Chance a rising senior for CS [IL resident, 3.74 GPA, 1500 SAT (1540 superscore)]

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Demographics: Male, Asian, IL, public high school, first generation

Intended Majors: Computer Science/Machine Learning/Artifical Intelligence (First choice), Electrical Engineering (probably second choice unless I can apply separately for CS and ML/AI - in that case CS would be first choice and ML/AI would be second choice)

Standardized Testing: Took the SAT 4 times - highest score in one sitting is 1500, but I can superscore 1540 for schools that accept superscore. I’m thinking of retaking it in August since my GPA is quite low for a CS major for top schools; someone please give me advice on this!!!

UW/W GPA: 3.74/4.0 and 4.44/5.0 and I don’t know my class rank yet

Coursework: My school doesn’t allow AP classes to be taken during freshman year and no IB classes are offered.

  • Freshman Year: Got a B in Freshman English during semester 1
  • Sophomore Year: AP Physics 1, AP Computer Science A - earned an A in both classes, 3 on AP Physics 1 and 5 on AP Computer Science A, got a B in Precalculus Honors both semesters
  • Junior Year: AP Calculus BC (got an A), AP U.S. History (got a B both semesters), AP Biology (got a C first semester but got a B second semester), AP Computer Science Principles (got an A), AP English Language and Composition (got an A) and I am still awaiting AP scores
  • Senior Year: I plan on doing the following courses
    • Multivariable Calculus and Linear Algebra
    • AP Statistics
    • AP Physics C Mechanics and AP Physics C E&M
    • World Literature
    • AP Government
    • Computer Science Algorithms

Awards:

  • Semifinalist at 2021 National Science and History Bees
  • Won gold at 2024 IJAS regional and state science fairs for a novel approach to fraud detection using machine learning techniques
  • Selected for and participated at 2022 Emory National Debate Competition
  • Team Captain at 2024 HSNCT and led team to tie for 65th place out of 320 competing teams from around the nation as well as internationally
  • Gold Honor Roll for 9th, 10th, and 11th Sem 2. (Green Honor Roll for 11th Sem 1 due to the C in AP Biology)
  • This probably doesn’t count but: Placed in the top 35 individuals nationally for the 2021 MSNCT

Extracurriculars

  • Led a team of three (including me) to win gold prizes at the regional and state levels of the IJAS science fairs by collaborating on a project that describes a novel approach to combating fraud detection using specialized machine learning techniques
  • In talks with aforementioned team about publishing the research paper that complements the experiment
  • Internship at a software company which provided me with the tools to transform the classical fraud detection approach into a quantum model using IBM Qiskit and related softwares
  • Certified IBM Qiskit developer and various Google certifications/badges in areas such as generative artificial intelligence and prompt engineering
  • Team captain of school scholastic bowl team; led team at various local, regional, and national competitions and tied for 65th place out of 320 competing teams from around the nation as well as internationally
  • Dedicated member of Catalyst, a youth-focused substance use prevention club; traveled with group for National Advocacy Day and spoke with Illinois representatives regarding primary prevention strategies
  • Member of Computer Science Club where I participated in various hackathons and group projects in different areas of computing
  • Member of National Honor Society and I have ~45 volunteer hours; I plan to get it up to 100 by the end of this summer
  • Black Belt in Karate
  • Volunteer peer tutor in Mathematics and Computer Science
  • Worked at Kumon as a tutor and used this opportunity to hone my organizational and communication skills
  • I may also speak with a friend’s mom about automating her clinic using RPA(she is a doctor) - <50% chance of happening but still included

Any advice on how to strengthen my ECs would be greatly appreciated!

Essays/LORs/Other: I’m still not sure what prompt I am going to write for the personal statement but I have narrowed down some of the prompts I would like to answer.
I asked my AP Lang teacher and AP CSP teacher for letters of recommendation; I’m thinking that they won’t be anything amazing, probably just good, so I need my personal statement and supplementals to shine. Any advice for how to write essays that got you guys into good schools would greatly aid me in the process

List of schools: CMU, GTech, IU, MIT, Purdue, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UChicago, UIC, UIUC, UMD college park, Umich, UNC Chapel Hill, UW Madison, UT Austin, WashU

1 Like
2

Are you cooked? No. Not even close.

But where’s your safety ?

1 Like
3

Looks like a ton of reach schools to me.

Are these schools affordable?

1 Like
4

Have you tried the net price calculator on each of their web sites and checked with your parents that the answer is affordable? Note that most public universities do not give much or any need-based financial aid to out-of-state students.

5

What are your score breakdowns?

6

You don’t mention how much your parents will pay annually for you to attend college. Are they prepared to spend $75,000 a year, or maybe more for UCLA and USCD…because that’s how much they will cost.

In addition, you have a number of OOS public universities on your list which don’t guarantee to meet full need for OOS students. Some don’t guarantee to meet full need at all.

7

I edited the click bait title accordingly

4 Likes
8

I agree your list is full of reaches and you need a couple of safeties. I don’t really know much about CS safeties but since no one has offered any suggestions yet I’ll offer this…a friend’s child with similar interests and test scores and a significantly higher GPA applied to almost all of the schools on your list this year and was rejected or waitlisted to all but 2 of those. Their safety was Colorado School of Mines where they got good merit aid too. So I don’t really know anything about it but just offering that as an idea. Hopefully others who know more will also have some ideas for safeties for you. Good luck!

ETA - friend was unhooked and was not first gen so you do have that!

9

IMO it is impossible to suggest a safety without a budget from the OP.

4 Likes
10

Regarding that point, @Natural_Stable1164 please confirm you meant first gen to college (neither of your parents have a bachelor’s degree from any college anywhere in the world), and not just first gen in America.

11

Oh, I was under the impression that first gen was first to go to college in the US. Both of my parents did go to college elsewhere in the world and earn degrees. Sorry for the confusion.

12

December 2023: 680R and 800M
April 2024: 740R and 740M

1 Like
13

Thank you for the response! I will talk to them about this; in the meantime could you suggest any alternative colleges? My parents want me to apply within the t30 which is why my list has significantly less safeties than targets or reaches.

14

UIC, IU, Purdue, UMD College Park. Please let me know if I can include any more. The college list is still in draft mode, but I’m planning to finalize by the end of this month.

15

AFAIK only UCLA defines it that way. You won’t be considered first-gen at the other colleges on your list. So I’m going to remove that tag from this thread.

These are not safeties for CS.

2 Likes
16

can you suggest safeties?

17

Iowa State, U Dayton, Mich State, UIC (which you have), Illinois Tech (formerly IIT), UT Dallas, ASU, U Arizona, U Alabama, and many more…but we do need your budget.

I wouldn’t consider IU for CS.

What are your preferences re: geography, size, etc?

How many years of foreign language do you have?

2 Likes
18

Please calculate your 3 UC GPA’s which are Unweighted, Capped weighted and Fully weighted. Only AP/IB and UC Transferable DE courses will be given the extra weighting in the calculation and the UC’s only use 10-11th grades.

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

UC’s are test blind so your SAT score will not be used for admissions or scholarship consideration. Also note that the UC’s have their own application with 4 Personal insight question prompts and very detailed EC/awards section.

UCLA CS admit rate was 3.1%
UC Berkeley CS admit rate was 1.9%
UC San Diego CS admit rate estimated at 5% or less.

All the UC’s are Reach schools so make sure $74K/year to attend is within your budget if you happen to apply.

Overall a competitive applicant but so are the majority of CS majors that apply to the UC’s.

Good luck.

1 Like
19

UIC and IU.

I saw another poster mentioned safeties. There’s those and more.

You need a budget and desired spend.

20

UPitt and UConn might be safeties with decent programs.