GPA - I had family problems going on Freshman year and explained that in my app
Freshman: 3.2 UW & 3.4 W
Sophomore: 3.6 UW & 4.14 W
Junior: 3.86 UW & 4.57 W
Senior: 4.0 UW & 5.0 W
Cummaltive GPA: 3.6 UW & 4.28 W
Weighting System:
Honors - 0.5+
AP/Dual Enrollment - 1.0+
“A” 4.0
“A-” 3.7
“B+” 3.3
“B” 3.0
Class Rank: na/77 (I just know I am top 10%) Test Scores: 1450 (Prob gonna go test optional)
Freshman Yr -
Yearbook/Journalism 1 (A-)
Honors English 9 (B+)
Honors Algebra 2 (B)
Honors Biology (B-)
Greek Language 1 (B)
Honors Global Civics (B-)
Physical Education (A)
Intro to Media Arts (A)
Exploring Computer Science (C+)
Sophomore Yr -
Honors English 10 (A)
Honors Chemistry (A)
Greek Language 2 (B+)
AP Human Geography (A-)
Honors World History (B+)
Health Spring (A)
AP Computer Science Principles (B+)
Junior Yr -
Dual Enrollment Entrepreneurship (A)
AP Lang (A)
AP Pre - Calc (A)
Honors Physics (A-)
Honors Greek Language 3 (A)
AP Computer Science A (B+)
Human Growth & Development (A)
Senior Yr -
Dual Enrollment English 12 (A)
AP World (A)
AP Calc AB (A)
AP Gov & Pol (A)
AP African American (A)
AP Environmental Science (A)
Dual Enrollment US History (A)
Awards - They lowkey suck
AP Scholar
Gold Presidential Volunteer Service Award
1st Place in Audio Podcasting (State Award for TSA)
2nd Place in Digital Video Production (State Award for TSA)
3rd Place in Chapter team (State Award for TSA)
Student Athlete (Maintain a GPA >3.75 while playing a varsity-level sport)
Extracurriculars
Assitant Researcher at a local Uni on muscle segmentation and automated medical imaging tasks. Paper Published & was paid 3k.
Research Intern studied neural responses to visual stimuli and improved brain models for experience.
Vice-President of TSA Chapter led meetings; won awards; raised funds; helped peers.
Co-Founder of my school science olympiad club placed high; organized and led meetings.
Passion for project on sustainable energy sources. I presented in front of the YASS organization, which consisted of billionaires and state senators, and got an interview.
I am a part of the workshop committee for the Youth Environmental Summit, where I am presenting my sustainable energy project.
Part-time job at the YMCA as a camp counselor, soccer coach, and referee, supervising kids, teaching them how to read, and managing daily activities.
Treasurer in Student council, organizing events, managing funds, and representing the student body
Wrote/edited articles and designed graphics for School Newspaper
I played varsity soccer in high school.
Personal Statement Essay: It’s about how I grew from an immature and depressed person freshman year to a happy and mature person. (8/10)
Rec Letters
Computer Science Teacher: I have been with her since freshman year in computer science, so she has seen me grow and mature. Additionally, I am a part of the TSA & Student Council, where I hold a leadership position and she is the advisor. (8/10)
Professor: I was the first student he had worked with in almost 10 years, and he was highly impressed with my capabilities. I have demonstrated my knowledge of coding and computers. (9/10)
Schools- I can ED2 to theses schools*
Boston University (RD)*
Carnegie Mellon University (RD)
Duke University (RD)
Georgia Institute of Technology (RD)
New York University (RD)*
Northwestern University (RD)
University of Chicago (RD)*
University of Delaware (EA)
University of Florida (RD)*
University of Maryland (EA)
University of Michigan (RD)
University of Pennsylvania (RD)
University of Southern California (RD)
University of California, Berkeley (RD)
University of California, Los Angeles (RD)
University of California, Irvine (RD)
University of California, San Diego(RD)
Please let me know what i can do to improve my app as well as my chances for these schools.
I don’t want to sound too harsh, but you have very little chance of acceptance of any of these schools except for Delaware. UChicago, for instance, has a sub 2% acceptance rate for RD and has very unique essay prompts. Have you written those essays yet? Most of the schools have a lot of essays to write and I fear the outcome won’t be positive for you.
My opinion: spend your time finding some more likely schools. Unless you are 100% fine with Delaware, which is a very fine school.
So there is obviously nothing wrong with just attending a high-quality in-state option like Delaware.
But I do think with your sort of profile, you could get some private colleges and universities pretty interested, indeed they might even offer merit. But you are not applying to the sorts of private colleges and universities that are most likely to think that way.
So if you like, we could help you explore such options. But if you are uninterested–OK, you’ll just have to see what happens.
I will only comment on the California UC’s. First you have to calculate out your 3 UC’s (unweighted, capped weighted and weighted uncapped). Please note that OOS Honors classes are not weighted in the calculation so only your AP classes will be given the extra Honor points. UC’s only use 10-11th grades for the a-g courses and Senior grades are not considered in the application review along with your SAT scores since they are test blind.
The other concern is that if an admission reader at a highly selective college looks at your courses and grades rather than just GPA, they may wonder why a prospective CS major’s lowest high school grades each year were in CS courses.
Your list is filled with extreme reaches, even for top students. To make matters worse, you are applying for the most competitive and demanding major. Unfortunately, without a hook, I think your chances of getting accepted into CS programs at top 20 schools like CMU and UofM are approaching zero.
I recommend revising your list to include second, and even third tier schools. You may want to consider Case Western, which is a good school with strong outcomes. I recommend researching up-and-coming schools that have not yet risen in the US News rankings, but are well regarded by recruiters. Focus on fit and outcomes rather than rankings.
With 3.6 UW, if I were in your position I would use the 1450 SAT at schools that accept test scores.
As others mentioned, you’ll probably also want to add some more likely schools (and you may want to drop some of those reaches that will require a lot of essay writing for very little chance of admission).
UChicago, for me, was also a last-minute thing, so I don’t think I will stick with it. I’m leaning toward schools like U Mich, UMD, USC, and BU, which are still highly competitive but a bit easier than the other schools.
I agree, but I don’t think it’s worth paying for college tuition nowadays unless you attend a t20. UD is rated as one of the top public schools and is extremely cheap compared to the other colleges, so that’s why its my only safety school on here.
First of all your uptrend will help you. It will help you get accepted to a good university. More importantly it will help you be better prepared to do well once you arrive at university.
For a potential CS major, I am concerned that your math and CS grades are not particularly good. I do see that you are running an A in calculus this year, which is a good sign and which is likely to help you be better prepared wherever you end up next year. Please continue to put significant effort into any math or CS courses that you take from now on, and make sure that you understand the concepts well.
I agree with other replies that given this list of schools, you are likely to end up at the University of Delaware. I also agree with other replies that this is a very good university where you can do very well. You are likely to end up with quite a few rejections from this list, and you might very well end up with 16 rejections out of 17 schools. However, you can only attend one university, and U.Delaware is a very good choice.
I am not quite 100% sure that U.Delaware is a safety. You might want to get an opinion on this from your guidance counselor. Otherwise you have 16 reaches or very high reaches on your list, which is more applications than I would want to send in.
And I would submit a 1450 SAT score. Your SAT is significantly better than your GPA. This plus your strong senior year make the point that you have the ability to do well in university.
Which schools on my list would you say I have the best chance of getting into? I know my profile is weak, but I also have to say that this is mainly due to a lack of self-control during my first and second years. I used to hang around kids who were terrible academic influences, and I didn’t realize the severity of just how important your first years were. Despite relentlessly trying to bring it up, it just won’t go up. One thing is that I have taken nearly all the most rigorous courses my school offers. My school provides seven sevens, including 4 being added this year, along with one, so I have to take 10/13, which does help slightly lightly, but in the grand sc, my GPA is too low to even bother with. Additionally, UD is the only school on this list as a match because I believe it’s worth paying for college tuition nowadays unless you attend a t20. UD is rated as one of the top public schools and is extremely cheap compared to the other colleges, so that’s why its my only safety school on here.
You would be wrong. Many high stats students go to their safeties for financial reasons. My UD honors graduate turned down Villanova honors because she received a lot of merit from UD, is now completing her doctorate in physical therapy at BU. Her sister with similar stats is a senior at Clemson, had a high paying internship this summer and landed a position there starting this July (making close to 6 figures). Your list is very reach y for your stats. There are plenty of great colleges out there for those who don’t get into t20’s, which is are most students.
Dual enrollment courses count if they are UC transferable. Since the DE courses are OOS courses, there are no articulation agreements between the UC’s and OOS colleges so it will dependent upon each campus to determine if the courses are UC transferable. Just looking at the UC transferable courses using assist.org and the UC a-g course list could help you determine if the DE courses could be transferable.
Okay, thank you so much. I also wanted to discuss my ECs because no one mentioned them. It’s mostly just GPA and SAT people are discussing, which are arguably the most significant factors in addition, but ECs do have some role, and I wanted to know if I had strong ECs or where I stand in that category.