Guy with mid GPA interesting in good public and elite private schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
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  • Demographics: Texas, US citizen & resident, extremely large and competitive public high school, Pace University MBA legacy/other parent didn’t go to college, male, upper middle class South Asian American
  • Intended Major(s): Statistics & Data Science w/ a Philosophy, Informatics, or Econ minor
  • Future Plan(s): A PhD in some sort of statistical field & hopefully a job in the tech industry industry after or academia in a large public or private university
  • Stats: UW GPA: 3.6, Ranked top 18% of class of over 1400 students, 1590 SAT, 35 [ACT]
  • AP Scores: (5’s on all)
    • AP Human Geography (9th), AP World History/AP Biology (10th)
    • Junior Courses: AP Calc BC, AP Environmental Science, AP Stats, AP US History, AP English Lit, AP Physics C: Mechanics
    • Senior Courses: IB HL Math 2, AP English Language, AP Macroeconomics/Government, AP Chem
  • College Coursework (did on my own through MIT OCW or through mit .math .edu) - I followed the MIT Math Major Roadmaps (Geared in Probability & Statistics):
    • MIT 18.05, 18.700, 18.062, 18.338
  • Awards:
    • All-Region Orchestra (cello)
    • High School Swimmer of the Year
    • AP Scholar with Distinction
    • A world record in some “parlor trick” type skill
    • Winner of 3 national & 1 international writing competition
  • Extracurriculars:
    • Data Science Stuff:
      • OSSU Data Science Pathway:
        • Intro to Data Science, Python 4 Everybody, Java Programming, Algorithms Part 1 & 2, Database Management Essentials, Data Warehouse Concepts/Design/Data Integration, Relational Database Support, Data Science Methodology, Data Science Wrangling
      • Data Science Guided Projects: I did several data science projects with ideas that I’ve gotten from YouTube
      • Programs (Computational Skills): LaTeX, R, MATLAB, Git, GitHub, Python, C, SQL
    • Statistics:
      • Speed Reading: Practiced speed reading for around 1 year+, and have read and summarized hundreds of research papers relating to general statistics, but more specifically computational and social statistics in order to get a good grasp of statistical academia
      • Research: I have 5 research papers that I did independently or with the help of school teachers relating to a field in social or computational statistics (I tried combing them to make my own “social computational statistics”)
      • I am in the process of getting a patent relating to computational statistics
      • I have attended (online) around 9+ professional/collegiate statistical conferences/meetings/lectures
      • Was a volunteer statistical consultant for several of my friend’s rec league basketball teams as well as my parent’s architecture firm
      • Personal statistics projects: I was the official statistician for my friend’s rec league basketball team that was named after me (they decided on the name lol), and I had both regular and advanced metrics & stats, & I also did a lot of research on sovereign wealth funds and buy-side quantitative research after reading about the 1MDB scandal, created a document to help increase the revenue of the federal government without raising taxes & put it towards effective national programs to improve the country
      • Statistical societies: ACM SIGKDD, ACM SIGMOD, American Statistical Association, Bernoulli Society, International Association of Statistical Computing
    • Atomic Chess:
      • Top 200 of atomic chess players on lichess (out of several thousand players)
      • Top 75 of atomic chess players on chess dot com (out of several thousand players)
      • Participated or created around 10 atomic chess studies
      • Participated in the atomic chess world cup
      • Active in atomic chess tournaments (30+ done)
    • Work Experience:
      • Swim & lifeguard instructor for the community (CPR certified but idk if that’s even relevant)
      • Fast food shift manager for 2 different places
      • 3 month Amazon management internship over the summer
      • Google Data Analytics certified
    • Volunteering:
      • Created a district-wide program with my friends to teach students about the importance of financial literacy and had it embedded into the district’s curriculum
      • Partnered with people in Florida as well as the district to teach students with disabilities & low-income children the basics of learning
      • Created a blood drive with my friends at the school
    • Roughly 150 volunteering hours (food bank, cleaning my community, volunteering at swim meets, library, etc…)
    • Did a competitive Simon says event with my friends as well as a competitive shadow boxing event with the winner getting to donate the money raised to a charity of their choice
  • Writing:
    • Wrote a piece on south asian slavery in Dubai
    • Participated in 8 large (state, national, & international) level writing competitions
  • Swimming/athletic:
    • Swam in high school for 2 years, varsity all 2
    • Swam club for 5 years
    • Did calisthenics for 2 years
  • Miscellaneous EC’s:
    • ICDC qualifier
    • UIL calculator for 3 years
    • NHS, Science HS
    • Key club for 3 years
    • Officer in school’s South Asian club
    • Active member of school’s b-boy club
  • Miscellaneous things I’m interested in:
    • Gardening, especially peppers
    • Growing mushrooms
    • Latte art
    • Spirograph creations
  • Essays/LOR/Others:
    • I think I have pretty interesting essays I can write
  • Cost Constraints/Budget: None
  • Schools:
    • Safeties:
  • Texas A&M (RD), UT Dallas (RD), Ohio State (RD), UIUC (RD)
    • Targets:
  • Purude RD, University of Washington (RD), UT (ED)
    • Reaches:
  • CMU (RD), UC Berkeley (RD), Northwestern (RD), Uchicago (RD), Stanford (RD)

Thanks!

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I forgot to add the other MIT courses: 18.065, 18.100A, 18.600, 18.102, 18.125, 18.675, 18.335[J]

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I’ll only comment on a couple of the schools you listed:

  • UC Berkeley is test blind, they won’t see your high SAT at all.
  • U Washington is effectively test blind, they don’t use SAT in admissions except in very rare cases.

With your profile it would be better to focus on schools that use the SAT. There are lots of other great schools out there!

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The number one metric for all schools is GPA. Texas, Purdue, Illinois and Washington are all reaches with a 3.6.

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very interesting ecs!

  • from a fellow chess player
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Being outside of the top 6% automatic admission group makes University of Texas - Austin a reach.

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A&M is a reach based on rank outside the 10%…unless you are talking about an alternative path.

Ohio State and UIUC are matches at best.

Purdue and UW - reaches - in addition to your reaches.

You are the type of student that I believe has mis calibrated although I give you a shot at Ohio State.

You do have a lot of ECs / Awards that maybe change a little…but if I were you, I’d look beyond UTD - maybe other solid state schools that are a bit less compettiive. You like OSU - so how about UMN, Michigan State or Minnesota. Or some from the South - Bama, Ole Miss, MS State, Tennessee, etc.

Do you have cost issues - you don’t mention it - you can’t score a great scholarship at Bama for example - almost full tuition.

You mentioned Northwestern - so how about a Miami (reach) or U Denver - a likely, etc. And there’s more.

You are way too “reachy” in my opinion.

Good luck.

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@tsbna44 he says NONE for cost constraints.

I’m with everyone else. Your high SAT and not equivalently high GPA sort of indicate a possible underachiever. In addition, the schools you have listed will be using GPA as their main metric.

I think UTD is a possibility.

I agree with others that you need to look at some other options, given your GPA. Look for places that will consider highly that SAT score.

You absolutely need some sure things for admission!

@AustenNut you are usually very good at finding sure thing options. Any ideas for this student?

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What sort of job do you have in mind?
I can’t think of many tech industry jobs that require a PhD in a statistical field.

If your main interest is data science, there are many less reachy schools you could go to.

I think TCNJ (the College of New Jersey) is a target school for you, and this program might be a good match for your interests:

https://mathstat.tcnj.edu/academics/academic-programs/mathematics-data-science/

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As others have said, with a 3.6 you are aiming too high. It’s seems like you’ve spent too much time on ECs and not on schoolwork. When colleges look at applications they look at GPA first, some consider test scores and some won’t, then after those two hurdles are passed, some will look at ECs. Unless your ECs rise to the level of being a hook (star football player for example) they are just icing. You need to look for schools where a 3.6 is reasonable.

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Congratulations on your achievements.

I agree list is reachy and do think UTD will work out.

Also need to apply EA everywhere that’s offered so Purdue, UIUC, Ohio State, U Chicago.

If you want to maximize chances, consider applying ED at one of your schools.

Other schools that would be more likely admits include Iowa, Iowa State, Miami Ohio, Kansas, ASU, Arizona, and Alabama. They all have some flavor of stats/data science majors.

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I have a family member going through this now, lower GPA, excellent scores, so far one acceptance (Pitt). They didn’t realize how important GPA is over everything else, scores and EC’s. Fortunately he thinks he will be happy there (I do as well).

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There are quite a few Midwest flagships that would work, Iowa State, Iowa, and Kansas as examples. All are academically strong.

Want smaller? Truman State and Miami of Ohio.

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If you get all 5s in your junior year APs then I’d be looking at Oxford, especially the joint degrees with Philosophy and Math, Physics or Computer Science, eg Mathematics and Philosophy | University of Oxford

They don’t care about your GPA, only that you are good at test taking and in an interview.

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In addition to all of your ECs, what you have going for you is rigor. Many top colleges value this as highly as gpa.

I’m not sure why you are so focused on the most competitive schools. The fact that they are hard to get into doesn’t mean that the quality of the education is any better.

A hidden gem that I think would be a great fit for you is University of Rochester. It is a very academic environment and has excellent resources and top faculty. It’s PhD programs are also very strong.

Another similar school which is also worth a look is Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Like Rochester, they have strong programs in Statistics and Data Science.

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An exception might be Texas public universities, where class rank is typically the top factor. But the OP’s top 18% rank is outside of the top 10% or top 6% that would be most favorable at the more selective ones.

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Do you have an upward trend in your academics? If your grades in 11th were very high (and with your ability and your scores of 5 on AP exams, I would think that this is a possibility), I think that you might do well in admissions at private schools that might rely a little less on your overall GPA, and consider upward trend if they want you because of your wonderful ECs and fantastic test scores. I sure as heck would want to have you interviewed by someone at the school who is in the field of data science, if I were sitting on the admissions committee.

Were you national merit, or at least commendation? If you weren’t, then I wouldn’t bother with test-blind schools (UCs), since they won’t see those test scores, and maybe not with UW, since they’re making it very, very clear on their website that they’re not interested in test scores. Test scores | Office of Admissions
I suspect that the only reason that they’re gonna look at test scores is if they have a brilliant applicant who fits their desired narrative and sought demographic, who doesn’t have grades for some social reason, but does have test scores, so the test scores are what they can use to justify admitting the URM unicorn who had seriously disrupted schooling but still scored 99th% on the SAT. If you weren’t National Merit, you won’t be able to list that as an award to tell them about very high test scores.

Could you possibly collaborate on a research paper with a prof at one of your reach schools, and get something submitted for publication, plus get that prof to reach out to the admit committee at that school, saying, “We’ve got to take this kid, he’s brilliant, he may be the leading person in data science in this country ten years from now.” That kind of recommendation could get you into UT Austin, or maybe even MIT. But it’s gotta be with a prof at that school.

Otherwise, I would recommend safeties at flagship state U’s with overall lower selectivity, but very strong data science departments with corresponding grad departments, since you’re going to outstrip the undergrad courses in data science pretty darn quickly, I think. To what you’ve got, I’d add U Michigan as a reach, U Wisconsin as a match. Also look at schools with top MA programs in data science - some of the schools are not very selective for undergrad, but may be great for what you want.

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You’re right that you could definitely be described as interesting, and I mean that in the best of ways. Could you have perhaps spent less time on your ECs and more on your schoolwork to have a higher GPA? Sure. But would you have been as happy and as seemingly well-rounded as you are now? I doubt it. I am positive that you will gain acceptance to good schools where you can get an excellent education.

Below are some schools you may want to consider, classified according to my guesses as to how likely admission for you might be. To make the list they had at least 5k undergrads (and most have a lot more), as that seemed to be your preference. They generally needed to have adequate depth in statistics degrees (bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD, though sometimes it’s a PhD in math & statistics, or similar).

Extremely Likely (80+%)

  • George Mason (VA)
  • Indiana U.
  • Iowa State
  • Kansas State – often ranked among the happiest student bodies in the country
  • Loyola Chicago (IL)…only offers through a Master’s in Statistics
  • U. of Iowa
  • U. of Missouri – Columbia
  • U. of Texas – Dallas

Likely (60-79%)

  • Baylor (TX)
  • Rutgers – New Brunswick (NJ)
  • U. of Pittsburgh

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • George Washington (D.C.)
  • Lehigh (PA )
  • Southern Methodist (TX)
  • U. of Minnesota – Twin Cities
  • U. of Wisconsin – Madison

Lower Probability (20-39%)

  • Case Western (OH)
  • North Carolina State
  • U. of Connecticut
  • U. of Georgia
  • U. of Rochester (NY)

Low Probability (less than 20%)

  • U. of Chicago (IL)
  • Emory (GA)…there’s a PhD in math but no grad degrees specifying statistics. But you could also take cross-registration classes at Georgia Tech, should you max out on the offerings at Emory.
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Blockquote

This is spot on. While the GPA is not ideal and doesn’t match your incredible score, Texas schools focus a lot more on rank than actual GPA. 18% with a high score will definitely put you in range for A&M and maybe UT depending on major (though less likely than A&M).

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S23 is also a prospective data science major. His ACT is lower than OP’s but GPA is higher. He was admitted early to both Indiana U and University of Central Florida (for data science). He got a nice merit award from UCF. Florida publics require standardized testing, so you are ahead in that department. S23 is a New Englander at heart, but really liked the UCF campus. S23 used the UCF application which did not include the common app essay, so that was a plus.

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