Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Public, uncompetitive (average SAT is a 980 but offers a LOT of APs, also not bay area yippee)
Other special factors: First generation to some universities (immigrated from oppressive country, parents completed Bachelor’s but not in US), English as a second language
Cost Constraints / Budget: Cost isn’t a factor
Intended Major(s): Computer Science / Applied Math
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.98
Weighted HS GPA: 4.48 / 5
UC GPAs: 4.0 UW / 4.77 Uncapped / 4.31 Capped
Class Rank: 2/550
ACT/SAT Scores: 1560 SAT (790M, 770RW)
Coursework
10 APs and 4 honors taken by time of application, submitting 8 exams (all 5s). 16 APs taken by end of senior year
English: AP Lang (5), AP Lit senior year
Math: AP Calc BC (5, Subscore 5), Linear Alg + Multivariable @ CC in senior year
Science: AP Physics C: Mechanics (5), AP Chem + AP Bio senior year
History and social studies: APUSH (5), AP Gov (Senior year)
Language other than English: AP Spanish Language
Visual or performing arts: Band for a year, flutist
Other academic courses: AP Research (5), AP Macro & Micro (both 5), AP CS A (5, self-studied)
Awards (my weakest section imo)
National Merit Semifinalist (1510 PSAT, guaranteed)
Science Fair: 1st in County, several awards from t20 research institutions in state
USACO Silver – been studying to make Gold, maybe but unlikely Plat by RD
FRC Dean’s List Semifinalist
Extracurriculars
Intern @ NASA (11th grade Spring and Summer, 12th grade fall): Maintained and updated astronomical data analysis programs for official NASA use; created, summarized, and presented research to NASA mission researchers; working on paper set to be submitted to journal in fall. I can’t say any more at risk of getting doxxed cause the research is THAT specific, but I have made extremely meaningful contributions to the research center’s team and will be second author when published (most likely not before college apps tho). This is by far my biggest activity, taking up 20 hours a week, and is where my interest in academic research originated. I will be working with this research team well into my senior year and college.
CS Club Founder and President (9-12): Grew club to encompass 15+ active members since freshman year; mentored members in Java and Python programming; raised funding from school administration for first American Mathematics Competition in school history (school has been around for 100+ years)
Robotics President (12), Programming Lead (10-11, Member (9-12): Taught teams of programmers Java and created lesson plans; programmed the first swerve drive and autonomous path planning systems in team history; organized team events such as parades and outreach events, some of which have had over 1000+ attendees; hosted weekly meetings with 30+ team members; nominated for the FIRST Dean’s List Semifinalist award by teammates; my code helped team jump 1000+ spots globally in ranking
Independent Research (9-12): Wrote open-source AI models for CT scan analysis that beat state-of-the-art models by 5% in conventional metrics; received congressional recognition from my area’s representative; gave speech to Board of Education presenting my research; science fair awards come from this activity
Open Source Software Development (9-12): Wrote 15+ open-source software projects, including a programming language and 10 AI models, totaling 5000+ lines of code. Some open source projects I contributed to have reached over 2000 developers worldwide.
Peer & Community Tutoring (9-10): Tutored elementary aged to high school aged students for around 100 hrs, increased grades by around a letter grade each student. Still do this occasionally, but not enough to list the activity as all four years probably
Essays/LORs/Other
3 LORs: 1 STEM teacher (10/10, I’ve known him all four years of high school, he can speak to my leadership extremely well), 1 history teacher (7/10, really likes me and can speak to my academic qualities but doesn’t know me as well as other recommenders), NASA internship mentor (8/10, can speak to my prospects in research)
Essays are strong. In my personal statement, I talk about how my desire to reconnect with my culture after immigration gave birth to my interest in technology, and have had my essays reviewed already by some district counselors.
Schools
High Reach: Caltech (REA), Stanford, Cornell, Princeton, Brown, CMU SCS, UC Berkeley EECS, UCLA, MIT
Reach: USC, Cal Poly SLO, Georgia Tech, Purdue
Targets: UCSD, UC Davis (LOVES my high school for some reason), WPI, UCI, CSU Long Beach
Safety: UCR + UCM (eligible in the local context), CSU Sacramento
My list is (obviously) reach heavy because I like my safeties and feel like I have a strong chance for my targets based on past graduates from my high school. I’m applying to Caltech’s and MIT’s fly-in program and will most likely EA to whichever one I get into, but if I don’t get into both I am most likely gonna do USC EA for the National Merit scholarships. Any feedback?
I think you are an excellent candidate for pretty much every school on your list, not only because of your high stats, but because of your background. It is impressive for an ESL student to score a 5 on AP Lang and then you have AP Spanish as well (assuming this is not your first language, you are proficient in at least three languages). And not only do you have this strong language and cultural background going on, but then you excel in STEM as well. You don’t often see both in students and I personally find this very appealing.
And even better news for you - you have true safeties that you would be happy with should fate not smile on you with the reaches. You are in an enviable position for that reason. And, since this is the case, no harm in shooting for the moon.
I think you have a good shot at the schools on your list. And, should you end up at a safety, no real worries as I am confident you will go far no matter where you land. Good luck!
Thank you! AP Spanish Lang was definitely one of my hardest exams… but I do really like the language as a whole and I find Spanish beautiful to speak. It also has a lot of utility here in CA.
I believe the REA schools allow you to submit other EA apps when it’s required for scholarships, as with USC.
You aren’t mentioning affordability other than the mention of USC scholarships. Would all of the private U’s be affordable? If they’d be affordable because of need-based aid, would GT OOS (no need-based aid) be affordable?
I’m sure you’re going to have great options. Coming from an under-represented area, your prospects for UC admissions are excellent. (Take a look at UCSB’s College of Creative Studies Computing major and see whether that might be worth adding also - CCS requires an additional application in addition to the UC app. Could be a great fit with your research interests.)
You’ll have full-ride options also, if you want them - you could probably sweep the honors-program offerings at UT-Dallas, for example. And I know you have plenty of reach schools already, but Rice might be worth a look too.
Thank you! I have heard that Purdue’s CS program is a little selective, so that’s why I put it in Reach initially, but I agree it’s not probably on the same level as Cal Poly SLO CS or GTech
I’m lucky enough to say that cost isn’t a factor unless its extremely terrible (like 70k+ a year before finaid). I have access to some district scholarships because of my class rank that would allow me to attend virtually any university, but of course more scholarships never hurt. UCSB’s CCS major seems interesting — I’ll check it out. Thanks!
Purdue CS had a 29.5% acceptance rate last cycle, middle SAT was 1490-1560, middle GPA 3.92- 4.0. You are definitely very competitive but it’s getting more selective every year and it’s harder for out of state applicants.
You are saying you have a district scholarship good for any college ? From a public school ?
If $70k is getting out of hand, then your list may not work.
All the privates in your high reach are well above but they have need based aid.
Have your parents fill out the net price calculator for each - see one below. Can they afford this ? If not you must take each off but each will calculate differently so you have to do them one by one.
Yes. Purdue does fill the vast majority of the class in EA. You also have to apply EA to be considered for honors college and merit awards. It’s non binding so make sure you hit the early action deadline. Plus you’ll get an answer in January unless you are deferred.
The scholarships come from a private fund that is in our county, but is targeted towards graduates from my district. We’ve ran NPCs for all the colleges on my list and they all turned out affordable (even without the scholarships), thankfully!
So…please clarify…your family can pay $70,000 a year, and you have a scholarship for greater than $20,000 a year (some of your colleges have $90,000 a year costs to attend).
As I stated in my original post, cost isn’t a factor. My family and I have ran NPCs for every college on my list and they all turned out 100% affordable for us. Very grateful to be in this position!
Congratulations on building such a strong profile in high school! I excluded all the California publics, apart from UCLA and Cal as that system is its own special beast. I will yield to @ucbalumnus and @gumbymom for your chances on those.
With respect to the rest of the list, below are my guesses as to what your chances might be:
Thanks for the list! MIT just sent me an application fee waiver seemingly out of nowhere, so I hope thats slightly good? Fingers crossed I get into one of my reaches!