His main EC’s are 4 years of Varsity High School basketball and club basketball (but he’s not good enough to get a scholarship), plays drum for a school’s music team, world ranked (top 2.5% out of 80000+ competitors) in a particular geeky hobby in which he started a school club and wrote a lot about in his essays.
He attended a competitive high school and as a junior took Calculus BC (grades B- /A-) and AP Computer Science (A-/A) and mostly honors classes. But he is your typical immature male student and got some B’s in regular history, english, spanish classes so his final GPA is 3.66 UW and 4.0 W. His SAT score is 1540 (800M/740V). His UC GPA will be 3.8 because most of his As were in his Freshman year.
He’s applied to 5 colleges EA and has a handful more he is planning to apply to. Assuming his essays and teacher recommendation letters are wonderful, what are his chances of getting into the following schools?
Could you guys rank the schools as reach, target, and safety for him. (Also, what does high reach and low reach mean?).The main point of this is for me to see if he has applied to enough schools because he really wants to get a good education in CS but we know how competitive it is. (Also, he is not a URM and has no special hooks)
Here is his list:
EA - U of Michigan
EA - Purdue
EA - Ohio State
EA - Santa Clara
EA - UIUC
RD - Boston U
RD - USC
RD - Georgia Tech
RD - UT Austin
UC Davis
UC San Diego
UC Riverside
UC Santa Cruz
UC Santa Barbara
UC Irvine
Cal Poly SLO
Cal Poly Pomona
Also, can anyone suggest some good CS safety and target schools for him to apply to ?
Note that UCs tend to emphasize GPA over test scores more than other schools (e.g. if you compare UCLA and USC frosh profiles, UCLA frosh had higher GPA, while USC frosh had higher test scores).
UIUC CS is generally considered a reach for anyone. UT Austin is a reach for anyone not in the auto-admit category, and is additionally competitive for CS.
Can you afford those out-of-state public universities?
I think he has a pretty good shot at UC Santa Cruz and UC Riverside–not safety exactly, but I would be surprised if not admitted. UCSB, UCI, UCD, Santa Clara, CP Pomona he’s got a pretty decent shot. UCSD, USC, Cal Poly SLO harder.
Since he’s applying to CP SLO and CP Pomona, he might as well apply to some other CSUs–SDSU, SJSU, Long Beach maybe. Or wherever he likes the location. With these and UCSC and UCR, very good shot at getting in somewhere.
I’m not calibrated for your out of state schools, but likely some of them will want your out-of-state tuition money.
For the OOS schools, I think Ohio State and Purdue would be matches or whatever the right word is. UM might be something of a reach because of GPA and how popular it has become. UIUC would normally be fine, but I haven’t kept track whether they do anything special with computer science.
Having lived in both CA and the Midwest, they aren’t the same (duh) and most of the students at the big midwest state schools are instate - Michigan somewhat excepted. So I’d visit if he gets in.
He’d find plenty of good pickup basketball games at those big schools…
@ucbalumnus gave you the link for the UC admit rate based on UC (capped weighted). I have broken out the data into a table form to see visualize it better. Going to a competitive HS will give him a boost especially with his very competitive SAT score.
Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 3.80-4.19 (capped weighted) and not major specific:
So his SAT score is above the 75th percentile and his UC GPA is within range for the majority of the UC’s. If his essays are well written and hit a note with Adcoms, he should be in good shape. UCSD will probably be the toughest admit along with Cal Poly SLO for the California schools.
I would call UCR a safety along with Cal Poly Pomona. UCSC looks like a solid Match and UCI/UCD and UCSB would go either way but he still has a decent chance. If he wants another safety, then SDSU/CSU Long Beach or CSU Fullerton as mentioned in one of the other posts. For San Jose State, his Eligibility index is above the 4500 CS threshold from last year so that school would be another good option.
Best of luck to him and I am sure he will many several good choices come Spring.
GA Tech would definitely be a reach for him, being out of state and for CS major. The only other school that I would know something about, is Purdue, and if he did EA, he has a good shot of getting in. From what I recall from D17’s BF, they will start releasing soon on Fridays sometime this month decisions. I know my D applied to indiana, and they also did rolling, and that was the first school she heard from.
If he’s interested in Texas schools and looking to add a safety, UT Dallas is very strong in CS and would be a safety for him and likely with good merit aid offered. UT Austin is a reach for him. Sounds like he already has some safeties though, so the UTD suggestion is just in case he is looking for an OOS safety.
Ditto Wisconsin as a top tier CS school. It is also in the upper tier for math. There is cross listing of math and CS classes for some courses plus a good math background is useful in CS. My son was an honors math at UW (remember not to confuse with U of WA) major who added CS and has done well in the field. It has a great campus as well with enough OOS students from outside the Midwest. His credentials may/may not get him in.
Gifted son had his best grades early on in HS, he became the slacker he derided as a young senior. I can relate, sigh. Son was an Honors math major who added the CS major (did some courses out of sequence) and works at a major player in the field. Currently UW asks for a major on the application but one can easily switch once in college, unlike some schools. At UW you get admitted to the university as a whole and you compete with all applicants for a spot regardless of chosen major.
D16 was admitted to SCU CS EA. She had similar numbers to your son. She visited after submitting her application and did a reasonable job at answering the why SCU? question.
Needed grades at UW noted. If you can’t get good grades for your major you really should consider a different one. Once you are a student you can take needed courses and get into many majors just by declaring them (a few have limited facilities and require more- teaching, nursing, some engineering majors- but at least when in the major you will be able to get classes in the major in a timely manner). At some schools you are admitted to a specific major and need to jump through hoops to change. Technically you are supposed to declare your major at some point and to take some classes but the reality is that choice is needed to graduate (know this because of how son did things).