What are my chances for Computer Science?

Chance Me / Match Me!
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1

My top schools for Computer Science are -

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (In-State resident)
University of Wisconsin Madison
Penn State - University Park
Purdue
UMass
Virginia Tech
University of Virginia
Worcester Polytechnic
University of Maryland - College Park
University of Washington

I just want to know my chances of admission for these colleges and other similar stats colleges.

Stats - 3.45 unweighted GPA, 4.0 Weighted, 1450 SAT

Classes (Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior) -

Freshmen - honors Biology, honors engineering design, honors English 1, Geometry, Spanish 1, honors world history

Sophomore - honors chem, honors English 2, ap European history, ap computer science principles, algebra 2 trigonometry and stats, Spanish 2

Junior - ap stats, ap comp sci A, ap psych, ap English 3, pre-calc, physics

Senior - honors aerospace, honors principles of engineering, ap calc bc, ap English 4, ap micro, ap macro

Extracurriculars -

Intro to computer science CS50 Harvard course, Created Coding Club at school(3 years), Ted-Ed(3 years), Ultimate Frisbee varsity(4 years), Key Club(3 years), Chess club(3 years), Envision camp STEM(2 years), Created Cricket Club Association (3 years)

Ap Tests -
Ap Euro: 3
Ap Comp. Sci.: 5
Ap Stats: 3
Ap Psych: 4
Ap English: 3
Ap Comp Sci. A: 4

2

UIUC frosh profile is at https://admissions.illinois.edu/Apply/Freshman/profile .

For the Grainger College of Engineering:

ACT Score: 32-35
SAT Score (no writing): 1430-1540
TOEFL: 106-113
GPA: 3.73-4.00

Note that CS, along with ME and BioE, are the most selective majors in the UIUC engineering division. So UIUC is an admission reach for you with a 3.45 GPA and 1450 SAT.

Other colleges like Purdue and Washington should also be considered reaches for CS for you.

Also, can you and your parents afford all of the colleges on your list?

3

Ranked schools I want to get into from 1st to last:
1.) University of Wisconsin Madison
2.) Penn State University Park
3.) University of Virginia
4.) Urbana Champaign
5.) Purdue
6.) University of Washington
7.) Uiversity of Maryland College Park
8.) Worcester Polytechinc University
9.) UMass
10.) Virginia Tech

4

I also tutor multiple middle school and high school students which helps pay off some of the debt and I’ve saved around 18K so far.

5

What is your home state?

6

Are your parents helping you pay for college? If yes, what is the total your family can pay per year of college?

Agree with the above that UIUC is a reach for CS, probably a high reach. The CS admit rate this year was 4%. Often the CS acceptance rate is lower than a school’s overall acceptance rate (for the schools that admit by major).

There are many public schools on your list, and they tend to not offer much financial aid for OOS students. Run each school’s net price calculator to get your estimated cost of attendance. Don’t apply to any schools that look to be unaffordable.

7

The list sort of looks like you were throwing darts at a road atlas. The best thing you can do for yourself is choose a CS program in your home state. CS is ridiculously employable and there’s no benefit to paying triple the tuition going out of state. That’s assuming your parents are willing to fork over the money anyway.

8

What is your budget? Do you care if the campus is rural or urban? Large or small school?

What state are you from? The “public ivies” are very highly ranked for CS, so I would start there if you live in certain states. Those are generally considered reaches for all CS hopefuls, so don’t limit your search to those.

9

I’m from Illinois and I don’t mind small schools but I’d prefer large schools. I have saved 20K so far from tutoring and hope to gain 40K by the end of senior year and my parents have been saving for colleges for a while now and I have had the “college cost” talk with my parents and they’ve been saving for a while now so they’re fine with most of these schools. Both my parents are also computer science majors and both work in tech companies so they are happy I too want to go into computer science which is why they’re happy to pay for the college costs.

10

OOS publics are tough for CS majors. The admit rates and stats are much more competitive than for the overall university. Honestly I think your list is very reach heavy for your GPA/SAT/AP…

I also feel like you are missing some coursework - a third year of foreign language, USH, and APs in physics and chem. Course rigor is important for many of the schools on your list.

11

I took USH over Summer.

12

Check out the common data set for each school and it will show you the range of scores for those that were admitted by year.

Easiest way is just to do a Google Search with " common data".

If you want to get into CS you have to show that you are very strong in math. I would aim to get a 5 in AP Calc BC.

13

Common data sets won’t be helpful for schools that admit by major. Some schools will have the info though on their website.

14

I answered on your other thread asking the same thing…run each schools net price calculator to see if it will be affordable. Sometimes, parents have no idea what college costs are today.

I agree with the above that every school on this list is a reach for CS with a GPA of 3.45, with the possible exception of WPI. It is good that you have an upward trend in grades, but will need to broaden your list to contain match schools and at least one affordable safety.

Look at U Iowa, Iowa State, U Nebraska, U Kansas, ASU, U Arizona, Oregon State, U Utah, RPI, RIT, DePaul, Drexel. You need to know the CS acceptance rate, not the overall rate, to accurately categorize schools.

15

OP won’t have their senior year calc score by the time applications are due.

16

Oh my bad idk why I put ap stats as a 3 I got a 5 on the ap statistics ap test.

17

I also had a 4.4 weighted GPA and a 3.8 unweighted my junior year and I’m hoping a 4.5 weighted GPA and 3.8 unweighted my senior year first semester. I definitely improved my GPA and showed a substantial upward trend but the only reason my GPA was so low during my freshmen year and a little of my sophomore year was because of family troubles and I guess since coding was like a get-away and resort for me I could always rely on I tended to drift away from my high school work load and created many games on C++ and Java.