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UC chances of OOS student planning to major in CS (or CS+math)
clgApp20
38 replies12 threads Junior Member
Hi,
Appreciate if you can chance me for Univ of Cal - am planning to apply UCB, UCLA, UCSD. Plan to apply for CS major (either in college of science or as EECS).
CA residency: Out of state
UC GPA - capped weighted - 4.19
UC GPA - uncapped weighted - 4.6
UC GPA - unweighted (10-11) - 3.74
School GPA - unweighted (9-11) - 3.8
School GPA - weighted (9-11) - 4.88 <-- this is what school officially reports
Rank - top 5% (think I am around 20 out of 450)
Rigor: most rigorous with 15 AP's by end of senior year. Mostly 5's in completed AP's.
SAT1 - 1580 (800m+780ebrw; 7-6-7 essay) - single sitting
SAT2 - Math2, Math1, Phy - 800
SAT2 - Chem - 780
Decent EC's - consistent participation/leadership roles in 4 school-based clubs/activities plus outside activities like volunteering/research-internship/club-sport - all of them I have a long record including all of high school years - some awards/prizes at state level (math competitions - state level first/second awards - state science olympiad/sciencebowl top-3 placements - one national math meet top-10 placement - 2xAIME qualifier - AP National Scholar - wins in local hackathons - CS research with a college prof but not published - state science fair CS subject award; attended couple free summer programs with 15% admit rates - something like governors schools etc). NO national award / published paper.
My common app essay can be rated as average as of now - still working on it but am not satisfied yet. teacher reco's will be good.
What are my chances in CS at UCB, UCLA and UCSD in that order. Anything that I need to highlight in my application to get noticed at UCB? (am still confused in how to order my activities and honors for example). TIA
PS: I haven't yet seen the UC application.
PS2: school sends around 4-5 students to UCB every year.
25 replies Appreciate if you can chance me for Univ of Cal - am planning to apply UCB, UCLA, UCSD. Plan to apply for CS major (either in college of science or as EECS).
CA residency: Out of state
UC GPA - capped weighted - 4.19
UC GPA - uncapped weighted - 4.6
UC GPA - unweighted (10-11) - 3.74
School GPA - unweighted (9-11) - 3.8
School GPA - weighted (9-11) - 4.88 <-- this is what school officially reports
Rank - top 5% (think I am around 20 out of 450)
Rigor: most rigorous with 15 AP's by end of senior year. Mostly 5's in completed AP's.
SAT1 - 1580 (800m+780ebrw; 7-6-7 essay) - single sitting
SAT2 - Math2, Math1, Phy - 800
SAT2 - Chem - 780
Decent EC's - consistent participation/leadership roles in 4 school-based clubs/activities plus outside activities like volunteering/research-internship/club-sport - all of them I have a long record including all of high school years - some awards/prizes at state level (math competitions - state level first/second awards - state science olympiad/sciencebowl top-3 placements - one national math meet top-10 placement - 2xAIME qualifier - AP National Scholar - wins in local hackathons - CS research with a college prof but not published - state science fair CS subject award; attended couple free summer programs with 15% admit rates - something like governors schools etc). NO national award / published paper.
My common app essay can be rated as average as of now - still working on it but am not satisfied yet. teacher reco's will be good.
What are my chances in CS at UCB, UCLA and UCSD in that order. Anything that I need to highlight in my application to get noticed at UCB? (am still confused in how to order my activities and honors for example). TIA
PS: I haven't yet seen the UC application.
PS2: school sends around 4-5 students to UCB every year.
Replies to: UC chances of OOS student planning to major in CS (or CS+math)
@Gumbymom @ProfessorPlum168 @ucbalumnus
You have an excellent test scores but your capped weighted and unweighted UC GPA are a bit low for these competitive schools. Overall you are a competitive applicant but UCLA/UCB will be Reach schools regardless of your qualifications.
OOS admissions are higher than in-state admissions for all of these schools, but that is due to the costs. Many OOS admits are unable to afford $65K/year with little to no financial aid to attend so make sure this is affordable.
Your best chance would be UCSD and since CS is a capped major, I suggest you consider an alternate major in case you are not accepted into CS.
Some UC Statisical data below and not specific for CS. Expect lower admit rates and higher required stats.
2018 Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 3.80-4.19 capped weighted and not major specific:
UCB: 10%
UCLA: 9%
UCSD: 34%
2019 UC capped weighted GPA averages:
UCB: 4.23
UCLA: 4.25
UCSD: 4.23
2019 Data:
25th - 75th percentiles for SAT totals:
UCB: 1340-1540
UCLA: 1330-1550
UCSD: 1300-1520
Admission Rates for Out-of-State Applicants (Domestic):
UCLA: 16.5%
UC Berkeley: 17.1%
UC San Diego: 59.6%
Best of luck.
UCLA's CS is more or less the same situation as the Berkeley EECS, admissions-wise.
https://blog.hackerrank.com/which-universities-have-the-strongest-developers/
I wouldn't get caught up in rankings. They aren't reliable. What you get when you graduate is an entry level job, no more no less. The higher employers go on salary, the easier it is to hire an experienced professional to do the job. That's economics 101. The "big bucks" out of college idea is a myth. You don't want high levels of debt when you're starting a new career. You need to be able to pay your bills as you gain experience. Once you gain some experience in a specialty, you're worth as a professional goes up exponentially.
An 80k starting salary sounds nice coming out of UC, but you're in California. That's barely paycheck to paycheck, especially if you have a mountain of debt to pay back. A starting salary of $55,000 in Texas, for example, actually goes further, especially if you have sustainable levels of debt.
Based on past UC admission rates by GPA (see previous replies):
UCB: reach for L&S*, high reach for EECS
UCLA: high reach for CS
UCSD: reach or high reach for CS (but low reach for the school**)
*Need 3.3 college GPA in three CS courses to enter L&S CS major.
**If not directly admitted to CS, need 3.3 college GPA in CS prerequisites and then enter a lottery for the CS major.
But is that because of the school, or because the students were stronger students to begin with (i.e. treatment effect versus selection effect)?
The difference is 0.50 (not sure why you thought this always should be 0.30). We have semester system with 4 blocks for a total of 16 grades (+2 over summer, health and art classes which are not counted in the GPA): 4.0 for for A's and 3.0 for B's - W is capped at 8 AP credits (I took total of 12 AP credits). I earlier made a mistake and capped W at 7 instead of 8. The correct W and Capped GPA is 4.25
Anyway, it may not make too much of diff as UW GPA maybe the main criteria (?)
The usual student will have around 22-28 grades between 10-11 grade. That's 5.5 to 7 courses per semester for 2 years, which may include any summer classes plus any community college classes. The only classes that are excluded from the calculation are PE classes. At 22 grades, the diff is .36, at 28 grades the diff is .29. 16 is low, since that would mean an average of only 4 classes a semester.
Yes that is right, we have a max of 4 classes a semester (if you are taking AP/Honors courses - all my courses are either AP or Honors - so that max I could take are 4 per semester). If UC adds Health/Art classes - where I got all A grades, my unweighted improves.
Thanks for the explanation.
FWIW - here is one specific example that I know - my brother is graduating from a well rated CS college (close to Berkeley but a few spots lower than UCB in CSrankings.com). He already got an offer to start after graduation: 120K+stocks+sign-on. His job location is in CA - that is the reason parents are OK with me to go there, if I get in at Berkeley. My brother is good but not a genius (though he likes to believe that
interesting...just to belabor the issue a bit more, usually top students will have 4 years of math, science, English and probably social sciences, plus 3-4 years of a foreign language. And usually a couple of classes of art/music. Plus electives. You must have skipped something surely?
I took everything (6 semesters each in English, Math, Social; 8 semesters in Science; 3 semesters in FL and electives). What is skipped in school are PE, Art, Health, music - they are required for grad though and so were taken through online public high school (btw, its just not I - many other students do the same every year in/around our school district). I also took 2 math college courses at a local college too after exhausting all school courses. All these online and college courses appear in the transcript with letter grades but they will not be counted towards school GPA (not sure how schools like UC that recalculate, treats them though - if they include grades from all these courses, its big plus for me - my GPA will jump to 3.86 as you suggested)
The problem with our fewer class model is - one B can trip up your absolute GPA. That is the reason, in our school the people with 4.0 are one or two (for context I am in top 5% - despite of my 3.86UW GPA from 9-11 grades). Unless colleges know this - they may not interpret the gpa in our local context.
So courses that wouldn't count would be things like PE or Weightlifting or Golf. But most everything else probably would count, whether it be a certified HS online school or at a community college. Even courses like Beginning Dance, Ceramics and Auto Repair would count. The courses you took in college probably would be considered weighted (I think) as well.
So it sounds like you're more closer to 24-28 semesters in 10th and 11th grade, as opposed to 16 semesters. Which would be better for you if you got As in all of those extra classes. Also, some of the college classes that was taken as one semester *might* count as two semesters for UC GPA calculation purposes for certain classes (not sure which ones they are).