Chance a VA resident for UC's, Ivys, Stanford [3.81 GPA, 1560 SAT, computer engineering]

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Guidelines

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Demographics

US Citizen
Virginia resident
Public high school (Not too competitive)
No hooks.

Cost Constraints / Budget

Little to no cost constraints

Intended Major(s)
Intended major of computer engineering

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

3.81/4 Unweighted
4.31/5 Weighted
High school does not rank students
1560 SAT Superscore (800 Math, 760 R/W)
I had all A’s sophomore and junior year, middle school and freshman year are why my GPA is low

(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)

  • English: AP Language and Composition/ AP Literatyre
  • Math: AP Calc BC, Multivariable Calc, Linear Algebra
  • Science: AP Physics 1, AP Physics C
  • History and social studies: AP US History, AP Gov
  • Language other than English:Spanish 5 HN
  • Visual or performing arts: None
  • Other academic courses: AP Precalc, AP World, AP Comp Sci Principles, AP Comp Sci A, AP Lit, CS Data Structures

College Coursework (Transfer Applicants)
(Include college courses taken while in high school if not included above.)
SDV 100 (Just a free class to raise my GPA to be honest)

  • General education course work:
  • Major preparation course work: All the math and cs classes

Awards
Commended student for PSAT (1480)
AP scholar with distinction
National Honors Society
Computer science honor society

Extracurriculars
Interned at AI Startup Cartesia over summer; led initiative to develop AI models to predict future investments of potential buyers
President of Aerospace engineering club
Published research on the effect of numerical complexity on the effieincy of AI Image generation models
Published app Nodelet; Allows users to find all free/public use technology in their area
4 Years varsity swim
Editor and Chief of journalism program; Managed 30+ articles
Vice President of Physics Club
100+ Volunteer Hours
Robotics club; 4 years member

Essays/LORs/Other
LORS will be very good. First from my calc bc teacher, who knew me well and liked me. Second from my CSA teacher, who didn’t no me personally but can attest to my ability in the class. I got my final from the CEO of the company I interned at who liked me.

Essays I think will also be very strong.
Schools
Safeties: Penn state, Virginia tech, NC State
Targets: Georgia Tech, UVA, Umich, Purdue, UIUC
Reaches: Duke, Penn, UCLA, Berkely, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia
Wild Card: MIT, Stanford, Harvard.

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This will be a problem for the UCs. One year or visual or performing arts is required for admission to UC schools.

I don’t think these are targets given your GPA and the fact that you are OOS for some. They are all probably low reaches. UVA is possibly still a target.

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Yeah actually looking back I get that

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Could journalisim count as a visual art? It satisfied the art credit for my school and I took it all 4 years of high school

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I’d agree that they’re all reaches. But, I’d put UIUC for computer science as a high reach, given its under 7% acceptance rate, and that this student is out of state.

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Georgia Tech and UMich are reaches.
Purdue and UIUC are likely high targets given your GPA, OOS status and desired major (CE).

Unfortunately, the Ivies, MIT and Stanford will be in the “very low probability” bucket.

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With the exception of a couple of majors – and Comp Eng is [not] one of them – UC’s are not worth the OOS costs, IMO.

btw: UC;s don’t take recs or test scores, so transcript reigns supreme.

Ooops (read CS not CE): EECS at Cal is one of those majors that is worth the OOS fees IMO. That said, CoE is an extremely competitive admit, so High Reach, as are the others in your “Reach” category. You would improve your odds at the Ivies and Duke if you ED to one of them.

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OP is not applying for CS
Acceptance rate for the College of Engineering is in the mid 20%. It’s a high target, IMO

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For UIUC, computer engineering is a different major than computer science. It has a higher admission rate than computer science so I stand by my low reach categorization.

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Please see the link for information about the UC course requirements. Unless it was photojournalism, I don’t think it would count. Perhaps reach out to an admissions officer at UCLA or Berkeley to confirm.

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So your “Reaches” and “Wild Cards” are mostly midsize private universities, with the exception of the two Cals. I agree some of your Targets are actually Reaches too, which would add more large publics. But you don’t appear to have any Likely or Target private universities.

If you would like some suggestions along those lines, let us know.

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According to the UCOP A-G course list , a Broadcast Journalism course, Journalism Production and Design could meet the requirements.

The UC’s will still review your application without meeting the A-G course requirements but it can impact your chances.

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University of California A-G Course List indicates that most journalism courses in CA high schools are “G college preparatory elective”, though a few multimedia / production courses are “F visual or performing arts”, for UC purposes.

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Yes I feel I do not have a good middle ground between reaches and safties, so some suggestions would be great.

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Agree. But they do admit by major and they are Top 10 (maybe even 5) school for EE/CE.

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As a Virginian parent of a C25, Id agree that Va Tech is a safety IF you apply Early Action. RD admission is on a space available basis by major, so definitely apply EA, even for less popular majors.

UVA is a crapshoot for in-state no matter how good your scores are. I’d even say rigor and GPA - in the context of your classmates at your high school - is even more important than scores. UVA doesn’t care if you’re in the top 15% of statewide SAT scores, they look highschool by highschool and pretty consistently take the top 2-3% of applicants from each (at least each public). If you’re at a high achieving HS that might bump up to top 10% but I’d say that’s the max. Even if your school doesn’t rank, they can tell. Just be careful on any assumptions about UVA.

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So if you like tech-focused colleges like MIT, some other less reachy versions to consider would be colleges like RPI, WPI, and Clarkson.

RPI has a really robust set of options for Computer Engineering and related disciplines:

WPI also has a well-known ECE program, and consistent with their general education philosophy it emphasizes a lot of hand-on/project-based learning:

Clarkson is almost more like an LAC in size and approach, but still a research university:

Speaking of which, if you wanted to go even more in the small direction, you could also consider Olin:

If maybe a little less specifically tech-focused is your preference, you could look at, say, Case Western:

Or the University of Rochester:

Drexel is worth considering if you are interested in coops:

Finally, Northeastern is tricky because they get so many applications and are sometimes considered yield-protecty, but they could be worth looking at, again particularly if you like the idea of coops:

https://ece.northeastern.edu/academics/undergraduate-studies/ece-accreditation/

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The UCs do not use the Common App. They have a separate application with 4 personal insight questions and up to 20 Activity & Awards with descriptions. It takes a lot of effort to craft a competitive UC application.

What is it about UCLA and Berkeley that you find attractive? If you don’t have the pre-reqs you might want to re-evaluate whether applying is worth the effort.

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Not sure from what I read on here that Va Tech is safe in state.

Ga Tech is definitely not a target; nor is UIUC.

Reaches are that - and Wild Card are not wild cards - they are super reaches.

PSU and NC State are highly likely - so if you’re good there, you’re good.

Best of luck.

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Does your high school have Naviance or Scoir or Maia or something similar? It provides information on how students from your high school have done at particular colleges. If it provides information on major, then even better, as your intended major intends to be more competitive than average. In terms of your chances (particularly at VA Tech and UVA), I would talk with your school counselors. Depending on the part of Virginia you’re from (like NoVA), it can be very competitive to get in, or at the very least somewhat unpredictable. I have heard that the short answer questions at VA Tech are also quite important. @OctoberKate may want to share about her kids’ experiences.

@NiceUnparticularMan gave you some great suggestions. Some others you may want to consider include:

  • Santa Clara (CA): About 6200 undergrads
  • Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ): About 4100 undergrads

These schools would be likely or extremely likely admits for you, but I thought they would be worth mentioning if you want some size diversity in those buckets:

  • Michigan Tech: About 5900 undergrads
  • Missouri Science & Technology: About 5500 undergrads
  • Rose-Hulman (IN): About 2200 undergrads
  • Rochester Institute of Technology (NY): About 14k undergrads and another school with a strong co-op culture
  • Wentworth Institute of Technology (MA): About 3800 undergrads
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