Hi so I’m about to enter second semester of junior year and was just wondering how I’ll fare in the college admissions process next year
Stats
UW GPA of 3.94
Weighted GPA of 4.7
Rank: 25/800
School: (ranked 607 in nation by US news; pretty competitive imo)
SAT: 1570
SAT Math II: 800
SAT chem: 780
AP scores: 5 on Compsci, 5 on human geo, 5 on calc BC(I’m 2 years ahead in math so took BC as a sophomore), 4 on world history
-currently taking 5 APs and took 1 over the summer for a total of 6 APs junior year
Extracurriculars+achievements
-USACO silver
-AIME qual(low score on AIME itself though)
-Eagle Scout
-held ASPL position in Boy Scout troop(2nd highest leadership position scout can hold)
-captain of my section in my marching band
-hoping to attend one of Ross/USA&Canada mathcamp/ PROMYS this summer(if I get into one)
-had internship with tech(AI specific) company
-helped make a website for my dad’s business
-NHS member
-MAO member
As may be obvious from my activities, I’m interested in both maths and computer science. Not quite sure which one I’ll pick for my major.
You look like a competitive applicant for UC Berkeley so if you can afford the $65K/year price tag with little to no financial aid for Out of State students, then they would love to have you.
@Gumbymom
Yeah, the cost isn’t a huge factor for me, but obviously I would still like to lower it when possible. Are you sure that Berkeley doesn’t give much financial aid to out of state students? If so, that’s really a bummer
They won’t give out anything need-based for OOS. There might be some merit scholarships such as Regents available, but they are still relatively speaking, very small sums.
New students who are not residents of California will not be eligible for our need-based grants, but may be considered for some UC Scholarships. We receive many inquiries from nonresidents of California asking for help with nonresident supplemental tuition and fees. As you enter UC Berkeley, it must be with a plan for how to meet your financial needs until the time you graduate and with the understanding that neither need-based institutional funds nor institutional funds to cover nonresident expenses, which exceed $28,000 annually, are available.
In other words, accept UCB with the intention of being a full pay student for 4 years.
Each college website should have a Net Price calculator to give you an estimate of your costs. You should run the NPC’s on all colleges of interest to help your narrow down an affordable list once you are ready to apply.
It is not strictly true that Cal publics will not give need based aid, but it is effectively true. If you are Pell eligible, you will indeed receive a Pell. The problem is that you will have no other source of aid to make up the gap. Pell is only a few thousand dollars and your EFC has to be close to zero to get it. There will be no state or school funded dollars to fill in that gap and minimal to no merit aid.
Oh I see. Well, that’s fine because honestly outside of HYPMS I would probably consider Berkeley as a top choice. If I get in, the cost isn’t gonna keep me from attending
@lookingforward Yeah I’ve already talked about it with my parents. As I said earlier, cost isn’t a huge factor for me, but if possible I would like to reduce it. If it can’t be helped then it’s fine, because I’m capable of paying it.
now that we more or less got finances out of the way, you’ll have to make a couple of key decisions:
for CMU, there are upwards to 4 schools that you could apply to that would be of interest: School of Computer Science, School of Information Systems, Engineering, or College of Science. You’d have to choose one essentially. (Also, they’re not very good with financial aid either). SCS is the hardest to get into. SIS is slightly easier to get into, but not by much.
for Berkeley, if you’re going into CS, you have the choice of going into EECS (College of Engineering) or CS via Letters and Sciences. EECS is direct entry, L&S you still have to take 3 select CS classes and get a 3.30 GPA out of these 3 classes in order to declare for CS. EECS will be harder to get into, but L&S gives you more flexibility as far as double majoring. EECS is a crapshoot for every one, even for people with perfect GPAs or with a perfect SAT. L&S admit rates are around 15%. At first glance, I would say your chances are 40-60 or 50-50 for EECS, and a pretty good bet for L&S. Also, Math is in L&S in case you were thinking of double-majoring.
You should probably calculate your UC GPAs and report back. Use this: https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
Only your grades from 10th and 11th grade are used for these calculations.
So I got
UW GPA: 3.95
Weighted: 4.50
Weighted capped: 4.35
I wasn’t sure what “honors courses” were because we don’t have any courses with the title “honors so I used APs as honors courses. Also, these will probably increase after I finish my second semester of junior year.
For Berkeley, it seems that EECS is the “better” CS option by how you phrased it but you mentioned how L&S is more flexible for double majoring. Would it be better to do EECS and double major in maths or do L&S and double major? I am considering double majoring, but I’m not quite sure as it seems quite daunting.
Stats are fine. USACO Silver is not worth mentioning as a good 60% of all participants have reached this level. ECs are average but admission into one of those summer programs will boost your application by a lot.
HYPMS: All reaches
UCB: Reach
Caltech: Reach
Carnegie: Reach
Your schools share one thing…prestige. You should dig in deeper to what your experience will be like at each. I once heard a student refer to his experience at Berkeley as “like going to school at the DMV.” Intro to CS is the largest lecture in the nation with over 1000 students. Yes, I’m picking on Cal, but you should learn more about ALL of the schools on your list. One, they are all reaches. Two, many, after you know more, might not offer the experience you’re seeking. Good luck!
Yes, Berkeley’s CS61A in the Fall semester, which is the first real CS class for CS majors and is a requirement for quite a few other majors, draws well over 1,000 people. And yes, that class, like almost all other lower division CS and Engineering classes, is held at Wheeler Hall 150, which holds about 700-800 people by my estimation. All lower division CS and Engineering lectures are webcasted, which means that probably only about 25% of the enrollees actually show up after say the second week for a given lecture. The majority of the learning is done in discussions and labs, which are always no more than 40 or 50 people. They are always led by GSI’s, sometimes by really advanced undergrads as well.
Data Science’s famed Data 8 class, the first class for Data Science majors that is also a requirement for a lot of other majors, also has over 1000 students in the lecture.
I don’t think the size of the lectures are that much of an issue. The only issue that I see sometimes with these 2 large classes is that if you wanted office hours with the lecturer, you’d have to do some major planning. Otherwise, from what my kid tells me, it’s a pretty cool environment, you have all kinds of ways to review, study and learn, and if you take advantage of all these resources, you’ll learn so much. He was fearful of the “cutthroat competitiveness” that was rumored but he saw none of that, at least for these 2 classes. And a shout out to Professor John DeNero, whom my kid calls the greatest lecturer of them all.
Your GPA combined with your SAT and rigor, are really good for Berkeley. 50/50 for EECS and slightly better for L&S, in my opinion. Berkeley can’t ever be considered a safety for anyone since they do reject people with perfect GPAs or perfect test scores.
Double-majoring across schools is very difficult, unless you applied to the MET program which combines Engineering with Haas School of Business. So say you decided to go for Engineering, if you wanted to double-major, you’re pretty much only going to be able to double-major in Engineering disciplines. (You most likely would have to get simultaneous degrees which is a topic for a different day). L&S has a lot more majors. There are other subtle differences between EECS and L&S CS, but for the most part they can be made the same as far as coursework goes. EECS will be considered more prestigious in a sense, but at the end of the day, a CS degree from Berkeley holds a lot of weight regardless of whether it is a BS EECS or a BA L&S CS.
UCB calls two majors within the same division “double major” (e.g. BA in math and computer science in the College of Letters and Science) and two majors in different divisions “simultaneous degrees” (e.g. BA in math (College of Letters and Science) and BS in EECS (College of Engineering)).
Simultaneous degree students need to fulfill the major and general education requirements for both. Differences in the general education requirements between the College of Engineering and the other divisions can increase the volume of courses needed for two majors with one in the College of Engineering and the other in some other division (this is part of why the MET program requires 1+1/3 times as many credit units of courses as a typical single major does; the other reason is that both the engineering major and the business major have large amounts of major course work).
the comparison chart covers most of the differences. There are a couple of little thingys re: AP that are sneaky.
L&S doesn't allow for AP subject credit for GE (breadth) requirements, whereas CoE lets you use 2 for GE. However, for CoE, you have to take a minimum of one R&C English course, whereas L&S lets you bypass both R&C classes if you get a 5 in AP Literature.