Is my counselor joking?

Okay, so I am what most people might consider a late bloomer. Really couldn’t have cared less for school freshman year, and I’m still kicking myself in the back for that. Enough of the pity party though, I recently met up with my counselor to tell him I wanted to do computer science at UT Austin(expecting him to laugh at me), and he said I was shooting to low and should consider Carnegie Mellon?!?

Heres my stats

Rank:108/426 (Barely scraped by into the top quartile)
SAT: M 740, CR 680, W 660 = 2080
ACT: M 34, R 33, W 27, S 25 = 30

Just going to mention my extracurriculars

Debate
Muslim Student Association - president
Mu Alpha theta
Neuroscience Club - founder
NHS - officer
Science Olympiad
Tennis
Wrestling

BUT THIS IS WHY HE SUGGESTED CARNEGIE

I’m currently working on developing a philanthropic app( completely independent btw), and he claimed that once I get it patented the idea is good enough to trump my stats.
Is this true, and if not what can I do to get into CMU at this point? (going to be a senior next year)

Carnegie Mellon has one of the best Computer Science schools in the country (MIT, Stanford). They are looking for the best of the best and only accept 350 students out of 6600 applications or 5%. Your SAT math is low for CM. Average math score is 790. Rank also is low and I assume your GPA. This would be a very high reach school. I would say bolster your math SAT and write a killer essay that will set you apart. Good luck.

Would it be better for me to take Math I and II instead of another Sat? And do you know if they take progression into account, because my freshman year GPA was 3.2 but my Junior year was 4.5?

Just take the math subject test level 2. Level 1 is worthless for someone applying as a STEM major and the majority of schools will not consider Math level 1 and Math level 2. It’s a waste of money to take both.

I think your counselor is greatly over estimating the influence of developing an app. This is getting more and more common these days and CMU is one of the top schools for CS. It doesn’t matter how good the idea is. Your stats matter first; nothing can make up for them.

@bruceyboy Carnegie does not have a 5% acceptance rate lol. Don’t know if you were talking about something else or just exaggerating. I guess you might have been talking about the CS program which doesn’t really matter until OP actually gets into the school.

Now for the actual question: I think that you currently have way too little STEM extracurriculars to get into CMU through that alone. You’re gonna have a way higher chance bringing your stats up rather than relying on your ECs.

What was your unweighted GPA at the end of junior year? And what classes are you taking next year? I think you should take the most rigorous math and science classes at your school if you can do well in them. And as above posters have said, try aiming for an 800 on SAT math and SAT II Math II. You can probably also take a science SAT Subject test and try to do well.

@hiimjoe Their CS department has a 5% acceptance rate, not the whole school.

@skgriffin Thanks for the clarification. I edited right before I saw your post lol

I know people who have gotten rejected from CMU’s computer science program with perfect stats and a lot of interest shown in the school. To have a real chance of getting into the CS, unless you made the equivalent of Snapchat, you need to have perfect math scores PLUS good extracurriculars, essays, etc.

It’s worth noting that CMU’s CS curriculum is very theoretical in nature. Because of this, they’re looking for people with natural aptitude for math and science, not necessarily people who have some programming experience.

(UW):3.5
(W) 4.0

Senior year

AP Lit
AP Eco
AP Gov
AP Calc BC
AP Physics 2
AP Psychology
Pre-Ap comp sci 2(Highest level offered)
Debate

Don’t get me wrong man, I know it’s a crap shoot. I was just wondering if I should really question my counselors credibility for telling me this.

My D is a student at CMU. CS has a vey low acceptance rate as someone stated above. I think this may be a reach for you IMHO, and you should definitely take Math level 2.

Ask your counselor what he is basing his recommendation on? There is no reason you cannot apply to both UT and CMU. I would really think CMU is a stretch given their admission stats for CS, but you never know. Of bigger concern to you should be how you would pay for it if you don’t qualify for a lot of need-based aid, as CMU does very, very little merit aid. $63K a year without aid can be a killer. One other thing that is glaringly missing from your stats is community service hours. More and more schools are looking at this.