Chance Me/Match Me - Virginia resident looking to apply to T30 colleges in CS [3.93 GPA, top 1%, 1540 SAT]

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 citizen
  • State/Location of residency: Virginia
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Public
  • Other special factors: Nothing really, second generation immigrant

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)

Intended Major(s)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.93
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.63
  • Class Rank: 4/560
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1540 SAT, did not take act

List your HS coursework

(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)

  • English: English 9H, English 10H, AP English Lang and Comp., AP English Lit and Comp.
  • Math: Algebra I in 7th, Geometry, Algebra II/Trig, AP Precalc, AP Calculus BC, Multivariable Calculus
  • Science: Research Biology, Research Chemistry, AP Physics, Research Earth Science
  • History and social studies: Intro to AP World History, AP World History, AP US & VA History, AP US and Comparative Government
  • Language other than English: I speak Arabic and German, took German I in 8th and German II and III in 9th and 10th, spoke Arabic already
  • Visual or performing arts: N/A
  • Other academic courses: Electives?? If this is referring to electives, I’ve taken Computer Math, AP Comp Sci Principles, Economics and Personal Finance, Intro to Cybersecurity, AP Comp Sci A, Weight Training, AP Psychology, Computer Science DE

College Coursework (Transfer Applicants)
(Include college courses taken while in high school if not included above.)

  • General education course work:
  • Major preparation course work:

Awards

in individual debate state competition

AP Scholar w/ Distinction

National Merit Commended Scholar

National Merit Scholarship

5 letters of recommendation from my teachers - I personally think they’re very good

Magna cum laude

Extracurriculars
Track 4 yrs, JV Basketball 1 yr, AAU basketball 4 years

Made a NES emulator

Muslim Student Association

English tutoring, started end of 9th grade

Public library volunteering

Debate team pres, led team to states

Class president

Did a lot of hackathons, won a good amount of them

CMU Computer Science Scholars Program

CodeForces

Did CS research with my father, a professor at , and later worked with a CS professor who my father had ties to at UC Berkeley - research was used at multiple conferences and published in academic journals

Started Retro Gaming Club at my school

Work experience via Fiverr

Commonwealth Cyber Initiative Drone Competitions

Educational game to help academically struggling students, used often in both my and surrounding counties

NASA Internship

Wrote an article examining the effects of the Technological Revolution on the human species and our surroundings (This is rather minor, I just included this for posterity

Male modeling

Essays/LORs/Other
I personally think my letters of recommendation are very strong, because the way they are written, in my opinion, professes their love for me both as a person and as a student.

Essays are pretty strong, probably like a solid 7-8/10

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if unsure, leave them unclassified)

If a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below; also, for colleges that admit by major or division, consider that in chance estimate.

Note: I feel as if I’m being a bit unrealistic on this thing, but I’m not sure; that’s why I’m here.

  • Assured (100% chance of admission and affordability): GMU, ASU, VT
  • Extremely Likely: UVA??? I’m not sure.
  • Likely: UMaryland College-Park, UMass-Amherst, Purdue, Wisconsin-Madison
  • Toss-up: UNC, Georgia Tech, UC-Irvine, UC-Davis, UCSB, UCSD, USC
  • Lower Probability: UC Berkeley, UCLA, Cornell, Rice, Texas-Austin
  • Low Probability: MIT, Harvard, UWash, CMU, Stanford, Brown, Princeton, CalTech, Columbia
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I think you’re in good shape.

Certainly your safeties and likelies are safe and every school is possible.

I may not agree with all your classifications as are your likelies. But you have many acceptances here.

You don’t comment on budget so that might be the only concern.

Can you afford $95k a year? If not, do you qualify for need aid ?

Best of luck although I doubt you need it.

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I’m not sure UVA is “extremely likely” but you do have a decent chance of acceptance there as an instate resident.

UCLA and Berkeley require a year of some arts course. I don’t see that in your course listings. If you don’t have that, you won’t be accepted there.

For UMD and UMass, please applying in the early round is the only way to go as they accept the vast majority of their freshman classes in the early round.

I think UNC should be moved to “lower probability” or “low probability” because of the significant limit on OOS students accepted there. Again, you are a strong applicant…but you are OOS.

If you are happy with your sure things, then your list is fine. It’s OK to apply to reach schools as long as you have one or two sure things that you would be happy to attend.

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For me, budget is a non-issue, though I would prefer a cheaper university, but I am willing to spend a lot for a top one.

5

Could you clarify what this means? Most of the time, NM commended don’t get National Merit scholarships.

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About UVA - fair enough. Regarding UCLA and UCB - I took an art elective in like 10th grade to meet the CTE/Fine Arts requirement, my mistake for excluding it. About applying early - I’ve already applied to a lot of these (CMU ED, MIT EA, UIUC EA, GT EA, UMich EA, UMD EA, UMass EA, Purdue EA, UNC EA, USC EA, UVA EA, VT EA, and Wisconsin-Madison EA). My main concern is fleshing out my list with more safeties, because basically all the unis I included are very prestigious, and I don’t want to risk rejection by all of them.

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Oh mb I’m tweaking, I wasn’t a commended, it was the scholarship :sob:

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Good job getting those ED and EA applications sent out.

Now…just wait and see! And get your RD applications to your sure things submitted also. You can always withdraw those applications if you get an ED acceptance…or if not ED, one of your EA acceptances.

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Well, that’s the plan. However, I feel like this whole college admissions thing is so arbitrary. They let the most random people into top colleges, and reject worthy applicants. If I get accepted or rejected, I’ll never know why. Also, this might be a weird question, but what do you think my chance at each college I listed is (like a percentage).

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They don’t just let in certain students, and they reject thousands of very “worthy” students because there are way more of these students than seats.

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I don’t think this is a question that can be accurately predicted.

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National Merit Scholarships haven’t been announced yet. Finalists aren’t even annnounced until February. I hope you didn’t put this on any applications.

For CS, I think some of your characterizations are overly optimistic, but as long as you have some safeties and likelies, it doesn’t really matter.

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From Junior yr

14

Fair enough.

15

Huh? National Merit Scholarships are not awarded to juniors.

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Oh mb, ngl that was genuinely a lie :sob: All the other things are true though, and I wanted to see what my chances would be with that addition. I certainly didn’t include this on my applications, but I wanted to see what my chances would be with or w/o it. (On second thought, that was really dumb, makes me seem unreliable, and it wouldn’t even affect college apps anyway) My fault

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Besides, I felt like I was going to get one anyway, but even including that is dishonest

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Are you a NMS semifinalist? This matters at some colleges that award guaranteed merit aid to NMSF…but I don’t think any on your list do so. University of Tulsa awards scholarships to NM semi finalists, for example.

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Yes

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I meant to reply to thumper