Chance Me for Georgia Tech, UF, UNC, the UCs, and UGA [GA resident, 3.83 UW, 1430 SAT, prefer <$45k]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Guidelines

  • Please check back to answer questions.
  • Please do not share identifying information.
  • Please do not include your race.

Demographics

  • US domestic (US citizen or permanent resident) or international student:
    I am a US citizen.
  • State/Location of residency:
  • Georgia
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers):
  • Magnet Program
  • Other special factors: (first generation to college, legacy, recruitable athlete, etc.)
  • 1st Gen

Cost Constraints / Budget

  • None at the moment, but under 30k should be good.

Intended Major(s)

Mathematics, CS, or Computer Engineering.

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

Weighed GPA: 4.414
Unweighted GPA: 3.83
Rank: Top 5%
Test Scores:
SAT - 1430
ACT - Still waiting for results.

List your HS coursework

AP Courses:

AP Computer Science Principles
AP Computer Science A
AP US History
AP World History
AP Calculus AB/BC
AP Chemistry
AP Physics 1
AP Physics C: Mechanics
AP Language
AP Statistics

Some other honors classes too.

AP Exams:

All 3s and 4s

Complete Layout:

  • English: AP Language
  • Math: Differential Equations @ High School
  • Science: AP Chemistry, AP Physics 1, and AP Physics C: Mechanics
  • History and social studies: AP US History
  • Language other than English: Spanish III
  • Visual or performing arts: Wind Symphony and Symphonic Band

Awards

 Participated in Lockheed Martin CyberQuest (2024)
 Invited to be a high school reviewer at the GaTech Capstone Expo (2024)
 Georgia Certificate of Merit through Univ. of Georgia, Athens (2024)
 3rd Place - GaTech SWE Health Project for Hackathon (2024)
 2nd Chair Oboe – Georgia Education Music Association Honor Band for Clinic Band 9-12 (2024)
 3rd Place – North Central Technology Competition: Internet Applications (2024)
 Certified to tutor AP Calculus, SAT Math, Algebra 1, Geometry, and AP World History (2023)
 AP Scholars Award (2023)
 1st Chair Oboe - Georgia Education Music Association Honor Band for Clinic Band 9-12 (2023)
 1st Place – North Central Technology Competition: Programming Challenge (2023)
 3rd Place - North Central Technology Competition: Project Programming (2023)
 Completed research project on cybersecurity for Magnet Literature Technology and Research (2022)
 3rd Place – North Central Technology Competition: Project Programming (2022)
 PowerPoint Certified through GMetrix (2021)
 3rd Place – Winter Cobb County Regional Math Competition: Group (2021)
 4th Slot – Georgia Education Music Association All-State Band (2020)
 Student of the Month (January 2019)

Extracurriculars

Club Positions:

 President of Robotics Club (2024-present)
 Secretary of Robotics Club (2021-2023)
 NSHSS Ambassador (2024-present)
 President of Mu Alpha Theta (2022-present)

Volunteering:

Hosted a Wix Website Development Platform on the STEAM Generation - 2024
 Ben Robertson Volunteer for Book Drop in Kennesaw, GA - 2024
 Church Café Volunteer for Liberty Church in Marietta, GA - 2024
 Volunteered to tutor students SAT Math through schoolhouse.world - 2023-2024
 School Clean-Up through National Honors Society - 2023
 Horizon Ball for National Honors Society in Acworth, GA - 2023
 Hosted Math Team, Mu Alpha Theta, Robotics Club, and Programming Club in School Club
Gallery Walk/Fair – 2022 - present
 Magnet Chemistry Open House - 2022
 Drone Competition Setup - 2022
 School Clean-Up through Science Club - 2021
 Tutor math (Geometry up to Calculus) to school peers in Mu Alpha Theta - 2021-present
 Tutored Math w/TutorATL - 2020

Internships and Program:

 GSU Summer Leadership Program (Week of June 10, 2024)
 Online TAG Education Collaborative Summer Internship Program (June 10 - July 20, 2024)
 Sakuu Corp. Data Science Internship (June 24 - July 26, 2024)

Essays/LORs/Other

Essays:

I am just starting to write.

LORs:

Got a few teachers in mind from AP Calculus AB/BC and AP Statistics.

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD. If you aren’t sure of your chances, just list the colleges.)

According to CollegeVine -

Reaches:

UVA, USC, GT, UMich, Emory, UCB, and UCLA

Targets:

UC Davis, Maryland, FSU, UGA, UCSD, William and Mary, UC Irvine, UT Austin, UF, UCSB, and UNC

Safeties:

KSU, GSU, UMinnesota, Purdue, Texas A&M, UCSC, UIUC, UWisconsin, OSU, and UWashington (Seattle)

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Forgot to add I am going to be a high school senior next year. I am part of the Class of 2025 at a Magnet Program in metro Atlanta.

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Welcome to College Confidential. A couple of comments/questions…

Why the UCs? Have you visited them or researched them at all? Do you have several listed because it is easy to apply to multiple campuses with one application?

The UCs give very little, if any, financial aid to out of state students. Your annual cost will be in the $75K/year range. Would this be affordable?

What do you think you might want to do with these majors. CS is extremely competitive everywhere. Computer engineering isn’t much easier. Math, on the other hand, might be a slightly easier admit.

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Congratulations on a competitive profile.

The UC’s are $74K/year with no need based financial aid (other than Federal aid if eligible) for OOS students and highly competitive merit aid which does not reduce the overall costs by any significant amount.

UCSD should go in the Reach category especially if applying for CS.

The UC application can be pretty time consuming so make sure it is worth applying.

Good luck and you will have several good options without the UC’s.

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Texas A&M isn’t a Safety, as you are OOS.
UT Austin will be a hard Reach. Both will be over $30k.

Great solid, well rounded resume & stats!

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Some colleges like to see a STEM and humanities recommendation, my kids asked in the spring of junior year, teachers get a lot of requests and will turn students down if they have too many.

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All 3 of your majors are highly competitive, with CS being the most competitive among those 3. IMO, some of your schools are incorrectly classified for CS:

UCSD, UMD, Purdue are low reaches.
UT Austin, UIUC and UWash are all high reaches.

Wisconsin is a target at best, certainly not a safety.

These are not the only misclassifications - I only touched upon schools I’m familiar with for CS admissions. Some schools are hard to get into overall.
Texas A&M has secondary admission into CS.

I will also add that if your budget is under $30k, all these public schools should be off your list as they will be unaffordable.
Do you qualify for need based aid? Have your parents run the NPC?
Is the $30k your guess, or the budget your parents have given you?

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I agree with this… but I’d add UNC to the reach list also.

How do you plan to fund OOS public universities most of which do not meet full need for OOS students. And especially those UCs where you like’s won’t receive any aid to help with the $75,000 or so a year cost to attend.

Your ECs are terrific, and your GPA is fine too. Are you going to retake the SAT? Hope your ACT is a bit higher…as that will increase your chances at some of these colleges. BUT it won’t solve the budget issue.

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Congratulations on an impressive profile!
My guess is that GTech is going to be the one to beat - very affordable and world class. Of course, the difficulty is getting in, especially from the metro area.

Run the NPC on Emory and USC.
Cross out the other public universities, since they aren’t better than GTech and won’t be within budget, unless you qualify for FA at UVA, UNC, UMICH so run the NPC on each of these 3.
Add Rice? Tufts ? Northeastern ? Or why not go for a high reach such as Cornell or Penn?
Run the NPC on each of the above.

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I would say due to cost in 80k-90k and no FA, I would remove UMICH, UVA and all UCs. That would make your list within 20 apps and should be manageable.

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Are you first generation college student in your family?

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Thank you for your response and welcome message. I want to go to the UCs because half of my family lives in San Jose (idk if that considers me for instate), and I really like UCLA’s and UCB’s math programs that they offer. I have visited some colleges in California like CalTech, UCLA, and will visit Stanford in 2 days since I am here. In addition, I have applied for Distance GT Math and GT CS, and decisions come out today. I should have not put the limit there because my parents are very flexible with me. I believe it should be affordable for them, but I will get back to you on a reasonable estimate using the price calculator soon. I agree CS is competitive everywhere, and I understand that especially all the schools I am applying to they are really competitive. My first option was thinking to do a major in mathematics, but I don’t think my ECs and awards have math in them, so I am still a little doubtful. Again, thanks for your feedback, much appreciated!

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Thank you! I understand the UCs are expensive now, and I will consider the other colleges first.

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I will change my college list. Thank you for your feedback!

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Thank you for your feedback! I will consider getting recommendations from other teachers apart from math.

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Thank you for your feedback! I don’t qualify for need based aid. My parents have not run the NPC. Can you explain more in detail what the NPC is? The 30k is my guess. I will get back to you.

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Thank you for your feedback! I will see my results for the ACT and I will decide to retake the DSAT perhaps in September.

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It does not. So I think your next step is a detailed talk with your parents about budget. If your $30K estimate is accurate, the UCs are out. If they are able to fund more than that (approx $75K/year), then it is up to you and your parents if the UCs are still worth considering. Don’t waste your time applying if you can’t afford them, though.

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Thanks for your feedback! Understood.

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The net price calculator is on every college website. You enter your family financials from the right year (for academic year 2025-2026, it’s 2023 tax year info…but assets are of the day you do this). These net price calculators give you a decent estimate of what your net costs will be at a specific college. Please use the NPCs on the college website, and not a generic one like MyIntuition.

There are some things that can make the net price calculators less than accurate:

  1. Divorced parents
  2. Owning real estate other than your primary residence
  3. Being self employed or owning a business
  4. International students

If none of the above apply to your family…these net price calculators are a good way to see how far off what your family can and will pay is…to what the colleges might expect you to pay.

The net price calculators for the 2025-2026 academic year should be getting updated just about now.

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