OP I’m curious. How do you expect Your son to get into Emory or GT or other top schools if he can’t get into his state schools? All of the UCs except maybe UCB and UCLA are easier to get into. USC is also an easier admit than Emory with a better CS program.
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What are his UC GPAs? GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub
I will leave it to @gumbymom and @ucbalumnus to categorize the UC schools for your S (remember CS at the UCs is more selective than the overall acceptance rates).
Rochester ED could be a great option, but I agree with the others he should visit. Winters are long, cold, snowy. Make sure to run the Net Price Calculator at any school you are considering applying ED to gauge affordability (I know you said finances not a primary consideration, but if paying full boat the prices can be eye popping!). Here’s Rochester’s: Net Price Calculator
I would add Cal Poly SLO, maybe your local CSU as a safety (not all will be safeties for CS). He definitely needs a safety, so lock that down. Maybe Arizona, U Utah, or ASU?
Other schools to consider in a range of categories: USC, U Mass Amherst, Boulder, Oregon, Oregon State, Pitt.
I agree with others that his chances at Purdue are good, so no worries if he doesn’t LOVE a school for ED. Wisconsin is relatively more selective, UIUC very selective. All are worth an app, and IMO the opportunities and experiences will be fairly similar. None will be easy to get to from California. Make sure he gets the apps in EA wherever that is offered. At many schools, including these three, CS will fill up in the EA round.
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As stated by some posters, the UC’s are test blind so SAT score will not be considered in the admissions review, but the UC’s use 13 areas of criteria when reviewing applicants. How applications are reviewed | UC Admissions
CS will be competitive at the UC’s and CSU’s so I agree with having your local CSU as a safety can be a good option depending upon impaction.
If you calculate the 3 UC GPA’s, then you can gauge a general sense of how competitive your student will be in the overall admit rates. CS of course will have much lower admit rates.
Below overall admit rates are based on the capped weighted UC GPA:
| Campus | 4.20+ | 3.80-4.19 | 3.40-3.79 | 3.00-3.39 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Berkeley | 30% | 11% | 2% | 1% |
| Davis | 85% | 55% | 23% | 10% |
| Irvine | 60% | 31% | 14% | 1% |
| Los Angeles | 29% | 6% | 1% | 0% |
| Merced | 97% | 98% | 96% | 89% |
| Riverside | 97% | 92% | 62% | 23% |
| San Diego | 72% | 25% | 2% | 0% |
| Santa Barbara | 73% | 28% | 4% | 1% |
| Santa Cruz | 91% | 81% | 46% | 9% |
I have complied some admit rates for CS but many campuses are not forthcoming with major specific data.
Admit data does not tell the whole story since you need to take into account GPA and other factors in the admission process to determine how competitive the applicant pool was a time of admission.
Most of the data is from 2021 and 2022 admit rates where overall lower than 2021.
CS admit rates:
SDSU 2021 admit rate for CS 48%. Applications by Major – Analytic Studies & Institutional Research
Cal Poly SLO CS had around a 9% acceptance rate for 2021 admits. https://content-calpoly-edu.s3.amazonaws.com/ir/1/images/NOT%20ADJUSTED_AGGREGATE%20-%202022-23%20Enrollment%20Projections.pdf
UCLA admit rate for CS in 2021 was 8.3%. https://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/seasoasa/2021-UCEE-Report.pdf
UCB’s admit rate for the College of Engineering was around 7%. If applying for EECS, it was 4.5%
CS in the College of Letters and Sciences was 2.9%.
UCI’s 2021 admit rate for CS was 7.1%. https://datahub.oapir.uci.edu/Data-Hub/Undergraduate-Admissions-Dashboard.php
UCSB admit rate for CS 6-8%
No specific Data for UCSD OR UCD.
UCR 2021 admit rate for CS was 37%. Admission: Undergraduate | Institutional Research
UCSC 2021 admits rate for CS was 71%. Admissions Funnel
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For UCB, here are some divisional admission rates by GPA (weighted, not capped). Note that EECS is the largest major in CoE. L&S did not admit by major at the time (but L&S CS needed a 3.3 college GPA in prerequisites to declare after entering as L&S undeclared); this is likely to change for high demand majors like CS.
From OPA – University of California Berkeley , choose the Academic Indicators tab. “Last updated on October 22, 2021” for the “last 3 complete application cycles”.
GPA appears to be weighted, not capped. Calculate using GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub
Admission rates only:
| GPA | L&S | CoE | CoC | CNR | CED |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.800-4.000 | 6.3% | 2.7% | 4.5% | 11.5% | 8.7% |
| 4.001-4.199 | 10.6% | 3.9% | 8.2% | 23.7% | 14.7% |
| 4.200-4.399 | 21.8% | 8.8% | 17.5% | 38.9% | 29.1% |
| 4.400-4.599 | 34.8% | 16.4% | 33.3% | 53.0% | 39.5% |
| 4.600-4.799 | 40.9% | 21.4% | 39.6% | 52.4% | 49.4% |
| 4.800-5.000 | 41.5% | 20.7% | 36.2% | 46.1% | 43.0% |
That’s interesting – almost across the board, the second-highest GPA group has better admit rates than the highest GPA group. Yield protection?
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Regarding Emory, CWRU, and Rochester, you may want to check what upper level CS courses are available and how frequently they are offered before applying ED to them.
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Probably because the highest GPA range requires a fair amount of GPA gaming with selection of courses eligible for honors points, as well as a high-opportunity high school that offers those honors courses (and has them UC-approved as such) and being sufficiently advanced in math and foreign language from middle school.
Gaming the course selection to maximize honors points may result in a subjectively less rigorous schedule, if minimizing non-honors academic courses results in skipping some core courses (e.g. not taking all of the sciences if a regular course is required before the AP course) or taking fewer courses due to avoiding non-honors academic electives (e.g. in arts, social studies, or English).
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I also wonder if maybe beyond 4.6, the adcoms don’t see much difference in quality – like it’s a sort of threshold beyond which applicants are seen as essentially equal. That’s similar to the theory that beyond 3.9/1500, most highly selective schools don’t read too much into stats: those are qualifying numbers, so now let’s apply the holistic part of app evaluation.
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I’m guessing that there are a lot of strong, competitive schools where it is not possible to pack the schedule with honors / AP courses to get the highest possible weighted GPA. Our kids’ school is a competitive bay area school with 50-60 admits to UCB every year, and it’s simply not possible to get those 4.8+ uncapped GPAs at our school. No matter how ambitious you are, the only weighted 10th grade core course is AP Chem, for example. Most of our ambitious kids also take unweighted electives like music, art, etc, that dilute the GPA.
I can’t tell you what the average uncapped UC GPA is for UCB admits from our school (since that isn’t listed on the dashboards), but the average capped UC GPA of UCB admits from our school is only 4.13, which is surprisingly low!
Yeah I think I could have phrased it better. We will be doing the EA options as well. I meant that if one of the ED options accepts him, we will have to lose the shot at any acceptance he may get at our state schools. We were just weighing the opportunity costs.
The schools he picked for EA are really strong programs, but also very-difficult-to-get-into public unis for an out of state applicant. Our in-state options are frankly just as hard if not harder as the stats folks have kindly posted show. We’re also doing decent safeties like Fordham, MSU, ASU, Oregon, etc. Things are so unpredictable now with all the Covid backlog, political context, economy, sigh…
Hence the desire to apply ED to a private uni that fits our needs.
TBH, I attended a CS program at a T10 school and worked with colleagues from others. There was really no difference between a T1-20 and a T20-50. In fact I barely even met any of the professors in my first 2 years. I had to squint at them writing on a dirty blackboard from behind 300 other students. Thats why I am hoping for smaller environment for him 
This would be unusual at UR unless the student didn’t want interaction. Many are involved in research by the second year - though as I said before - I’m not familiar with the CS department. I just doubt they’re different. The whole U has a research culture.
Did you see this (older) video? It was made my son’s year and he confirmed to us it all fit. I doubt much has changed other than the names 10 years down the road.
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The question really is: is Emory, CWRU, or Rochester liked well enough that the student will have no regrets about turning down, not applying to, or withdrawing application to the other schools if admitted ED?
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Thanks for sharing the video. I just watched with my son and he loved it too. I should mention he has had 12 years of classical music training (vocals). We like that the school has a strong music culture too. Objectively, UR is giving us really good digital vibes. I have a business trip to Boston. A side trip to Rochester and maybe with the kid (schedule allowing) is in the cards.
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Music and deep academic loves go hand in hand with many there. I think admissions seeks them out. There are several opportunities of all types at the club level (which my guy did) and competition “competitive to get in” groups too (which the Midnight Ramblers - the group that produced the video - are).
As parents we’ve gone to performances of several when we’ve visited. It’s equally as impressive seeing the artistic talent and hearing what the students are doing in their academic life.
But not everyone who visits likes it, so it’s worth going to and seeing/feeling it out, plus checking on CS for your specific interests.