Since you’ve added Purdue as an “easier” admit, I want to share this information with you to give you some context about the type of competition there is to get into CS.
Purdue is not test optional, so your SAT score (which is one of the strongest parts of your app) is below the 25th percentile and your GPA is well below the 25th percentile. So even though Purdue might look like a more accessible school with an overall admit rate of 50%, when you dig into the details for what it takes to get into CS, you will find that it’s significantly more challenging.
Based on your updated college list, it seems as though you might need some more concrete guidance. Thus, I would suggest the following:
- Eliminate any school if its overall admissions rate is below 20%
- Eliminate any school if its admission rate for people of your type (i.e. out-of-state) is less than 20%.
- Eliminate any school if its admission rate for CS is less than 20% and your academic stats are below the 25th percentile
Once you’ve eliminated all of the above, then build your college list.
After you’ve completed the applications for your college list and there are any schools that were eliminated due to reasons 1-3 that you absolutely love and would always wonder “what if” about if you didn’t apply, then add back in that very small number of schools (no more than 3, preferably 0-2).
I tend to classify schools using these categories:
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Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
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Likely (60-79%)
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Toss-Up (40-59%)
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Lower Probability (20-39%)
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Low Probability (less than 20%)
Right now I would put Purdue CS in the Low Probability category for you.
Of the schools on your list, the only ones that might still stand after criteria 1-3 are these:
- Purdue
- U. of Delaware
- U. of Florida
- U. of Maryland
- U. of Wisconsin
- Virginia Tech