Chance Me: Chinese Intl. CS/IS/DS SAT 1580 IBDP PG 44

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • International student
  • State/Location of residency: China
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): small-sized IBDP (no GPA/ranking), pretty average

Cost Constraints / Budget
Can and willing to pay full for education, but prefer lower living costs.

Intended Major(s)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • SAT: 1580 (English: 780, Math: 800)
  • TOEFL iBT: 116 (R: 30, L: 29, S: 26, W: 30)

List your HS coursework

IBDP (PG)

  • Chinese LAL SL: 6
  • Math AA HL: 7
  • Economics SL: 6
  • English B HL: 7
  • Physics HL: 7
  • Chemistry HL: 7

Awards

  • USAD Seed CN National Gold/Cert. of Rigourousness
  • CEMC Euclid Contest - Certificate of Distinction
  • AMC12 - AIME Qualifier
  • Oxford University Computing Challenge (Senior) - High Distinction (Round I), Distinction (Round II)
  • USACO Bronze

Extracurriculars

Technology/Computer Science Activities

  • Founder and Leader of a Programming Club (Grades 9-12, Multiple hours per week, year-round): Led a student organization focused on cultivating interest in computer science and provided technical support for school events.

  • Summer Coursework in Databases (Grade 11, Summer Break, Intensive Hours): Participated in Harvard Summer School’s CSCI-S-151 on SQL databases.

  • Research in Game Design (Grade 10, Summer Break, Intensive Hours): Conducted research in the area of game software development and user interaction, culminating in a game demo.

  • MC Server Administrator (Grades 9-12, Multiple hours per week, year-round): Managed the maintenance and administration of a medium-sized non-profit Minecraft server, including developing administration plugins.

Science/Math Activities

  • Summer Coursework in Astrophysics and Cosmology (Grade 9, Summer Break, Intensive Hours): Participated in a Columbia summer course exploring concepts in cosmology and physics, including relativity and dark matter through discussions and research.

Internship

  • Technology Industry Internship (Grade 10, Summer Break, Intensive Hours): Worked as an intern, focusing on learning data processing and statistics used in machine learning and AI. Big credible state-owned corporation.

Student Government/Leadership

  • Student Government Member (Grades 11-12, Multiple hours per week, year-round): Served on a student self-government academic subcommittee, focusing on revising schedules and learning plans.

Environmental Activities

  • Animal Welfare Organization Member (Grade 9, Multiple hours per week, year-round): Provided technical support for a club focused on raising awareness for animal welfare and managed social media for the group.

Community Service/Volunteer Activities

  • Volunteer Team Leader (Grades 9-12, Multiple hours per week, year-round): Managed a volunteer hosting team to support school events and activities.

Cultural Activities

  • School Radio Station Leader (Grades 10-11, Multiple hours per week, year-round): Coordinated the technical aspects of a school radio station and hosted some programs to share cultural diversity.

Essays/LORs/Other
Oriented around ECs, tried my best to be passionate. LORs from principal, school teachers, counsellors and professors from summer programs.

Schools

For all schools, applying to CS,CE,Information Systems, Data Science or related majors, usually put IS or DS as first major for reach schools.
(Already rejected from Cornell ED1)

I think the main weakness involve the lack of math competition and research papers, along with regionally recognized ECs. The counsellor said that I must prepare for the case that everything goes crashing down for me. Should I apply for more safety schools? Thanks.

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What schools do you consider to be safety schools?

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The counsellors said that CWRU should be one, arguably Northeastern for its mailed fee waiver?

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A fee waiver is marketing, not a promise of admission.

I don’t understand your grades enough to comment on your overall chance.

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Sorry for making anything inconvenient, this is my first post. If you want anything, please let me know.

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Northeastern waives application fees for lots of students - it’s a marketing trick to increase the number of applicants, and not an indication that they are a safety.

CWRU is not a safety either.

IMO, the potential “highly likely” schools on your list are Rutgers and Ohio State. I’m not familiar with UC Irvine or Davis, so I can’t comment on those. I don’t think any of the other schools are safeties for CS.

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Thank you for the info. I understand that they are good schools, it is just that out of similar schools, I am putting them in the front because they are free to apply btw. I am actually not applying to CS or CE directly for most schools. If they do not offer a second major choice, I attempt for possibly teeny tiny less competitive choices like IS, SE, etc. (especially for CMU), and the counsellors said that these two should be okay according to their experience if I apply this strategy.

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If you are applying for IS, U of Arizona is a safety and one of the tops in the country.

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I will definitely look into it. Thank you very much for your information!

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I also have trouble understanding IBDP grades.

Your SAT score is superb. Your TOEFL score suggests that you speak and write and understand English as well if not better compared to the average native English speaker, and this will not be a problem at all in terms of studying in the US.

I would be inclined to add U.Mass Amherst. It is very good for CS. Admissions is more likely compared to most of the other schools on your list. You only have a couple of weeks to get an application in.

The ability to pay in full will help your application at most if not all of these schools.

I expect you to get into a few schools, but I am hard pressed to predict which ones. Best wishes and I hope that you will get to study in the US starting in September.

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Thank you very much for your insights, I will certainly look into UMass.

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I have checked online, my IBDP should convert to ~3.95 UW GPA, WGPA should be mroe favorable because I did 4 HLs instead of 3.

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So with the stats you showed, Purdue, Ohio State, and Florida will likely be the lowest cost - but you could potentially get into any # of these universities.

Best of luck.

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Thank you for that information, that gives me some more clues on how to order them when doing prayers (joking).

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