they don’t rank students. but the average GPA for GATECH in her school is obviously much lower than hers.
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With all the rumors of yield protection swirling on CC, those accomplishments might have contributed to the rejection.
It could also have been an oversight in the application, a missed required class, etc.
It’s rare to know why one is rejected, just as in holistic schools, it’s rare to know why one was accepted.
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I think it is pretty balanced. 11 top 20 schools and 9 top 50 schools. got deferred by CWRU too. Also applied to USC, Rice, Northeast, etc.
Your daughter is an extremely strong candidate and will do very well no matter which cs program she graduates from. If she works hard and is passionate about it, she’ll be fine. My husband graduated from a small school with a history degree. He taught himself to code and is now a high level programmer. He worked for Microsoft for many years.
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IMO this does not sound balanced (unless she is happy to go to the school she’s been admitted to).
Did she miss USC and NEU EA deadlines?
For CWRU, have her send a LOCI, and do whatever they are telling students to do to continue to demonstrate interest (last year it was checking portals every Friday). Has she visited CWRU? If not, that could be a worthwhile investment.
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While I agree with your sentiment, many, if not most AIME level kids often benefit from being around other kids at a similar level, with similar interests. Fully agree that this kid will ultimately be very successful.
I like to think GT does not yield protect too much, but to me that seems like a more plausible explanation than anything else I can see. Ditto for CWRU.
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Then she’ll have some great acceptances. But ‘ranking’ as an overall is different than CS and then should rankings even matter ? You’d never pick up a top school like RHIT using a ‘rank.’
And it’s not going to happen, but should by some insanity she be 0-20, there’s STILL great schools out there for later apps.
But you knew up front to apply to a balanced list by going 20 deep. So that’s great. I’m sure there will be big pay off to your strategy !!!
Good luck on the rest.
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My nephew Poli Sci from U of AZ. Now in NYC at a large tech. Self taught to program. Had to pass 5 tests to get hired. Big $$. Yes, there is opportunity outside of a CS degree and certainly outside of top colleges.
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So…all top 50 schools…and a safety?
No ED application?
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She will find smart, motivated students in CS anywhere she goes. When the rubber hits the road, students are propelled by their personal horsepower and work ethic and not the students around them anyway.
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Yes, if she’s bright and a hard worker, she will do well wherever she goes. My son’s fiancée got her degree in CS from the American University of Beirut and is now thriving at Google in Warsaw. She’s already gotten several bonuses based on merit. She survived the round of layoffs. Her boss said they’re very happy with her.
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I’m just venturing a guess but maybe yield protection. With your D’s stats I’m assuming schools like MIT, CMU, etc are on her list. Being a female CS applicant is probably a bump too. I suspect she’ll have several options come March.
GT uses a holistic approach. S20 was deferred EA and accepted RD. Kids he thought would be accepted were rejected and vice versa. Good luck.
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I’m beginning to think that unless you are auto-admit (like top 6% in-state at Texas, or auto merit places like Alabama and Arizona), there’s almost no such thing as a true safety in CS. But even at those schools – no guarantee you can do CS, right?
Even kids with very top stats and ECs might have to look outside the top 100 universities to begin to approach safety territory for CS, especially at schools that admit directly to the major.
There will be safeties for admission at schools that do not directly admit to the major – but then you have to compete to get into the major once you are enrolled.
LACs – maybe it’s easier to find safeties among less-selective LACs. But then, you still have to compete for those CS resources once you are at the school. Demand for the major likely is greater than supply, even at LACs.
CS admission is tough to figure.
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Some schools admit by stats only, and they would be safeties for this student…Iowa and Iowa State for example. And they are excellent for CS.
Other schools that are highly likelies for a student of this caliber, and excellent for CS include ASU, UT Dallas, DePaul, and many more. As thumper said, for CS it doesn’t really matter where one goes to college.
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Did your daughter apply EA to every school that has it on her list (not SCEA or REA)?
Was there not clearly a top choice ED school? ED is the ultimate expression of interest in a college…and yes, I know GA Tech doesn’t offer this.
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No. MIT is her dream school but got deferred.
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Yes all top50 and there is no point to go lower because the safety school she got in is around 50to 60
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Congrats on the admission. Please make sure the CS program is strong, a fit for what your student needs and don’t just base on the overall university.
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I’m not sure it is worth spending a lot of time worry about whether there was a flaw in your daughter’s application or if she didn’t have the best ECs - the applications are in and she can’t change that at this point.
If she ends up with no acceptable acceptances in April, that would be a good time for a reconsideration of her application strategy, especially if she wanted to take a gap year and do a second college admission cycle.
But, until then - I think the most likely explanation for her results thus far is that she is a highly qualified candidate applying to schools inundated with highly qualified candidates for CS. GaTech accepting 13% OOS means 87% are rejected. No matter how amazing a candidate is - the most likely answer from schools that competitive is, “No”.
It’s hard to wait for all the results to come in. Good luck to your daughter, I am sure she will be successful wherever she lands!
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Not sure which rankings you are referring to but when we looked at the varying categories used to rank different uni’s DS noted many of the categories were not really that interesting to him so he adjusted a bit when evaluating schools.
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