CS to UIUC, Stanford, more!

Chance Me / Match Me!
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CS Major to Stanford, UIUC, etc.!

Demographics: Male, Asian, and I go to a top 10 ranked (by USNews) high-school in the country (I won’t say the exact one for privacy reasons) extremely competitive

Intended Major(s): Computer Science

ACT/SAT/SAT II: 1560 SAT

UW/W GPA and Rank: 3.86 UW, 4.36 W post-junior year

Coursework:

Sophomore year: AP CS (5)

Junior year: Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, (Both of these classes are post-AP classes so they are weighted 5.0), APUSH, AP Calc BC, AP Chem (at least a 4 on all 3 of these exams)

Senior year: Machine Learning, Multivariable Calc/Linear Algebra, (Both of these are post-AP), AP Physics C, AP Gov, AP Lang, Research Lab at my school

The rest of my classes are all honors except for like gym and stuff

Awards: Not a huge amount of awards, I’ve won a good amount hackathons, I’ve got USACO under my belt and I’m trying to get gold but that might not happen, I’ve got some Latin awards, I’m also looking to do a good amount Kaggle over the summer (idk if this actually leads to awards lol)

Extracurriculars:

  • I had a software engineering internship last summer and I’m looking to get some sort of internship (maybe research, maybe a normal one) this summer as well.
  • I’m an officer of the Coding Club and a discussion-based-CS club at my school and I also participate in the Machine Learning Club.
  • I’ll have around 150 hours volunteering as a CS tutor by the end of the summer.
  • I volunteer writing for a newsletter on topics surrounding tech/CS/engineering stuff.
  • There’s USACO/Kaggle that I mentioned before.
  • I build a good amount of personal projects incorporating things like AI and Machine Learning.

Essays/LORs/Other: idk I’m a pretty decent writer but I haven’t written anything yet so who knows what’ll happen. As for my LORs, they probably aren’t amazing given we’ve been online all year but, again, who knows. (some schools I’m applying to like UIUC don’t even read/require rec letters so there’s that)

Schools:

Here’s my full list (I kinda based this off of the scattergrams of students at my school so if there were a lot of acceptances around my GPA/SAT, I put it as a target or safety. lmk if any of these are unreasonably located):

Reach: Stanford, MIT, CMU, UT-Austin

Target: UIUC, UCLA, UW-Seattle, UW-Madison

Safety: Pitt, UMass Amherst (idk if this is a safety someone lmk thanks), UMD, UCSD

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Wanted to add I’m also a National Merit Semifinalist at the least, maybe a finalist. Don’t know how helpful that is but it’s there. :slight_smile:

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For UMass Amherst you have a good chance I believe, but their Admissions is holistic. Lot of high stat kids get waitlisted or sometimes declined. It’s top 10 in US for AI/ML which you likely aware, but worth noting. There was a thread posted last year on CC about many High Stat in-state kids being waitlisted and declined, while lower stat out of state admitted, you may want to check out. Good luck wherever you end up!

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As I wrote on your other thread, UIUC CS is more along the lines of a high target/low reach. UW Seattle would be a low reach, since CS admission are 28% on average, and OOS applicants have lower acceptance rates than in-state, so it is likely closer to 25% for OOS applicants.

Like for UIUC, Naviance cannot help with UW Seattle for direct admission to CS, since it only looks at the average across applicants to all majors at UW.

UCSD is not a safety - admission rates for your GPA, which most likely translates into a UC weighted and capped GPA of under 4.19, is around 35%-38%. So, at most, it is a high target.

UCLA is not a target, since admission rates for applicants with your UC weighted and capped GPA are 8%. So it is a reach, and a high one at that.

To calculate your UC GPA: GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

Also, check whether colleges on your list are test blind, which could have a negative impact on your applications, since your SAT is in the top 1% and higher, but your GPA is a bit low for the colleges with the lowest acceptance rates.

Being at an a very highly rated high school helps, but that is strongest in your state of residence (USNews only ranks public high schools), and colleges in some other states may not know of the reputation of your high school.

Best of luck!

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For CS neither UIUC or UW-Seattle. UIUC also next year is going to be on the common app so expect them to have even more applications than in prior years making it if one can imagine, even harder to get in. It’ll be interesting what happens as far as LOR’s and the Common App essay, but generally they do not look at either. UIUC as a whole would be a likely, but CS is not a target/likely for anyone. UW for OOS takes hardly anyone so don’t get over confident about that either.

Another school that you may want to add as a possible target is Purdue. I would put it in line and more desirable even than UW-Madison. Huge career fair. You may also want to consider Georgia Tech or Michigan but can’t really call those Targets either. With most schools already having announced test optional and the continued growing popularity of CS expect next year to be another tough admissions year and plan accordingly and have true safeties.

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Thanks so much for your responses on both threads! I just had a quick question about my UC GPA. My grades during 10th and 11th grade have been straight As with one A- in a semester math class. It’s essentially 9th grade that’s bringing down my non-UC GPA. During that time I’ve taken 6 AP-weighted classes (which I think corresponds to UC-honors). That amounts to 14 A’s and 6 Honors which seems to come out to a 4.29 capped and 4.43 uncapped if I’m calculating it right. Does that improve my chances at all to both UCLA and UCSD?

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Absolutely! That would put UCLA in the high target/low reach range (around 37% admission rate), and put UCSD into the low target range (acceptance rates of around 70+%).

I think that it would be 28 A’s and 12 honors, since they calculate by semester, but your weighted capped and weighted come out the same as those you calculated.

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Hawksgettds, It pains me to say this, but don’t get your hopes up for CMU, AKA “The Nerd Farm”. Admissions are 5% for CompSci. Unfortunately, the university has established a target of 50% men / 50% women class composition for all STEM majors, including CompSci. Since far more men apply for CompSci programs than women this means that the acceptance rate for guys drops to 2-3%, and the acceptance rate for the gals is far higher (30%?). I am not saying you shouldn’t apply, just know the odds.

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OP is an Asian male from a HS with a high concentration of Asian applicants to CMU SCS. His odds are even lower.

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Yup, I know my odds are pretty low but my school had about a 35% acceptance there this year (though from both girls and guys) so I thought it would be worth at least applying. Thanks for the info!

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UCLA is a Reach school and since they are test blind along with the rest of the UC’s, the other parts of the application will be much more highly weighted. Your GPA is competitive along with the rest of your application but with around a 5-6% acceptance rate for CS at UCLA , it still should be considered a Reach school. Also UCLA does not consider alternate majors, so it is all or nothing.

UCSD for CS would be a High Match school but they do consider alternate majors although they recommend not to select a capped/selective major as an alternate.

Below are the admit rates for 2020 since 2021 may not be available until later in the year or early next year. These are overall admit rates and do not reflect the difficulty of being admitted for CS which will have much lower percentages.

If you can afford UCLA and UCSD, I would add in one or two more UC’s for better chances like UCB, UCI or UCSB.

If you are not a CA resident, be aware that UC’s offer little to no financial aid so expect to upwards to $65K/year to attend.

2020 Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 4.20 or above capped weighted and not major specific:

UCB: 37%

UCLA: 38%

UCSD: 78%

UCSB: 81%

UCD: 86%

UCI: 60%

UCSC: 92%

UCR: 97%

UCM: 98%

2020 UC capped weighted GPA averages along with 25th-75th percentile range:

UCB: 4.22 (4.13-4.30)

UCLA: 4.25 (4.18-4.31)

UCSD: 4.16 (4.04-4.28)

UCSB: 4.15 (4.03-4.27)

UCI: 4.11 (3.96-4.26)

UCD: 4.11 (3.97-4.25)

UCSC: 3.94 (3.71-4.16)

UCR: 3.88 (3.65-4.11)

UCM: 3.68 (3.40-3.96)

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All of your “targets” and UCSD should be considered reaches for direct admission to the CS major. Some of them may admit to a second choice major or general undeclared (DGS at UIUC, pre-science at Washington, etc.), in which case getting into the CS major through secondary admission after enrolling is difficult (e.g. at UIUC, need a 3.75 college GPA just to be eligible to enter a competitive admission process).

Massachusetts and Maryland also have capacity limitations on their CS majors, so direct admission (if available) may be more difficult than admission to the school overall.

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One of my friend‘s daughter got into UIUC CS and rejected by UCSD CS for the class of 2025. Another friend’s son got into UT Austin Turing Program but waitlisted by UIUC CS for the class of 2024.