Chance Me/ Match Me : Rising Senior in CA [3.95 GPA (3.92/4.23/4.54 for UC), 1490 SAT, data science, computer science, political science]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics
US citizen
CA
Public High School
Other special factors: None

Cost Constraints / Budget
None as of now

Intended Major(s)
Not completely decided yet however narrowed down to -

  1. Data Science or Computer Science or related engineering
  2. Political science with minor in Data Science or applied math

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.95
  • Weighted HS GPA: Weighted GPA - 4.34 , UC GPA - 4.55
  • Class Rank: School does not rank
  • ACT/SAT Scores: SAT 1490 ( Super Score) - 790 in math - will take another one in August to try to bring the english score up

List your HS coursework

English:English 3, English 4 (Senior Year), Taking English 300 at Community College in the summer
Math: AP Calculus BC, AP Calculus AB, AP Stats (Senior Year)
Science: AP Bio, Ap Physics(Senior Year), AP Chemistry(Senior Year), AP Environmental Science
History and social studies:AP US History, AP Euro, AP Gov Econ (Senior Year)
Language other than English: Spanish 4
Visual or performing arts: Chambers Choir
Other academic courses: AP Research, AP Seminar

Awards
Debate - 2x Tournament of Champions qualifier, 2x Nationals Qualifier, 1x State Championship qualifier
deabte - multiple awards at invitational tournaments (both team and individual)
Gold Presidential volunteer award
Academic All American Award

Extracurriculars
Speech and Debate Club President in school
Volunteer for Middle School and community debate coaching
Member of a regional Choir for 4+ years
Internship in an AI company in summer

Essays/LORs/Other
Not sure how strong my essay is.
Average LOR

Schools

  • Likely: UC Riverside, UC Merced, Purdue
  • Toss-up: UIUC, UC Santa Cruz, University of Washington Seattle
  • Low Probability: UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UCSD, cal poly slo, UC Santa Barbara, USC, Stanford

Please let me know if there are other colleges that I should be considering. Also let me know any words of wisdom for major choice.

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What does this mean - as you have to be able to ensure you can afford the schools you are looking at.

Please make sure your parents know you are looking at schools $40-$100K a year. There may be a way to reduce that - but there may not.

I can’t chance the UCs but UW will be a heavy reach for CS with a 2% acceptance rate - if that’s your chosen major.

And Purdue, for CS or Engineering, is a slight reach I’d say, not likely.

Best of luck

A UC about equivalent cost school that’s excellent and like UW in a city - but will be much less expensive with merit and is highly likely- is UMN.

Good luck

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If you’re ok with attending Riverside or Merced, this list is fine. Purdue, UW, and UIUC are also low probability for you. If you’d like more choices, add some more likely schools. If you’d like to stay west, maybe Arizona, ASU, Washington State, Oregon, etc.

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Does this mean “no money” or “no limit on cost”?

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Out of state publics like Purdue, UIUC, and UW admit by major and give preference to their instate applicants. Do not look at the overall acceptance rate but instead the one for your intended major. CS at these three schools should all be in your low probability category.

And if you are interested in CS, apply for CS because at these types of schools, it’s nearly impossible to change into the major later. Much easier to change out into something else if you decide CS is not for you.

Other schools to consider that would be toss ups- RPI and Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has rolling admission so if you apply there on 8/1 you should have a decision by October which if you are accepted, takes a lot of pressure off the whole process. You should see merit $ from RPI.

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Can you calculate your three GPAs for UC here?

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Thanks, parents are okay with funding 40-100K.

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Parents are okay to fund upto 100K a year

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Hope that means without loans …

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Here are UC GPA per the calculator -
Unweighted GPA - 3.92
Weighed GPA - 4.54
Weighted and Capped GPA - 4.23

Would really love to get feedback on UC chances.

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Does Data Science instead of CS increase the probable chances for UW

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Your GPA is within range for any UC. Beyond GPA, it will depend on your relative rigor compared to others in your HS, your EC descriptions, your PIQs, and other holistic factors. On top of that, the UCs are not really predictable and only a very small percentage are admitted for CS.

This is a good resource. Under broad discipline, click on Computer Science to see the corresponding admit rates across the UCs.

Here is another resource where you can look up historical admit data for your specific high school (although this is not broken down by discipline).

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Best I can tell they do not have a DS major but a minor that any major can combine with. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Choose major over school - id rather see you at name your typical public in the major you want than a higher profile school in one you don’t.

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Data Science is not in the engineering college while CS can be. So you might have to make up your mind on which college and major to apply at some point. As an example look at UCSD where CS is in engineering and Data Science in a separate college/institute. Your chances are much lower at a school like UCSD if you decide to apply to CS versus Data Science.

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For CS, all but UC Merced, Riverside and Santa Cruz have admit rates below 20% including Cal Poly SLO. DS has slightly better odds but still competitive.

Based on your UC GPA’s, your likely schools are Merced, Riverside and Santa Cruz for CS. Only UC Merced and UC Riverside (edited) have a DS major out of your Likely schools. You might want to add San Jose state as a Very Likely to the list for DS.

The rest of the UC schools would be in the Lower Probability for CS and even for DS. UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara for DS might be in the Toss-up category. UCSB’s Data science is found in the College of Letters and Sciences which does not consider major for admission purposes. Cal Poly SLO only offers a DS minor so if you select Stats as major, it could a toss-up school.

Good luck.

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UC Riverside has Data Science. https://datascience.ucr.edu/

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Thanks, I must have missed it. I will edit my post.