Have I helped or hurt my chances at getting into Stanford's Data Science Program?

Graduate School
1

Hello,

I’m a freshman at Virginia Tech. I am double majoring in Statistics and Computational Modeling and Data Analytics. I know it may be too early too be considering Graduate programs, but I have a list of school’s I’d love to obtain a Master’s in Data Science from. My top 3 schools at this moment are:

  1. Stanford
  2. UC Berkeley
  3. San Francisco

While my first semester of college is only at its halfway point, I have a pretty decent idea of what my grades will be come the end of the semester.

World Regions (Geography) 3 cr. - A
Indoor Plants (Horticulture) 3 cr - A/A-
Linear Algebra 2cr. - Anywhere between a B- and A
Calculus 1 (4 cr.)- B+/A-
Intro Statistics 2cr. - A

With this being said, is it too early to say if I’ve hurt my chances in getting into a school like Stanford for Data Science this early in my college career? I read online that the average GPA of accepted students of their Data Science Program is a 3.72-3.86.

Thank You

2

You have currently completed zero semesters. Of course it’s too early to say if you’re in a good position for grad school. Focus on getting your grades as high as possible, not accepting them as-is and wondering if that’s going to hurt your currently imaginary app. You are clearly a good student; those A’s should be within your reach! Good luck!

3

check back in three years, if you are still interested in grad school.

4

^This. You may not even be interested in data science anymore; data science is a new field, so there may be more graduate programs and you may have shifted priorities; or there may be another new field you decide you want to enter. Your grades aren’t even settled yet because it’s not the end of the semester. (A B- to an A is a pretty big range.)

Just do your best!