<p>Hello all,</p>
<p>I have just recently taken up programming and I feel that it is worth pursuing as a career option. I'm currently taking an introductory level computer science class at my school, but I will be taking AP computer science next year (12th grade). </p>
<p>Obviously, this level of experience pales in comparison to that of many applicants to high end, ultra-competitive schools. Do you think that I have any hope of getting into, say, stanford? Is there anything I can do to demonstrate that I'm worth accepting despite the fact that others have been programming longer? Or should I just plan on going into mechanical or electrical engineering, areas that I am also interested in?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>@mattmach15,</p>
<p>If you really want to pursue some kind of software engineering as a career, I don’t think you should let whatever university you’re accepted to influence the decision. Wherever you happen to be admitted, spend time honing your craft. Get involved in open-source projects. If there is some software you would like to have for your own purposes, write it. Plenty of people have had lucrative software engineering careers who didn’t go to top tier schools. There are also people who’ve gone to top tier schools who’ve found themselves unemployed. There’s no guarantee of success, but you control your own motivation.</p>
<p>Colleges have no expectation that a student has studied computer science in high school as many high schools do not yet have courses in CS or engineering for that matter. That is why they have introductory courses in every major! In fact most schools have multiple intro CS courses to address the different needs of incoming students.
Your GPA (and course rigor) and test scores are the most important factors on getting into the best schools.
Don’t get obsessed with Stanford or any other super selective schools, because you will just make yourself crazy trying to get into schools with single digit acceptance rates. There are lots of excellent schools beyond Stanford/MIT (though they are awesome of course!). Start doing some research into CS as a major and potential careers as well as good colleges.</p>