Chance me for UC's and UIUC(CompSci Major) please

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Hello,
Please chance me for

  1. UC Berkeley 2) UCLA 3) UC San Diego 4) UC Irvine 5) UC Santa Barbara 6) UC Davis 7) UIUC

Thanks in advance guys! I’m applying CompSci (1st choice) and Business (2nd choice) for all schools above!

Race: Chinese Asian
Gender: Male
State: CA
Income Level: ~200k
Financial Aid?: YES!
Education: not First generation
School: ~2300 people, well-known in SF Bay Area to be very competitive
Class Rank: Probably top 45%~50%
State Rank: Top 9% across california according to UC website

Classes:
9th: English 9, Honors Geometry, Health/Geography, CP Biology, Read to Achieve (non a-g) , PE
10th: English 10, Honors Alg2, CP Chemistry, AP Chinese, World History ,PE
11th: English 11, CP Precalculus,US History, AP Environmental Science, AP Human Geography, AP Statistics
12th: English 12, AP Computer Science, AP Calculus AB, Digital Imaging, Leadership 1, Government/Economics

GPA:
Unweighted: 3.8/4.0
UC GPA (weighted): 4.22/5.0

ACT: 33
SAT Chinese: 800
SAT Math: 720
AP Tests (total: 4): 5 on two tests, 4 on two tests

Main Activities: officer positions in 4 school clubs, 2 work experiences, unpaid intern at software company doing marketing search, FTC robotics team, Varsity track and field, Founder/Execute of a tutoring business that donated $3000 to help 60 people in India get eye surgeries.

Volunteering: 80 hours in total, 6 years commitment in helping non-native ESL students at my school with academic subjects and accommodate to life in U.S.

Awards:

  • SAGE U.S. National 3rd Place (both 2015 and 2016) — SAGE = students for advancement of Global Entrepreneruship
  • Robotics Team FTC : Inspire Award / First place alliance captain
  • National Society of High School Scholars

Classes beside A~G courses

  • Leadership 1 (offered by my school)
  • 3 computer programming classes online (MOOC classes offered by Udacity and Coursera)
  • Free Online Intro to Physics class @YaleCourseWare

Educational Programs

  • Carleton College Summer Computer Science Institute
    => learned programming in Virtual Reality, Robotics, Human/Computer Interaction, Computer Vision
    => College level robotics research under guidance of real professor and college compsci students
2

Your income is too high for financial aid.

You need to ask your parents how much they’ll pay each year for college.

UIUC would be expensive since you’d be charged full OOS rates.

If you can’t pay for all costs, then you’ll need to find colleges that will give you merit scholarships for your stats.

3

@mom2collegekids Do any of the school I listed, especially UIUC, offer merit based scholarships? If they do, based on my stats, do you think I would get it? Just to clarify, my parents will be paying college tuition concurrently for me and my sibling. Therefore, I hope to lower the financial stress they will face when I go to college too.

4

The UC’s offer merit aid in the form of Regent scholarships (usually top 1-2%) of applicants. They can range from $2500 to $10000 a year up to full tuition depending upon campus and need. If you are looking for substantial merit, you need to target private schools such as USC, Santa Clara, USD, Pepperdine, Chapman, Occidental in-state.
You look like a competitive applicant and have a good chance at the UC’s. Have your parents run the Net price calculators for all schools to see their costs.
For additional info, my husband and I make a little over $150K/year and both sons did not qualify or any FA or merit aid. Both sons attend in-state CA schools (UC/Cal state), full pay but had the savings to cover the costs. We have both in college at the same time for 3 years overlap.

5

What is most important to you - the school, your major or financial aid? CS is competitive which makes your chances at some schools less predictable. Business isn’t offered as an undergraduate major at all of the UCs so you might want to look into that as well.

If you are willing to go in with a less impacted major, it might up your chances for both acceptance and merit aid. Also, you might get into Cal but get merit aid at UCI or UCSB. If a scenario like that happens, which school would you choose?

@Gumbymom with a 4.2 UCGPA, 3.8 UW GPA and 33, do you think Santa Clara and USC would go as low as in state UC tuition for a high income family? I’m asking because we are in a similar situation.

6

@lkg4answers: I would use the Net price calculators to see what the costs could be. I think you definitely could get 1/2 tuition at USC and be eligible for possibly the Presidential scholarship along with a few other merit scholarships. For SCU, merit aid has been hit or miss for many applicants. You would have to do more research but you re definitely competitive and both schools are worth pursuing. Hopefully another poster with more experience with merit at these schools could chime in.

OP;
I would also add Cal Poly SLO to the list for their excellent programs and much lower costs than the UC’s.

7

Yes and SLO has both Comp Sci and Business. But do some research into SLO’s philosophy of education (Learn by Doing) and small class sizes before you apply. Make sure it is a good fit for you.

Thanks @Gumbymom

8

UIUC gives very few merit scholarships. An ACT 33 would not get merit from UIUC

9

UIUC really sucks in financial aid and your stat would you get you their limited merit aid either. Their CS program is highly competitive that ACT 33 is likely below their admission average.

10

Public or private?

11

@thumper1 public.