Chance a 3.8, 1560 resident for T20s for computer engineering

Chance Me / Match Me
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Guidelines

  • Please check back to answer questions.
  • Please do not share identifying information.
  • Please do not include your race.

Demographics

  • US Citizen
  • Virginia resident
  • Public high school, not too competitive
  • Other special factors: No hooks!

Cost Constraints / Budget
No cost constraints

Intended Major(s)
Computer Engineering/AI

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
3.81/4 UW, 4.3/5 W
All A’s sophomore and junior year, bad freshman and 8th grade.

  • Class Rank: Not ranked but def top 5%
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1560 (800 Math, 760 R/W)

List your HS coursework

English: AP Language and Composition, AP Lit

Math: DE Multivariable Calc, DE Linear Algebra, AP Calc BC, AP Precalc

Science: AP Physics C Mechanics, AP Physics 1, AP Computer Science A, AP Computer Science Principles

History and social studies: AP Government, AP US History, AP World History

Language other than English: Spanish all through high school until Spanish 5 HN

Visual or performing arts: 4 Years of Journalism as well
Overall I think max course rigor

  • Major preparation course work: All the math and comp sci classes I think

Awards
Top 15 Finish at FIRST Robotics World Championships (International)
International Computer Science Competition Semi-Finalist (International)
Kaggle Comp Bronze Medal (International)
2 District awards from robotics
National Merit Commended Student

Extracurriculars
Internship at competitive AI startup; Created models to predict investments of other companies
Published research on AI models; done under MIT grad student and published in reputable journal, not too prestigious
Founder of app; published on apple app store; 2500+ downloads, 50 5 star reviews; coded custom impact engine online for it
President of Physics Club; Led outreach programs reaching 100+ people
Editor in Chief of journalism program; managed 100+ articles annually and oversaw program development
President of Aerospace Engineering Club; partnered with local STEM organizations
4 Years varsity swim; two time district qualifier and one time district finalist]
Member of robotics club; went to world championships
100+ volunteer hours

Essays/LORs/Other
Essays 9/10. Went through 7 drafts on my common app and was told it was very good. Dedicated a lot of time to my supplementals
LOR 1 (10/10) From CEO of company I interned at who really liked me and said he would write a great rec
LOR 2 (9/10) From Calc BC teacher who really liked me as well, we formed a good relationship
LOR 3 (7/10) From Comp Sci A teacher, liked me but didn’t really have a relationship with

Schools
I am applying to a LOT of schools, here are only the reaches I am applying to. I know these are all low probabilities already
Princeton
MIT
Harvard
Stanford
Yale
Cal tech
Duke
John Hopkins
Northwestern
Penn (ED)
Cornell
Brown
Columbia
UCLA
UC Berk
U Michigan
Georgia Tech
UVA

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Since you have UCs on your list, be aware that most high school journalism courses are not considered art courses by UCs (they are considered college prep electives), although a few are considered art. Probably this depends on having substantial work in doing art type things like layout and graphic design, versus writing news and opinions.

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In my opinion, this is way too many reach schools. Each one has several school specific essays and the quality of your essays needs to be high for every single one. It’s just not feasible to write so many essays. I’d cut the reach list to 5-7 schools.

I’m assuming you have safety and target schools on your list as well?

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You should also recalculate your GPA for the UCs. The good news is that it should come up quite a bit higher (all As sophomore and junior year would be a 4.0 UW for the UCs).

But same concern about the lack of visual/performing art. Journalism is California schools is classified as a vocational art, not a VPA, and is a college prep course for the UCs, not a VPA, UNLESS you were doing significant photography or graphics or something like that. You should check on that to make sure it will qualify.

Here’s where you can calculate your three UC GPAs:

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I got 4.0 UW and 4.79 W. But does that mean I cannot apply to the UCs if I do not have a visual or preforming art?

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Yes I have many targets and safeties as well. These are only the high reaches

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You can apply and my understanding is that they will review your application, but if you had the opportunity to take a VPA and chose not to, you will likely be rejected (they make exceptions for students who had no reasonable opportunity to take a VPA). @ucbalumnus and/or @Gumbymom can verify whether my understanding is accurate.

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I agree with the comment above that you have way too many reach schools. You should try to figure out which schools are the best fit for you, keep something like half or less of your list, and cut the other half of your list of reach schools.

At a minimum I would make sure that you have applications sent in to at least two safety schools and perhaps your favorite 2 or 3 or 5 reach schools before you start to spend time on the rest of the reach applications. I am concerned that you might get burned out part way through putting together so many applications and so many essays. I am guessing that somewhere between the 20th and 30th essay the quality might be a bit weaker than it was for the first 10.

Given this I am hesitant to add yet another school to your list. However, universities in Canada will not care about your bad grades 8 and 9. They will look at your most recent two years of high school, which are excellent. As such I am wondering whether it would be worth picking one or two out of Toronto, Waterloo, McGill, and maybe Queens (in Kingston Ontario) or UBC to also apply to.

And I do wonder why you would apply ED to Penn. Are you sure that it is your number 1 top choice among all of these schools? If you were accepted to every school on this list, would you choose to attend Penn?

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Since Terms of Service prohibit multiple accounts, I have closed the thread.