Chance Me: CA resident, 3.99 GPA (4.00/4.20/4.68 for UC, 4.14 for CSU), 1600 SAT, 1520 PSAT, computer engineering, applied math [home schooled with many college courses]

Demographics

  • US citizen *
  • State/Location of residency: CA

Intended Major(s)
Computer Engineering
Applied Math

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.99
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.9/5.0
  • SAT Score: 1600 (non-superscore)
  • PSAT Score: 1520 (non-superscore)

List your HS coursework

Lots of community college and APs. Taken up to college English, college linear algebra (and AP Calc BC), college physics, college chemistry (and AP Chem), college biology (and AP bio), college CS, college engineering, AP history (APUSH and AP world), college Spanish
APs: Six 5s and one 4, mostly in STEM

Awards
Debate gold medalist x2
Junior lifeguard nationals placement
Competitive Swimming medals
Math olympiad national rankings (AMC, MOEMS, Math Kangaroo, AIME)

Extracurriculars
Varsity debater/captain
Junior lifeguard volunteer instructor
Church children’s ministry leader
US Soccer referee
Competitive swimming
Math clubs x2
College engineering club
College tour guide for physics show
Coding competitions
Robotics team
Web Development internship

Essays/LORs/Other
Strong essays
Both strong LoRs

Schools
Reach: MIT Stanford Harvard Princeton
Target: UCLA UCB USC CMU Rice
Safety: Cal Polys, UCSD

What are my chances? Any suggestions for other schools or other majors?

Cost constraints?

UC recalculated GPAs? (See GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub )

CSU recalculated GPA? (Like UC weighted capped, but double count college courses)

CPSLO recalculated GPA? (Like CSU but including 9th grade as well as 10th-11th grade)

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Your “targets” are probably reaches for computer engineering or computer science. Your “safeties” probably are not, except for Cal Poly Humboldt.

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You are a competitive student for all the schools, but UCSD and Cal Poly SLO are not Safety schools. Safety schools are close to guaranteed admission and with the admits rates listed below, they are far from a guarantee.

UCLA and UC Berkeley are Reach schools based on overall admit rates for all applicants.

Since the UC’s and CSU’s are test blind, your perfect SAT scores will only be used for course placement and not for admission or scholarship consideration.

Below are the most recent admit rates for CE/CSE and Applied Math

Campus Computer Engineering/CSE
UC Berkeley EECS 7% 2024
UC Davis <20% Selective Major
UC Irvine 28% CE/CSE 24%
UCLA Comp Eng 3.7% CSE 3.2%
UC Merced 91%
UC Riverside 42%
UC San Diego No data but <10% Top 5 most popular declared major
UC Santa Barbara 19%
UC Santa Cruz 57%
Cal Poly SLO 21%
Cal State Long Beach 36%
San Diego State 43%
San Jose State 31%

All the school on your list are within Reach but I would try to add 2 actual Safety/Likely schools.

Campus Applied Math/Math
UC Berkeley 29% Capped UC weighted GPA: 4.15-4.29
UC Davis 37.9% College of Letters and Sciences/ Capped weighted GPA: 4.03-4.27
UC Irvine 33.3% Capped weighted GPA: 4.07-4.28
UCLA 11% for College of Letters and Sciences/ Capped weighted GPA: 4.20-4.31
UC Merced 99% Capped weighted GPA: 3.48-4.08
UC Riverside 98% Capped weighted GPA: 3.76-4.18
UC San Diego No data Estimated <30%. Capped weighted GPA: 4.11-4.29
UC Santa Barbara 32% for the College of Letters and Sciences/Capped weighted GPA: 4.13-4.29
UC Santa Cruz 68.8% Capped weighted GPA: 3.86-4.22
Cal Poly SLO 34% SLO GPA: 4.08-4.23
Cal State Long Beach 36% Avg CSU GPA. 4.00
San Diego State 46% Avg CSU GPA: 4.04
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Don’t forget, your 1600 doesn’t matter for the UCs/Cal Poly.

If you have budget constraints, and you are NMF/NMSF, you could go for free or close to it at very good schools.

Obviously a great profile.

I’d personally, knowing the SAT doesn’t matter except your four reaches and 3 targets that are also reaches in reality - I’d like to see an RPI, WPI, Colorado School of Mines type as a back stop. And maybe a Lehigh - which I’d call a target.

Good luck.

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UCSD is far from a safety. Nor is SLO.

Are you planning on applying to all three Cal Polys? Would you be happy attending Humboldt or Pomona?

USC has a “why us” essay. Have you visited? If so, did you tour Viterbi?

If you are a National Merit Finalist and you are admitted to USC, you will receive a half-tuition Presidential Scholarship. USC also offers a full-tuition Trustee Scholarship. It is very competitive. If you want to be considered for it, you must apply EA.

Stanford has verbiage saying that you can apply REA to Stanford and EA to another school if you need to apply EA in order to be considered for a scholarship. You might research which, if any, of your other schools have similar verbiage.

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All your schools are reach for COMP ENG. Remember all CA public are test blind. Add more targets such as UCD, UCI, UCSB and CPP, SDSU, SJSU to increase your chance for in state. Add OOS public for COMP ENG, such as uDub, UIUC, Purdue, GTech and etc. Why Harvard, Princeton for COMP ENG?

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4.68 according to the UC GPA
34 As
23 Honors (including APs and college classes)

Probably applying to SLO and pomona.

I have visited USC, but not on an official tour.

Ooh, good to know about Stanford REA. Thanks

Is this a more balanced list? I will probably cut out some of the reaches (any suggestions?)
Reaches
MIT
Stanford
Harvard
UCLA
USC
UC Berkeley

(Hard) Targets
Rice
Georgia Tech
Purdue
UT Austin
Cal Poly Pomona/SLO
UCSD

Safeties
Northeastern
Case Western
Santa Clara

Santa Clara might be a safety or low target if you apply ED/EA. If you apply RD, probably a target (the acceptance rate for RD is significantly lower than ED/EA).

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That would suggest about 4.20 for weighted capped (which is most commonly used on UC web sites).

How many college courses? These are double counted for CSU.

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Whoops, I double-counted some classes.

4 APs
17 college classes
2 Honors
5 Other
All As

Here is the link to where Stanford mentions the exception. I’m sharing so you can look for it at your other schools.

Stanford REA Exceptions

Exceptions

It is Stanford policy that you may simultaneously apply to Stanford with a decision plan of Restrictive Early Action and to the following:

  • any public college/university with a non-binding early application plan or early application deadline.
  • any college/university with a non-binding rolling admission process.
  • any non-U.S. college/university with a non-binding application plan on any schedule.
  • any military academy.
  • any college/university with an early deadline for a scholarship or special academic program, as long as:
    1. the decision is non-binding; and
    2. applying early is required in order to be considered for the scholarship or program.
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That suggests that GPA for CSU would be around 4.14.

Your score for CPP would be around 4590, which is higher than the prior year threshold for most majors, but not computer science or aerospace engineering (it is higher than the previous year threshold for computer engineering or math).

https://www.cpp.edu/admissions/freshmen/freshman-student-profile.shtml

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I’ve excluded the California publics, but with respect to the rest of your list, this is how I would classify them for you with an intended computer engineering major. I wouldn’t eliminate any of the UCs from your list, because it’s the same amount of work to do one application as to do six, and same for the Cal States.

Extremely Likely (80-99+%)

Likely (60-79%)

  • Santa Clara

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • Purdue (@momofboiler1, do you have the admission stats handy for someone interested in computer engineering?)

Lower Probability (20-39%)

  • Case Western - you will need to show demonstrated interest here. If they think you’re using them as a safety, your most likely outcome is a waitlist.

  • Northeastern-This is where I’d classify it if you want to start at the Boston campus. If you’re open to any campus or a NUIn program, then I’d say that it’s a likely or extremely likely admit.

Low Probability (less than 20%)

  • USC
  • Rice
  • Georgia Tech

Lowest Probability (but definitely have a chance)

  • MIT
  • Stanford
  • Harvard
  • UT-Austin

ETA: Moved Purdue up to a toss-up, but suspect it would lean towards a likely for CoE, thanks to the info from @momofboiler1.

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Purdue admits to first year engineering for all prospective engineering majors. The stats from last year for CoE are a 38.7% acceptance rate, 1440-1530 middle SAT, 31-34 ACT, and 3.88-4.0 gpa. There will be a secondary admission requirement to transition to major.

If the student wants direct admission at CoS for CS, the stats are:
29.5% acceptance rate/ 1490-1560/ 33-35/ 3.92- 4.0

Source: Purdue University Class Profile - Admissions and Statistics

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Thanks! I updated my guess as to OP’s chances at Purdue.

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OP may want to note that Northeastern actually doesn’t care whether you select “Boston Only” or not when you’re asked to select campuses on the Common App. They will offer admission to any campus or program they choose, even if you said “Boston Only”.

I agree that admission chances to the Boston Campus are lower than for other campuses. For unhooked, non-MA students, EA acceptance rates are very low.

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Thanks everyone.

I was told by a counselor that I could do math at the private universities and switch to CS. Would doing math (maybe applied/computational) be easier?