of arm bar and I had some ligaments partially torn. I am nearing a full recovery and I plan on returning mainly to Judo but also to karate.
I do have some other clubs and accomplishments but nothing like an international Olympiad medal. I am just wondering if, with a great essay and letters of rec I stand a chance applying regular decision to the colleges listed above. I mean I think I will be able to get into one or two of them right?