I am a high school student from Peru and I am in my last year. Last year, I have passed with GPA 19/20 (in the national system, it is equivalent to A+). I have taken SAT I (1600/1600) and SAT II: MathII (800), Chemistry (800), Physics(800). AP courses are not offered in my country, but I have taken the IB. I scored 39/45; which is not very impressive, but is higher that the national average (24). Come from public boarding and very competitive high school (10% rank). I have not taken the TOEFL exam yet.
ECs, Awards and that stuff:
Math Team (4 years)---->Finalist on National Olympiad and many state-level awards
Chemistry Team (2 years)----> National Award and Summer Camp for International Chemistry Olympiad
Physics Team (2 years)----> National Award
Independent Research on Math (Complex and Multivariable Calculus)
Scholar Partnership on IBM (1 year)
Volunteering—> Founded a local group to help an indigenous community
Summer Time—> Free Tutoring on Math and Science for Poor Children / Self-Taught myself programmingon Python and R (planning to develop simple AI code on Github)
I know Spanish, English and Portuguese (I don´t know it is impressive, but I would like to mention that)
Other Minor Stuffs: Organized some MUN debates in school and I was part of theater group
What do you think are my chances to get into Ivy League for Computer Science? And, what do you think that I can improve?
Thank you!
I would advise you try to take one of those summer programs that these institutions have and get in touch with some official in them, that may help to boost your chances
@skieurope I got a friend who went to one of those summer programs and got to meet a person in an important position there (The guy had accomplished many things too) and he could even get his recommendation for another institution, he was later accepted in both institutions.
They may say summer programs have no effect in the admissions process but having the chance to meet some official in those institutions who would like you to be there helps to influence the admissions process to an extent.
One anecdote does not a trend make. Every year hundreds of students attend Ivy summer programs and the vast, vast majority is rejected when they later apply for regular admission to the university.
I would posit that the student was accepted because he “accomplished many things too,” not because he did a summer program. I would further assume that his meeting a person was the result his own initiative.
There are certainly some advantages that mayresult from a summer program, but any advantage would result from the student taking advantage of opportunities while there. However, the same could be said for many other summer activities.
I know that both A and B are correct, I’m just advising OP to take the summer program and try to do something similar, having a contact point inside the institution where someone wants to go may be quite beneficial when applying to it.
If you are interested in computer science, then you should do research into the top schools for computer science. On the most part the top CS schools do not happen to play football in the Ivy League conference.
CS is a competitive major, and top US schools are reaches for even very strong students such as yourself. However, you do look like the type of student who has a realistic chance at the top US schools.
@OrangePuppet256, you are obviously a top performer in school, and are looking to go to another top place. It would help people on CC if you could add a little about what you want from your college experience & why you want it to be in the US.
What are you thinking of doing in Computer Science? are you hoping to stay in the US? Are you looking at the “ivy League” (which is collection of universities that are pretty different from each other, but belong to the same football league) b/c they are the names you know? because they have really good financial aid?
Unlike universities in Peru, at almost all US universities you will be expected to do some amount of study outside your course (for example, at Columbia, CS students also have to take classes in art, literature, music, political philosophy, and economics). Is that something that you want?
If you want to do all computer science (and/or math), have you considered the UK? Your IB 39 (if it includes a 7 in HL math) puts you in range for Oxford CompSci. Depending on your financial circumstances, it could be cost-competitive with the US.
I was wondering about doing research on “quantum computing” because it combines computer science and quantum physics (my favourites study fields). Although, actually I don´t have the resources to make some practical research; but I am trying to learn a couple of things from the public resources offered by IBM and Microsoft (apart from reading some theorical papers).
I reckon that Ivy League is my best option because it is an academical environment that is going to challenge me and it have the resources (technical and economical) to allows me create and develop new projects for the world.
I think that humanities (specially philosophy and economics) are an important tool in the process of constructing a new knowledge because it consider the ethical and moral impact of our projects. Although I am not going to focus my research in humanities; I wouldn´t like to just be a “science-nerd”. My country have not yet a tech boom; but I would like to start and be the leader of that change.
Some of the best universities for that physics + computer science - with the best resources- are not “Ivy League”- they are state universities with outstanding resources. Examples to consider are California (esp UC-Berkeley), Illinois (UIUC), Maryland (UMd)… and Texas:
Look at the work that an undergraduate student at the University of Texas - Austin did for his honors thesis
There are a lot of places that you can make your mark. Do some more work on computer science programs that would really suit you. Start broad, then narrow.
