what are my chances indeed

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi! I’m an international student (indian), female, junior, and i’m going to try and breakdown my stats as simply as possible.

IB score: upwards of 42 (with bonus points)
SAT: (it’s in two weeks, and in hindsight I ought to have written this post then, but oh well) upwards of 1530
Subject SATs: In october, math II and literature. I will obviously aim for a near perfect score

**indian schools do not allow their students to create clubs etc, especially mine. there is only the interact club and student council. however, I do plan to start a system in my school where students ARE allowed to start clubs.

Leadership: student council president, interact club director, editorial boards, middle school council
Languages: english, hindi, punjabi (spoken), french, spanish
ECs: [Music: vocals (advanced), piano, drums. I can get certificates/letters from my music school][Theater: lead roles in major school productions][Writing: informal, will join competitions/try to get published] – MUNs, taekwondo.
Academic courses: Course in columbia one summer, in brown the other. This summer i’ll do courses on coursera and get certified for them.
Community service: Many hundreds of hours of community service; taught music and cs at an orphanage; on a founding board of an NGO; many eye camps; certified for fighting malnutrition of children in my state etc.
Internships: Hindustan Times (leading indian newspaper) and hopefully one another related to computer science

Recommendation letters: Ought to be fantastic, my teachers/school love(s) me (modesty aside)
Essays: plan on working my butt off on them this summer, ought to be really good.
Financial aid: not required.
Also will be making a game/app!

And that’s pretty much it!

I’m thinking of applying ED to any of the following: Brown, NYU or UCB. My brother went to brown, so I gain legacy status there? I think?

Other colleges: UCLA, UPenn, Cornell, Yale (reach), Columbia (reach), Stanford (reach), Rice, Barnard, Boston College, Mcgill, Sarah Lawrence, Princeton (reach), USC, Notre Dame, UChicago, Dartmouth (reach), Vassar, Vanderbilt and Columbia College Chicago (backup)

Not sure if I will apply to every school marked reach- depends, really.

I want to major in computer science (NOT engineering) and do game/web design.

P.S: I know most of my schools are very ambitious, and to have a good shot at an Ivy you need to be an olympian and have won 10000 competitions and what not- but surely not every application looks like that?

2

I have similar goals and aspirations as you do. I am Indian planning to apply (CS Major) to a lot of the same colleges as you do (top schools for me are Carnegie Mellon, MIT, UPenn, Cornell, Princeton). You have decent chances at all of them, but you have room for improvement. Some thoughts (may not necessarily be completely true - I am a high school junior after all)

Computer science is COMPLETELY different from game / app / web design. Take this coming from someone who has someone who has done all four (creating my own android app, lead web developer for two tech based organizations, project manager and founder of a game development team, taken CS classes beyond the college entry level class). The basic programming may be similar, but the driving concepts are really different.

You don’t need to learn game / app / web design as part of a college class. These things are better to learn on your own. Take classes on Codeacademy.com, Coursera, EDX, and MIT Open Course Ware. I would advise prioritizing computer science classes.

Pursue one or two avenues at a time. Don’t try to do computer science, game design, web development, and app development at the same time. I would try doing computer science in school (or online) and learn web development OR game development. Master one or two first. There is so much that goes into each of these fields and there is not enough time to learn, much less master, all of it. Do plenty of research before starting any of these fields.

Focus more time on your CS education and EC’s. The Ivy league colleges like to see applicants who are extremely good at one thing. To answer your question, yes, most of the applications who are admitted to the Ivy leagues in CS are the stereotypical ones who are really good at CS. You just have to spend enough time raising yourself to that level so that colleges see that you are a world class CS applicant. That does mean you will have to spend less time on other activities (unfortunately, this includes sleep).

Don’t learn computer languages, like Java, just because you can. You should learn Java because you want to create a game, and Java is a tool to do so. Have an end goal in mind before starting. A mindset like this will serve to be much more time efficient.

Take SAT II Math and an SAT II Science, and aim for at least an 800 in Math and 750 in the science. Make sure your SAT I is at least 1500+.

I am pretty sure you have legacy status at Brown as long as a family member went there (in this case, your brother). That should improve your admission chances, but don’t rely on it, as it does very little for your college app. You could improve your chances by applying ED.

It really sucks that you cannot create a club at your school. As high school progressed for me, I turned from an all around student to one who does nothing but programming and CS (except for tennis). I self-started most of the activities I do, and I would’t be the same person without those activities. That said, you can start something outside of school, like a coding competition, a team of people working to make an app, etc.

Best of luck on your applications.

3

I’m pretty fluent with C and C++, good at java , python, css. So once I get this club system going, I think I’ll co-found a bunch of clubs- web development, game development, acting, singing, photography etc. Do you go to school in India? You mention APs on your thread- and I didn’t know schools here had that.

4

UCB= University of California, Berkeley? No ED only RD for all UC’s.

5

“Other colleges: UCLA, UPenn, Cornell, Yale (reach), Columbia (reach), Stanford (reach), Rice, Barnard, Boston College, Mcgill, Sarah Lawrence, Princeton (reach), USC, Notre Dame, UChicago, Dartmouth (reach), Vassar, Vanderbilt and Columbia College Chicago (backup)”

If you don’t consider also the first three and UChicago as “reaches” (especially UPenn & UChicago), then you are badly underestimating!

6

@uclaparent9 by reach I sort of meant ultra reach. I am aware that every college on my list is very ambitious!

7

@Gumbymom Ah I see. What do you think are my chances?

8

@ivoryraveneve If you consider Dartmouth and Columbia ultra reaches then Penn and Chicago also are ultra reaches by the same definition. All the top 10 schools are ultra reaches for anyone.

Having a sibling that attends a college you are applying to does not give you legacy status, but it can give you a slight boost.

9

@Penn95 Thanks

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How can I work on improving my profile? Is my plan okay? Or should I just focus on test scores etc.?

11

I forgot to mention academic awards- a handful of proficiencies for being the best in my class at certain subjects and merits in the rest of my subjects. Won these every year in school pretty much and will get them the remaining two years too.

12

Yeah you have a decent shot at most of those schools. Idk what an IB score translates to, but as long as it’s a 3.8 or equivalent GPA, then you should be good. Now, the problem is, they have a lot of international students applying from India to these schools who are in CS, so you want to distinguish yourself in any way possible.

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@ivoryraveneve definition of legacy relationship varies from school to school. Check with Brown.

14

Thanks! I think the fact that i’m female sets me apart a little from other indian applicants anyhow. Most indian applicants who are female applying to these schools, typically want to major in economics/psychology/journalism. Secondly, the vast majority of CS applicants from India are conventional hardcore science people ( with excellent scores and stats, no doubt ) who typically don’t have a very multi-dimensional application. I’m hoping that what stands out about my application are the cross-disciplinary interests I have. That being said, the whole profile i’m creating is of me utilizing my affinity for both programming and literature to create stories (video games), and about breaking down barriers of indian females in STEM etc. @aeather