Finalizing Schools (Girl, CS Major) -- Any Suggestions Appreciated!

College Search & Selection
1

Hi everyone! I’ve been starting to finalize my college list and I was wondering if I had a good range of schools, and also if anyone had any other suggestions. I’m majoring in computer science, and would prefer to stay in California although I’m not completely against going out of state. I’m planning on EAing when possible. My parents would preferably spend about $25k a year for my college, but that’s not a hard max. Our family’s income is over $100k.

Asian girl
UW GPA: 3.98
Weighted GPA (9-11): 4.40
Weighted GPA (10-11): 4.65
UC GPA: 4.25
SAT: 1550 (760 English, 790 Math) single sitting
SAT II: Math II (770), Bio M (760)
ACT: 32 (35 E, 34 M, 32 R, 29 S) – not sending if I don’t have to
APs: CS Principles (5), Euro (3), Bio (5), Lang (5), USH (5), Computer Science A (5)
Honors classes: Chemistry, Spanish, Precalc
(I don’t know if this counts for anything, but I got the highest scores possible on the CAASP test)

Awards:
Cross-Country Coach’s Award
Student of Excellence (like Student of the Year) from CS teacher

ECs:
1.5 years working at pizza restaurant
3 years cross-country
1 year track
About 40 hours of volunteer work in Mexico building houses
Mentor at 1 month Python programming class for middle schoolers and high schoolers
Helped my CS teacher develop new interactive lessons, activities, and labs for CSP over the summer
2 years of Science Alliance Club (1 year being an officer)
Self-published two books (physical and ebook versions), one in elementary school and one in middle school
Self-published free short story ebook in middle school, it’s gotten over 4000 downloads on Amazon

Letters of Rec:
CS teacher (had her for APCSP, APCSA, Game Design, and I’m going to tutor for her), she writes really good letters of recommendation and she knows me very well (gave me the Student of Excellence award)
World Geography and APUSH teacher–he’s very nice, I’ve known him since 9th grade and he likes me, he cares about his students, should be good

Essays:
Very good

Senior Schedule:
AP Stat
AP Comp Gov
AP Calc
Honors Physics
AP Macro/Microeconomics
Creative writing/expository english
Game Design/Programming

Colleges:
CalTech (super reach)
Cal Poly SLO
Claremont McKenna
Georgia Tech
Harvey Mudd
Santa Clara University (safety?)
Stanford (super reach)
Tulane
UC Berkeley
UC Davis
UC Irvine
UC Los Angeles
UC San Diego

I know my list is a bit long, but with CS being so difficult to get into, I thought I should increase my chances. I’m worried that I have too many reach schools. I’ve been told a wide variety of things about my chances, mostly based on how much my gender will help me. I would appreciate any feedback/suggestions. Thanks in advance!

2

I can’t help very much with regards to suggestions, but I’m of the (I believe unpopular?) opinion that there is (usually) no such thing as too many reach schools—contingent on the fact that you have the time to give 100% effort to ALL your applications, you have realistic expectations, and enough safeties and matches.

I know quite a few CS majors who applied last year and were rejected by every, or almost every, school they applied to because they did not think they needed a safety. I think it’s smart of you to have a long list, and it looks pretty well balanced to me!

You may want to look into the gender % in the CS department at each of the schools you’re applying to. Being female may benefit you at some schools, and be pretty negligible at others.

Good luck!

3

Thank you so much for your quick response! Your feedback is very helpful, I will be sure to check out those percentages.

4

Have you and your parents run the net price calculator on the web site of each college?

Assuming affordability, you may want to add more UCs as match or likely colleges.

5

I would drop Tulane from the list. They don’t have a full computer science major, just one that is coordinated with other majors. I believe you will be accepted at many of the UCs, if not all. You may want to use UCSC as a safety since it has courses in computer game design.

6

Tulane upper level CS course offerings appear to be heavy in theory and AI, but limited in other subareas.

7

CS is not hard to get into for girls. Every school is trying to balance the girl/boy ratio in CS and engineering. You didn’t mention race, but if you are a non-Asian girl, with your stats, you can literally walk into any CS program in the country.

Drop Tulane and Santa Clara. Add MIT, Cornell, and University of Washington.

8

@ucbalumnus No, we haven’t run the calculator yet but I will be sure to do so soon. Thanks for your help!

@bogeyorpar I did mention my race, but it probably got lost in all the other information I listed. Unfortunately, I am indeed Asian, haha.

@BunnyBlue Thank you for that info. After hearing what you and @ucbalumnus said, I think I might drop Tulane. I guess I was just enticed by their free application. :slight_smile:

9

If you’re interested in another relatively safe school and are willing to look out of state, you might consider IUIC, where CS is genuinely elite. It’s also super-elite at Carnegie-Mellon, but that’s not quite as safe (more of a match/low-match, imo). You look like a great candidate, and your list looks pretty reasonable to me. (And go to Mudd!)

10

UIUC CS would be reach for everyone, though some may be admitted to the school but not the CS major.

UIUC would also be unaffordable to a non IL resident with a $25k per year price limit.

11

You need to run the calculators. That will help pare your list.

12

@intparent Will do, thanks!

13

I can say now, GTech will not be affordable, so you can take it off your list.

14

How about a university that:
Has a President who is an accomplished CalTech geochemist (https://www.wpi.edu/people/faculty/laleshin);
Has a long established CS program;
Is rapidly approaching a 50/50 ratio of women to men (i.e., possible aid);
Has an average, unweighted GPA of 3.86;
Has very strong women’s track and cross country teams ( but MIT is our nemesis);
Has all students research, on scholarships with teams of 3 or 4 students on real world problems all over the world;
Has all students spend one of three projects on the interface of STEM and society;
Has only 155 CA students in a population of the 3,787 undergraduates,

And is all about teamwork!

See https://www.wpi.edu/

WPI '67

15

Also, CMU SCS is a reach for everyone; no one should call it a low match.

16

Although the acceptance rates for females tends to be higher than for males in CS/engineering, it’s is thought that this is due to a self-selecting effect. Schools don’t lower their standards for females.

Keep Santa Clara on your list. It’s not a safety. Show them some love.

Check out SDSU as well. CS is very impacted in Caifornia.

Look at the other Claremont colleges too. When D16 was looking, I had read that it was difficult for students at other colleges to get into the HMC computer science courses, so she didn’t apply. I’ve since been told that that info was incorrect.

17

Oops. ^^ Meant SJSU, not SDSU. Haven’t had my second cup of coffee yet.

18

IMHO she is too good for SJSU. She will get into some UCs.

19

I wouldn’t count on majoring in CS at Mudd from another Claremont school these days. Mudd had some real challenges last year because of the flood of students from the other campuses in their CS courses. They’ve been working to add faculty, but have put some restrictions on registration for Mudders and non-Mudders alike to deal with this. It is not all played out yet, and there may be more changes to come. If you want to major in CS, I’d go in with the assumption that you have to major at your own school.

20

And it’s back to what it was before.

Probably, but her list has a lot of reaches. IMHO, she should have more matches and safeties so that she has some choice come April. SJSU CS grads are quite successful.