Match Me! Senior LF Match/Safeties for Video Game Programming (CS) [TX resident, 3.6828 GPA, no rank, 1360 (1400 superscore) SAT, <$50k]

Chance Me / Match Me!
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*Demographics: Asian/Indian

  • US domestic *: US Citizen
  • State/Location of residency: * Texas
  • Type of high school *: Highly Competitive (Non-Ranking)
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity *: Male

Intended Major(s)
Computer Science for Video Games

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 92.07/100 (3.6828/4.0)
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 94.817/100 (3.79268/4.0)
    Class Size: 690 (Not in the top 10% for auto admit)
  • ACT/SAT Scores: Will be retaking soon.
    1300 (700 EBRW 600 Math)
    1360 (660 EBRW 700 Math)
    1400 Superscore (700 EBRW 700 Math)

Coursework
AP:
AP World History - 4
AP English Language and Composition - 3
AP US History - 5
APCSA
AP Calculus AB
AP Government
AP English IV
AP Macro
AP Micro
APCS II

Awards
Recognizing Exemplary Students in Digital Graphics and Animation Award: Awarded at my Local High School to ~14 people for expertise in my Digital Graphics Class (Knowledge in Adobe Photoshop, Animate, Maya)

Extracurriculars

*50 Volunteering Hours (46 at my local Library, and 4 at Habitat for Humanity)
*3D Modeling business, 3 - 4 years, providing assets to game developers on the platform Roblox.
*Photoshop business, 1 - 2 years, providing graphic art to game developers on the platform Roblox.
*NFT business, 2 years, used Photoshop to create NFTs. I also learned about Crypto and the Blockchain.
*Started a Computer Science Blog, 2 months, informing high school students about computer science extracurriculars.
*Participated in LeetCode Contests/Challenges, 3 months, programming challenges.
*Hackathon Group, 7 months, created a hackathon group with friends, participated in Global Hacks Hackathon and Google’s Code Jam.
*Have earned 13 online certifications in programming acknowledging my skills in Java.
*Completed 5 Audited Courses for programming topics in Java, C#, and Game Editors such at Unity. Colleges: WashU, Michigan State, UCSD, University of Colorado, uPenn.
*Educational Experience, earned a certificate on Forage that taught me Software Development in HTML.
*Programming Mentor, 8 months, provided assistance in programming to people on Unity Forums and Stack Overflow in languages such as C# and Java.
*Unity Project, will be releasing a game I created in the Unity Engine within the next month.
*Game Development Team, 2 years, I created a team with my friends to create projects on the platform ROBLOX. Although no projects were published, I was able to deeply improve my programming skills in Lua.
*Github Portfolio, 8 months, I have been posting scripts I have created from the last 4 years on my Github, including Swift, C#, Java, HTML, CSS, and Python.
*Programming, I have been programming for roughly 10 years in many programming languages
*Tutoring, Will be creating youtube videos to tutor people in C# soon.

Essays/LORs/Other
Currently in the process of writing Essays and obtaining Letters of Recommendation

Cost Constraints / Budget
~$50,000 (I have 2 siblings applying to college as well)

Schools

  • Reach * - UCLA, UC Berkley, USC, UCSD, CalTech, Georgia Tech, UMD, New York University, uMich, Northwestern, Rice, WashU, Chicago
  • Match * - RPI, UT Austin (Priority), Virginia Tech, Purdue, UIUC, UCSB, UC Davis, RIT, Virginia Tech
  • Safety * - ASU (Rolling), UCSC, UMass-Amherst, Texas A&M, UT Dallas (Rolling), University of Utah
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Sorry for the Multiple Posts. I was trying to post it before but my post wasn’t showing up, so I reposted it.

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Congratulations you’re a competitive applicant but none of the California UC”s will meet your budget. They are around $72K/year with no need-based aid for an OOS applicant and highly competitive merit aid that are low amounts that will not bring the costs to $50K/year.

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I see, thank’s for letting me know. The only leeway to being able to attend a UC would be if both my brothers attended colleges in-state, then it could be possible to increase the budget.

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I think if you have Utah, RIT, Michigan State, and Arizona, you could be done.

I’m not sure many of your schools have focus on this niche major.

You can eliminate Michigan for the same reason as the UCs and if you are a full pay family, Cal Tech and Northwestern as well.

Run the NPCs on the privates.

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The UCs will be >$50k for a non-California resident. Likely true for some of the other out-of-state publics.

UT Austin is a reach for CS and a reach for those who are not automatic admit. Texas A&M and UT Dallas are probably not safeties for those who are not automatic admit. Texas A&M also requires secondary admission to CS with a 3.75 college GPA after the first year of course work.

Purdue, UIUC, UCSB, UCD should be moved to the reach category for CS. UCSC and UMass are probably not safeties for CS.

Arizona State University is automatic admit (including to CS) with a 3.0 GPA if you have all of the course requirements fulfilled.

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For CS + Graphics & Animation, RIT could be a great option; and another one to look at would be DePaul in Chicago. You’d need merit to afford either, but this seems like a possibility.

UMass Amherst isn’t a safety for CS. UMass Lowell would be a safety, and has strong CS as well. UTD and UofU are both strong options, and guaranteed-affordable (since you could get residency after the first year in Utah, unlike most states).

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Make sure you meet the early application deadline for Utah (Dec 1) then you’ll know in January. Merit is often not available to later applicants (although is unlikely anyway given you aren’t from a WUE state, so you’d want to make sure you stay the first summer to get residency).

The key thing for Utah is not to miss housing registration deadlines in late March/early April if you are considering attending. If you fail to register in time then you may not be offered housing on campus.

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Since Arizona is an option for you, I know several very smart kids interested in video game CS here in state are choosing Embry-Riddle in Prescott, AZ over ASU for this major:

Prescott, AZ is a lovely small town that gets 4 seasons and much better weather than the Phoenix area, but still mild. It is about a 2 hour drive from the Phoenix airport. You could probably get good merit aid there as well.

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Comment on your Safeties:
Since you have three which would work(ASU,UT-Dallas, Utah). Eliminate ones which are not safety(Umass-Amherst) and ones which are too expensive(UCSC). Texas A & M is a competitive admit after First year of engineering. Not a safety as well.

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Personally I think given the program you seek you need to look deeper into the school curriculums. In Arizona, U of A seems to have a more robust program than ASU.

It’s why I mentioned Utah, RIT, and Michigan State above along with U of A.

There are schools with defined concentrations in the area which might be better fits than the bigger names - given the niche.

With a 3.6 and 1400, you’re unlikely to get into a lot of these big names you list anyway (sorry). But frankly, you’ll get into better schools for game design.

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Closing. Refer to updated thread.