Hi everyone, I am an international student attending a good private high school in the US. I will be a junior this year. I am really stressed out because all of my peers are doing quality extracurriculars, like working with university professors, doing research, and publishing papers. I have good grades, leadership experiences, and decent cs extracurriculars, but I still feel like I am really falling behind. Do I need research experience to get into top cs universities? If so, where can I get this kind of resource? Thank you!
No. But you should do things you enjoy. Robotics club. Get a job at McDonald’s. Sports. Band. Walk dogs at the shelter.
Do what you enjoy and kick butt academically, especially in math.
Don’t worry about others. Control what you can - you.
Few nationally are doing research in hs with college professors. Most kids are not.
The top CS schools are probably not the ones you’d guess. And no, you don’t need to be doing research and publishing papers to get accepted.
Keep excelling at the things you’re doing and you’ll be fine.
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This is great.
Keep in mind that “leadership” means making the activity better for everyone (or nearly everyone), and specifically “leadership” does not necessarily imply getting your way.
Top universities in the US are generally reaches for international students. However, there are many universities that are very good for CS.
Something that you might want to keep in mind if you are going to apply to highly ranked universities. You should not be trying to keep up with other students. At the “MIT, Stanford” level it really is not possible. Do not worry about what other students are doing. Instead you need to do what is right for you. Then have faith. This will work out.
Also, universities such as U.Mass Amherst or UNC Chapel Hill are very, very good for computer science. So is UVA, UC Boulder, Virginia Tech, Rutgers, or any of many, many other universities. You do not need to be doing original research or publishing papers to get accepted to these schools. MIT and Stanford graduates are working alongside graduates from all of these other schools and probably 100 other schools and no one cares where anyone got their bachelor’s degree. They care what you can do, whether your code works, and whether you properly test your code before you merge it into the main branch.
Exactly to both!
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