Chance/Match [US citizen outside the US] Junior - STS/CS/Data Sci [3.96/1580]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics
-US Citizen, Asian male
-Moved to Korea for high school
-Attending large international school, current junior
-Other special factors: will be submitting music supplement

Cost Constraints / Budget
-Open
-Ideally want to get as much merit scholarship as possible

Intended Major(s)
STS (Science, Technology, and Society) - only when B.S. available
Data Science
Computer Science

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
-UW: 3.96/4, W: 4.04 (AP course +0.5) (will get up to 4.12ish by end of junior year)
-School doesn’t rank
-SAT: 1580 (790/790)
-PSAT/NMSQT: 1520

List your HS coursework
10 APs:
-Taken: World (5), Comp Sci A (5)
-Taking: Lang, Calc BC, Physics 1, Chem
-Will most likely take: Spanish, Lit, Physics 2, Econ

Will self study Physics C Mechanics this year (school doesn’t offer it)

Awards
-USACO Gold (passed Silver)
-KSEF (Korea Science & Engineering Fair) Bronze Medal for CS Research
-ACSL Gold (junior div), Bronze (senior div)
-Finalist (solo) + high commendation (quartet) for decently big music competition
-National level volunteer award

Prospective awards:
-Int’l research award
-Larger music award (think YoungArts, MTNA, etc.)
-Int’l/Nat’l coding project award

Extracurriculars
-Cello (highly selective summer program, volunteer work teaching seniors, charity string ensemble captain, various orchestra participation + section leading)
-Coding (personal research project, university research internship, volunteer work teaching kids and seniors digital literacy)
-Environment (project manager @ prominent government youth org, captain of carbon neutrality education volunteer group)
-Student Council Officer, Varsity Debate Head Captain, Physics club

Prospective ECs:
-Currently starting to build app to work with local senior centers in improving digital literacy for seniors
-Have a winter internship lined up at large AI corporation in Korea
-Going for a summer research internship at large universities in the US (e.g. BU RISE)

Essays/LORs/Other
-Orchestra & Physics 10/10, prob 8.5/10 for English
-Essays hopefully around 9/10
-Will be submitting a music supplement to schools that have them, would estimate I am at an 8.5/10 level

Schools
Will prob be applying STS for schools that offer a B.S. in it, otherwise Data Science, and if both don’t exist most likely just CS :frowning:

Not sure which of these would be safeties, targets, and reaches, so I’ll just list them in order of what I think will be most likely to least likely to get accepted

UIUC
UW Madison
UDub Seattle
UT Austin
UCSD
Georgia Tech
UMich
JHU
UCLA
UC Berkeley
Columbia
Stanford

Which of these are safeties, targets, and reaches?(assuming all of my predictions work out for essays, ecs, awards, etc.)

Any other schools that are good for STS/Data Science/CS that I haven’t listed? I would still like to be in a suburban/urban environment

Few additional questions:
-How well does my counselor need to know me? Does he need to know generally everything that I’m doing to write a good LOR, or what is his LOR for?
-If my brother is currently at Columbia and my father got his Ph.D there, does that help my application?
-How large of an effect does me living internationally have on my acceptance rates? (don’t need aid)

I’ve posted a similar thread before, but now I have a better idea of what I want to do for the next year and where I want to apply- thanks in advance for any help!!

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Link to poster’s other thread.

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IMO they are all reaches, especially for CS. The vast majority of the schools on your list are reaches regardless of major.

You need to add schools where you have a high likelihood of acceptance (and affordability).

The schools on your list either don’t offer merit scholarships at all, or offer very little money to a few top candidates. So you should not count on getting merit money at any of these.

What is your budget?

At Columbia, siblings don’t count for legacy, and I don’t believe grad students count either.

You will be included in the domestic category, so you have better odds than international students. But you will be evaluated in the context of your school in Korea.

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As a suggestion for a potential addition to your list, look into Macalester, which has a data science major, resides in an urban environment and may offer you merit scholarship recognition.

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So I think usually it makes more sense to think in terms of a target budget as opposed to an amount of merit. Like College A might offer more merit, but College B might just start less expensive to begin with, so if College B ends up less expensive does it really matter that College A offered more merit?

For exploring this concept, I like to recommend playing around with this list:

You can see there are big variations in what percentage, if any, of students without need get merit, and then the average award if they do get merit. But there are also big variations in out-of-state cost. So all three of those variables matter.

Then depending on where you are actually trying to get in terms of cost, I think there will be many colleges with CS and DS that could come in pretty low for a person with your numbers–but probably not the sort you listed.

STS is a more limited pool, but schools like, say, RPI or WPI do have STS. And they have merit. But they also start at a pretty high COA. So how will that work out for you overall?

But consider, say, a Michigan State. Very well-respected research university, and they have what they call a Science and Society major. Their full OOS cost of attendance is on the high side, but they do have OOS merit, and I suspect you would qualify for the maximum amount of $15K/year:

Anyway, there are a lot of variables to consider. But if you give us an idea of what budget you are targeting, we can give you whatever STS options we can come up with, then (likely) more CS/DS options to consider.

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Here are the most current admit rates for CS/DS for the UC’s on your list.

Campus CS Data Science
UC Berkeley 1.9%/ UC Capped weighted GPA 4.20-4.30 Campus UC unweighted 3.89-4.00 Campus Weighted uncapped 4.31-4.65 9%
UCLA 3.1% Impacted Major/ Capped weighted GPA 4.25-4.32 Campus UC unweighted 3.90-4.00 CS Weighted Uncapped 4.62-4.87 11% Does not admit by major but into College of L&S
UC San Diego 12% Selective Major /UC Capped weighted GPA 4.19-4.31 Estimated 15-20% Selective major

All 3 of the UC’s should be considered Low probability schools.

Note that the UC’s only use 10-11th grades in their GPA calculation so you cannot calculate your 3 UC GPA’s till end of Junior year. GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

Only AP/IB classes taken during 10-11th grades will be weighted in the calculation.

You are a competitive applicant but your excellent SAT score will only be used for course placement and not for admissions or scholarship consideration.

UC’s also offer only a few highly competitive merit scholarships. Most of the financial aid offered is need-based for California residents.

As an International applicant with US citizenship, you will be considered OOS for all the UC’s so you will be expected to pay full fees at $75K+/year to attend. Make sure this is affordable.

Good luck.

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Given that you’ve written this and you just received a 1520 on your NMSQT test, you would be wise to start looking at schools that give money to National Merit Semifinalists/Finalists. None of the schools on your current list will offer any substantial merit. Actually, some of the schools offer no merit at all. My advice is to expand your current list to include those that do offer merit to high achieving students such as yourself. Good luck!

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Yeah, at a high level as a full pay kid you can use very high numbers to target the most selective possible programs, or the quality programs with a lot of merit. There really isn’t much overlap, with the exception of a few extremely hard to get scholarships at a few schools.

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What does this mean? Do you have a budget? Because you are unlikely to get merit from any school on this list - and some have zero merit.

So you have a $50K, a low $60Ks, some $75K and some $95K, etc.

When you make a statement like that, what do you mean? Do you want $20K, $30K, $40K?

They’re out there but they won’t be these names - but they are still good schools.

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I agree with other replies at least to the point that you do not have any safety on this list. I am not sure that there is any likely on the list, although you are an exceptionally strong student and it would not surprise me at all if you were accepted somewhere.

Based on your stats and interests I would be tempted to add U.Mass Amherst to your list. However, this is ignoring the national merit scholarship potential, which is something that I do not know anything about. U.Mass has a very good computer science program and does offer some merit for some out of state students. Also, U.Mass has quite a good music program.

You might want to double check this, but I thought that I heard at some point that Columbia was one of few schools that considers you legacy if your parent got any degree there, including a graduate degree. It might help a bit, but I would still consider Columbia to be a reach.

This makes you an out-of-state student for any public university. It shouldn’t matter at the private universities, but Columbia and Stanford are reaches for pretty nearly anyone (this is assuming that you do not have a Nobel Prize and neither parent is the head of state of a friendly country).

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Sorry- just meant that I am full pay (tysm parents) but I will be applying to merit scholarship programs outside of the ones that colleges give. I understand that I will be full pay for all of the schools that I have so far on my list

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Thank you for your response! By merit scholarship I meant just outside organizations like NMS, Davidson Fellows, etc.

My parents are willing to full pay for any school (very very grateful), but I would like to offset the burden even if it’s just a fractional amount.

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There is no budget- I have the privilege of being able to full pay. I simply meant merit scholarship as in anything I can get from applying to outside organizations that offer scholarships.

Would all these schools still be considered reaches even if I were to fulfill all of my goals (i.e. multiple intl/natl awards, solid activities, high gpa)? If so, what would be some targets/safeties to go in my list?

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I guess I would still suggest what would likely most matter to your parents is not the difference between full pay and actual cost, but just actual cost itself.

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Just be wise and aplly to couple safety schools.

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Why is CMU not on your list? It is top five in both CS and Data Science, and it is in a nice neighborhood in a mid sized city.

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I agree with others here; you need some safeties. CS is incredibly competitive, and all the schools on your list are targets or reaches.

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What would be some schools that would fit my criteria?

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Would you consider CMU as a high reach school?

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Could you give me some suggestions for safeties?