Realistic aspirations w/ my stats? (current junior) (first post)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi,
I’m a male Asian junior at a pretty competitive California high school. I know most people consider it a bit early for me to be thinking about college admissions, but I couldn’t resist joining this site, if only for peace of mind. Also, please note that this is my first post and I may not be following proper site etiquette.

I banged out a tentative college list over the summer, but I don’t know if it’s realistic or not. Should I aim lower or higher? Am I on the right path or should I switch gears in terms of type of school/selectivity? At which of these schools do I have a decent chance of admission?

Note that these colleges do not represent my final list, but they do represent the general direction I’m looking in.

Reach schools: Amherst (Early decision?), JHU (early decision?), UC Berkeley L&S, UCLA, Emory, USC, UMich LAS, Georgia Tech, UT Austin
Target schools: UC Everything Else (Engineering), UIUC (Computer Engineering or CS+X), Cal Poly (Software Engineering), UW Madison (Computer Science), UMD College Park (Computer Science), UW Seattle (Engineering DTC), CWRU (Computer Engineering), Purdue (Computer Engineering), Carleton College, Grinnell College, Colby College
Safety schools: VTech Engineering, Texas A&M Engineering

Stats and info below:

GPA (counting freshman year): 3.7 unweighted 4.2 weighted (Weighted GPA will probably shoot up after junior year because I’m taking 5 APs and 1 Honors class). Did horribly freshman year but pretty well sophomore year. I know the UCs don’t use freshman year to calculate GPA; does this help me?

ACT Composite: 36 (36, 35, 36, 36)

AP Tests: 5 on AP Euro, 5 on AP Comp Sci Principles

Current Course Load: AP Calc AB, AP French, AP English Language, APUSH, AP Computer Science A, Physics Honors

Subject tests: Haven’t taken, probably taking English, Math II, and Physics

Class Rank: School doesn’t rank

Predicted junior year grades: Hard to say, but the worst case for this semester is 2 B grades. I’m aiming to only get one B grade, as AP English and APUSH at my school suffer from severe grade deflation. Straight As seem unlikely.

Extracurriculars: I’m being a bit purposefully vague in this section as I want this discussion to be mostly stats-based. Nevertheless, here are some of my extracurriculars:
In school: - NHS, FLHS, Board member of Creative Writing club
- Board member of Quiz Bowl Team (best player in school, great tournament record)
Outside school: - Won like 5 hackathons
- Did a selective humanities program at a good college
- Founded and taught coding seminars at local library
- Other stuff that’s unique enough to identify me so I’m not posting it
NOTE: These extracurriculars are somewhat scattershot, I know. What could I do to improve them? If it helps, I’m a CS+Humanities person.

Significant Disadvantages:

  1. I got quite a few B grades freshman year and 1 B grade per semester sophomore year. My course load has only gotten harder, so I guess this qualifies as an upward trend?
  2. I got Bs in honors math courses freshman and sophomore year. I’m on track for an A in AP Calculus AB, however, so again an upward trend? Especially as Calc is more advanced and I’m doing well in it.
2

It’s certainly not too early to be thinking about things. However, your detailed plan achieves another level of proactivity that can only be applauded.

First off, CC is NOT the place to come for peace of mind. This is space for anxiety (mostly) and guidance (some).

Glaringly obvious is that your ACT scores speak to the grade deflation at your school. But even a solid 36 ACT won’t fill all the holes (it will fill a lot though, so there’s that). Also impressive that a 36 score was achieved in or before your junior year. Try hard to not get any B’s this year! That said, I think your school list is good for what you have right now but you’ll need to reassess after this year. With the UW GPA this isn’t going to move much, this what the focus should be this year:

Your grades – try for those A minuses instead of Bs
Cultivate meaningful relationships with your teachers. Mostly, because they have a lot to offer, they want to help you, sometimes they are very interesting in ways that might not be apparent, and you will need to ask 2 of them to write letters for you next year. Because you are working with your deflated GPA, you want these letters to be glowing off the page. And they can only be that if you really invest the time to get to know your teachers and let them know you.

Don’t worry about what you could do to improve ECs – just keep doing what you enjoy! Not everything has to be about padding the app. But if you like writing, submit some things for publication maybe.

Good Luck and hats off to the proactive stance here!

3

LOL- agreeing with @fencingmom that time on CC rarely leads to peace of mind for applicants :slight_smile:

A couple of questions about your list:

  1. Do you have an unlimited budget? That is, can (& will) your parents spend $250K for your college education? If not, go review the prices for all the non-Cali public (state) schools on your list and run the EFCs on the private schools on your list. If your budget is unlimited, yeah! so

  2. Your list is really confusing- it ranges from computer/software engineering at a bunch of large state u’s to 4 LACs (not particularly known for computer/software engineering), and then pinballs around to 3 pre-professional type privates (USC, JHU and Emory). I think you have some thinking to do! If you treat this list as a starting point, and assume that it will be next summer before you actually finalize it, that’s fine. Use the time between now & then to visit a fair few of them and get a better sense of what you are really looking for.

Your school may not rank but dollars to doughnuts you have a pretty good idea where you stand in your class: are you in the top cohort? top quarter? middle? lower half? bottom?

Except that’s not how this works- and the smaller the school the less it works that way (for the UC system you can get some pretty specific info, once you have your UC GPA). We don’t have enough info to give you specific advice about how to sharpen your ECs, except the usual reminder that showing commitment over time, increasing responsibility, connecting the dots between what you do and who you are, etc.

If you are at a competitive HS you are likely to be introduced to Naviance this year, which will give you a stats-based assessment of how you stack up relative to your peers.

Also, fyi, JHU is explicit that they care more about GPA than test scores.

4

Budget isn’t an issue.
I do know that my list is not cohesive. This is because a) I’m probably whittling down that list later and b) due to the fact that I’m a flawed human being, I’m interested in a spectrum of colleges.

I’m probably in the top 25% of my class; beyond that I can’t say, though I may be higher.

My UC GPA will be good (4.4-4.6 even if I get Bs this year) due to the sheer number of weighted courses I’m taking. A lot of this is due to them not factoring in freshman year, which would bring me down quite a bit.

I am aware of Naviance; however, its usefulness is diminished for me due to my school’s unique nature. As a Catholic school, its acceptance rate for Catholics is markedly higher than that for non-Catholics. Thus, around 30% of the class is stellar and the rest is somewhat mediocre. The stark difference in target colleges and stats for these two groups really skews the Naviance numbers.

I am also aware that JHU will most likely have no qualms about tossing my application in the trash - ha!

Perhaps I’d be better off evaluating my chances solely for the UCs?
Also do you know of any colleges that prioritize test scores? I’ve heard unconfirmed rumors about UIUC doing so.

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Being interested in a spectrum of things is a feature, not a bug! But, when it comes to choosing your next 4 years, there is a world of difference between Comp Eng at UIUC and any subject at Carleton- enough that it is worth teasing out which are the important parts for you. Which is why it’s good that you are starting now!

As for Naviance, have you looked at it yet? it doesn’t really matter what your class is made up of- it’s a straight up X/Y plotting of your GPA & test scores, vs students from your school (usually several years worth) who have applied to college A, and the outcome. So if you pull up Amherst, it will plot GPA & test scores of the other students who have applied there & their outcomes.

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The thing with Naviance is that there’s no in-between at my school. In graphic terms, this is basically a big gash of whitespace in the middle of the X/Y plot of stats. The gap between the groups ensures that there isn’t enough data for a range of possible scores – just for really bad and really good scores, and nothing in between.

7

Vanderbilt and UChicago like high scores.

UCs prioritize GPA over test scores and class rank matters, especially for UCB/UCLA.

No college with a sub 25% acceptance rate is a target/likely/match due to sheer competition.

Get a Fiske Guide and start reading :slight_smile:

Go&visit Harvey Mudd, either UCB or UCLA, LMU-LA, Cal Poly, and USC to get a feel for these different types of schools.

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Thank you MYOS1634! I’ll look into Vandy and Chicago (probably super high reaches)

That’s true, but a 25% acceptance rate for a good program is still a rare find these days. Doesn’t one pine for the 2000’s, when Chicago’s acceptance rate was in the forties?

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My first reaction is that you have a very good start on the “picking colleges” task, but that you need to continue to think about what you want in a university. You should visit some schools. It is helpful to visit when schools are in session, but we found that this was not always possible. We did visit some over the summer when some were either not in session, or in session with reduced numbers of students. You probably will want to start with visits to the schools that are closer to you physically, just because it is easier to get to them.

Right now your list is very long. With some visits and some thinking you should be able to trim this a bit.

Some of your “target” schools are really reaches. Of course, if “UC Everything Else” means that you are applying to all of the UCs, then I would expect you to get into some of them (@Gumbymom would know much better than I which ones are likely).

Why Amherst College? It is a long way away from you and is not the first place that I would think of for engineering or computer science. I suppose that I could ask the same thing about JHU and Colby.

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The truth is that I’m not really limiting myself to computer science; yes, most of my ECs are in it, but I also like the humanities. I realize that this “well-roundedness” is a disadvantage, but it is also my honest stance on this. JHU is a for-the-hell-of-it crapshoot, and Amherst and Colby are there because I like the idea of them. I’ll have to visit, as you say, to see if they really interest me.

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UCSD CS - not a target
UIUC (Computer Engineering or CS+X) - not a target
CWRU (Computer Engineering) - not a target
Carleton College - not a target
Grinnell College - not a target
Colby College - not a target

In general, any a colleges which accepted fewer than 30% is in reach territory, and under 20% it’s a clear reach. Some of your list have acceptance rate in the teens or lower. Acceptance rates to UIUC engineering are far lower than their average acceptance rate, for CS it’s even lower.

That being said, the CS + Humanities is a very good mix, especially today, and you should look at colleges which have that type of programs.

tells me that you probably should go for CS, rather than general engineering. In general, if you want engineering, drop the Liberal Arts colleges. If you want to focus on a CS + Humanities path, keep them.

However, start digging a bit deeper into what you really want to do, and which colleges look like they can provide this to you. Ignore “prestige” or “rankings”, and focus on what you want to do, or, if you’re still not sure, look for places where you can explore different options.

Also, pay more attention to things like acceptance rates of colleges, and of specific programs.

12

Don’t sell yourself short. There are so many pieces of the puzzle that are unknown, like your school profile. Maybe a 3.7 UW GPA is great for your school (which accounts for the grade deflation). A 36 on the ACT is a kind of currency — a baseline if you will. It’s standardized, unlike your particular high school courses (even the APs) and it will get attention. You’re also taking a challenging course load, you can write. These are important details that will help distinguish you. The essays, your relationships with your teachers (and the letters that will come from them) are within your control — care in these areas can bring a big yield.

Be wary of people throwing out definitives about your list. Stats are a place to start, not finish. The process is holistic (to a point), and you’ve got a tremendous amount working for you. Really.

And I love the CS + humanities. It’s kind of zen.

13

Sometimes a school that people on CC say is a reach really is a target. At our high school, everyone above a certain range on Naviance got into places like Carleton and Grinnell. They like our high school and, for at least the last four years, have been very consistent in who they admit on Naviance. For our son, we considered them targets and he got into both with big merit at Grinnell.

14

Engineering or CS+ humanities is HarveyMudd’s specialty.
Northwestern C’s+x is strong too.
Both are reaches.

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@deneuralyzer I would not be so quick to dismiss JHU as an ED pick if that’s the dream. I cannot speak to its strengths in CS or engineering. But historically it is quite strong in the humanities and social sciences as well - history, political science/IR/policy, English & expository writing, just to name a few. Your humanities + CS profile might go over well there.

Yes, JHU is a reach for sure. I agree with @fencingmom though: if your GPA reflects grade deflation at your school, it might be worth a try. The 36 ACT and the fact that you can write well are points in your favor. Also as a current junior, you have some time to improve that GPA, as well as to take SAT subject tests for any of the schools that require or recommend them.

16

Congratulations are performing so well in HS so far. I will give you some basic information for the UC’s.

All the UC’s use only 10-11th grades in their GPA calculations. Grades for a-g classes the summer prior to 10th through the summer prior to 12th are used.
9th grades are reviewed to make sure you meet the a-g course requirements. 12th grade courses are reviewed to determine if you will meet the a-g course requirements and your HS course rigor.

The UC’s consider 3 GPA’s: Unweighted, Capped Weighted and Fully Weighted. I like the Rogerhub calculator which will calculate all 3 UC GPA’s. The capped weighted limits 8 semesters of Honors points from UC approved Honors, AP, IB or DE courses from 10-11th grades.

The Fully weighted UC GPA does not limit the extra honors points in the calculation for any of these honors courses taken 10-11th grade. So once you complete Junior year, you can determine your UC GPA’s.

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

UC’s are GPA focused, but they consider GPA, test scores, HS course rigor and the personal insight essays Very Important in their application review.

CS/Engineering majors are the most competitive for the UC’s, so you need above average academics for the best chance.

Some UC stats for 2019 admits below:
2019 UC capped weighted GPA averages:
UCB: 4.23
UCLA: 4.25
UCSD: 4.23
UCSB: 4.16
UCI: 4.13
UCD: 4.13
UCSC: 3.96
UCR: 3.90
UCM: 3.73

2019 Data:
25th - 75th percentiles for SAT totals:
UCB: 1340-1540

UCLA: 1330-1550
UCSD: 1300-1520
UCSB: 1280-1520
UCD: 1230-1490
UCI: 1250-1510
UCSC: 1200-1450
UCR: 1130-1400
UCM: 1020-1290

25th - 75th percentiles for ACT composite + language arts
UCB: 28-35
UCLA: 29-35
UCSD: 26-34
UCSB: 26-34
UCD: 24-33
UCI: 24-34
UCSC: 24-32
UCR: 21-30
UCM: 18-26

For example at UCLA, CS admits had an average UC GPA of 4.2+, SAT of 1550 and ACT of 35.

For Cal Poly SLO, they use 9-11th grades in their GPA calculation with the 8 semester honors cap. They use MCA points in their admission process and gives bonus points for HS course rigor beyond the minimums.

Here is the MCA point calculator and target MCA points for SE are around 4700+

https://mca.netlify.com/

Best of luck and keep revising your list as you go. Also out of state schools are rarely safety schools unless you have an unlimited budget. Several of the UC’s such as UCR/UCM are safety schools as long as you are willing to attend.

17

Thanks all for the advice! I’d just like to point out that according to a FoI request filed by some guy on Quora (yes, yes, reputable source, I know) UIUC’s comp/electrical engineering admit rates were in the forties in 2017 (probably the 30s now). Maybe this is because the Engineering program is larger than CS there.

I agree that UCSD CS is a reach. Carleton and Colby I’d agree are reaches, but I have a gut feeling that I’ll get into Grinnell lol. According to (flawed) Naviance data, the LACs prioritize test scores at my school, as some people with 3.9 weighted GPAs and 35s got in.

As for CS+X, UIUC has the only strong program I’m looking into in that area. HMC or Northwestern seem fairly impossible at this point.

18

@Gumbymom thanks for the stats! After this year, I’m probably looking at a 3.8 unweighted and a 4.5 weighted UC GPA not counting my freshman year – would this, combined with my test score, put me in the statistical range for Cal or LA? Or would they still look at my freshman year and discount me on the basis of that?

My MCA score for CPSLO is 4500, rip me lol

19

The UC’s only look at Freshman year to determine if you completed the a-g course requirements with a passing grade of C or higher. An upward trend is always helpful. What would be your predicted capped weighted GPA?

I only have stats from 2018 (the most current) based on the capped weighted UC GPA and admit rates below:

2018 Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 4.20 or above capped weighted and not major specific:
UCB: 37%
UCLA: 41%
UCSD: 70%
UCSB: 80%
UCD: 89%
UCI: 75%
UCSC: 92%
UCR: 96%
UCM: 98%

As you can see that a UC capped weighted GPA of 4.2 or higher, is still not a slam dunk for admissions at UCLA and UCB but you have a good chance if you keep up your grades.

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Average-case predicted GPA after this year (assuming 1 B per semester, which is likely):
Unweighted 3.8
Weighted 4.5 to 4.6
Capped weighted 4.17

What do you think are my chances? The capped GPA seems to be below the 4.2 threshold, but my course rigor is very very high. Do UCs only use the capped GPA? Because that seems unfair considering the students who do slightly worse but take more challenging course loads.