Chance me (California resident, 4.0 GPA UW, 1590 SAT 36 ACT, USAMO qual + USACO Gold))

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Demographics

  • Male indian first gen college applicant
  • US citizen, public high school
  • California resident
  • Current Junior

Intended Major(s)

  • Computer Science, Applied Mathematics

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted GPA: 4.0/4.0
  • Weighted GPA: 4.6 (all AP + honor courses)
  • Class Rank: 2/600
  • ACT: 36 (36 English, 36 Math, 36 Reading, 35 Science)
  • SAT: 1590 (800 Math, 790 Reading/Writing)

High School Coursework

  • AP Calculus AB & BC
  • AP Computer Science A
  • AP Computer Science Principles
  • AP Physics C: Mechanics
  • AP Chemistry
  • AP Statistics
  • AP English Language and Composition
  • AP U.S. History
  • AP Government
  • AP Environmental Science
  • Honors courses in Math, Science, and English

Awards

  • International Hackathon Winner (team placed 1st in the global competition sponsored by Google)
  • USACO Gold Medalist (didn’t invest too much time into this unfortunately)
  • AP Scholar with Distinction (earned 5s on 7 AP exams)
  • 1st Place at the State Programming Competition
  • Intel Science Fair Finalist (won recognition in CS and engineering categories)

Extracurriculars

  • Founder & President, High School Coding Club

    • Grew membership from 10 to 100+ students in 2 years
    • Hosted coding bootcamps, hackathons, and workshops
    • Organized fundraisers and community outreach programs, raising $5K for coding scholarships for underrepresented students

  • AI Research Intern, Stanford University

    • Worked on machine learning models in the field of NLP and deep learning
    • Published paper on AI ethics and algorithmic bias with a professor, presented at an AI conference

  • Software Engineering Intern at Google

    • Contributed to building and improving mobile and web platform
    • Project centered around helping create backend tools for extension APIs
    • Received return offer for Summer 2025

  • Founder, Nonprofit Teaching Programming to Underprivileged Youth

    • Created a platform that teaches basic coding and app development
    • Taught 100+ students from underserved communities
    • Raised $7K in donations to fund coding kits for students

  • Developer, Open-Source Project

    • Developed a popular open-source software tool with 1K+ stars on GitHub
    • Collaborated and forked with contributors from 30+ countries

  • Hackathon Leader & Mentor

    • Led a team of 4 in an international hackathon (sponsored by Amazon) and won 2nd place
    • Mentored younger students at local coding competitions

  • Summer Program: Artificial Intelligence & Robotics at MIT

    • Completed an intensive 6-week program focused on robotics, computer vision, and AI
    • Built a robotic arm with machine learning capabilities as part of the final project

  • Volunteer: Local Shelter Tech Initiative

    • Developed a website and database for a local homeless shelter to better track donations and resources

Essays/LORs/Other

  • Essays: 8-9/10 (spent a lot of time on revisions)
  • Letters of Recommendation:
    • CS Teacher: 9/10 (she has commented that I am the best student that she has ever seen in her career)
    • Research Mentor at Stanford: 8-9/10 (we had a pretty good relationship)
    • Math Teacher: 8/10 (participates regularly in her class, scores well)

Assured (100% chance of admission and affordability)

  • UCSB, UCM, ASU, UCR

Extremely Likely

  • UIUC (applying cs + x), Purdue, Umass Amherst, UCI, UCSD

Toss-up

  • UW, UC Berkeley, UCLA

Low Probability

  • Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Harvard, CMU, USC, UT Austin, Caltech

Please give me your honest opinions and don’t hold back, I’d love any feedback I can get! My family doesn’t have much experience or knowledge regarding the application process so anything is appreciated. Thank you all!!

1 Like
2

Stats and Coursework

  • GPA, Rank, and Tests are all good
  • Nice courseload, I think you’re getting a good chance regarding this

Awards

  • Great things here, would maybe say that you have too much CS focus here (I think universities would want to see more variety)
  • Intel Science Fair may be a weak honor because of how much economic background has an impact on your score

Extracurriculars

  • Same thing with honors, you have so much CS experience but not much for other areas
  • A lack of creativity-focused ECs like music/art and sports may also impact your chances
  • You also don’t have much leadership for things relating to your own peers – most of your stuff is around helping younger students
  • You also only have 1 volunteering experience and even that is focused around CS and not direct impact

Overall

  • You have a strong chance at the schools you said are likely, but the toss-ups are definitely well evaluated
  • UIUC may also be a toss-up depending on who reads your application, especially because you have interdisciplinary focus but not much interdisciplinary ECs
3

Welcome to College Confidential and congratulations on being an excellent candidate for all the schools.

Based on the 2024 CS admit rates, I would recategorize your chances:

Campus CS
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
UC Davis 19% Selective Major/ UC Capped weighted GPA 4.19-4.30 Campus UC unweighted 3.80-4.00
UC Irvine 16.8% Impacted Major/ UC Capped weighted GPA 4.12-4.29 Campus UC unweighted 3.83-4.00
UCLA 4.1% Impacted Major/ Capped weighted GPA 4.25-4.32 Campus UC unweighted 3.90-4.00 CS Weighted Uncapped 4.66-4.92
UC Merced 90%/ UC Capped weighted GPA 3.59-4.15
UC Riverside 31% Impacted major/ UC Capped weighted GPA 4.03-4.28
UC San Diego 12% Selective Major /UC Capped weighted GPA 4.19-4.31
UC Santa Barbara 10% Impacted Major/ UC Capped weighted GPA 4.23-4.31
UC Santa Cruz CS BA 57% and CS BS 68% Impacted Major/UC Capped weighted GPA 3.96-4.26

UC’s are test blind so your SAT/ACT score will only be used for course placement. Yes, you definitely have a chance at all but there are many qualified applicants that are not admitted to several of the top UC’s and UC admissions tend to be very unpredictable.

UC Berkeley/UCLA: Lower to lowest probability
UC Irvine, Santa Barbara and San Diego: Lower Probability to Toss up
UCR: Extremely Likely
UCM: Assured

Best of luck.

2 Likes
4

I think you did well in your set up but UW with a 2% acceptance OOS will be tough. UCI and SB match.

UW and UCs won’t see the test

You can cull the list if you want - lots of safeties.

Any budget issues? UW will be over $60k etc. others $90k plus.

5

If you like Purdue a lot (have you visited?), apply early. My biggest issue w/ your list is that despite your excellent stats and experience, many of these programs are kind of a lottery ticket and most of them won’t tell you in time to course correct.

I would encourage you to look at some private schools that have EA admissions and are less rejective than the ones currently on your list. I don’t know how good RPI and Case Western Reserve are for CS but both of them gave my son generous merit aid for engineering (enough to make them close to in-state UC tuition and cheaper than UW.)

Get your parents to fill out the CSS and figure out what they can afford, too. This will save you heartache down the line.

7

Closing temporarily for review.