Demographics: Male, Indian, MA, top public school, middle class
Intended Major(s): Computer Science
UW/W GPA and Rank: 3.71/4.08 GPA, ~top 10%
UC GPA: 3.62 UW, 3.77 W
SAT: 1520 Superscore (790 M, 730 RW)
Coursework: 8 APs by graduation, 14 H, 1 DE, 1 College Class
Max APs allowed is 10.
Awards + Honors
USACO Gold Division
Deca, 2x ICDC qualifier, States 1st place, States finalist 2x (top 8)
2nd place, State Champion Runner Up—National Personal Finance Challenge ($500, 500+ competitors)
4th Place Statewide, National Economics Challenge: David Ricardo ($125, 75 teams)
Extracurriculars
Software Lead: First Robotics Competition. Led the team to top 400 globally; taught 50+ junior engineers how to code; expanded FRC’s reach to 100+ underserved people. Dean’s List Semi-finalists - top 2 in a team of 40
Eagle Scout; Patrol Leader; Jr. Asst. Scoutmaster. Led a patrol of 10+ scouts. Led 15+ scouts to build posts to protect water spigots
Co-Captain. Investment Club. Led club from 3 to 40+ members; gained over 60 intent to join; developed a curriculum to teach investing
Software Engineering Intern. (Y Combinator Startup). Transformed peer-phishing algorithm, pushing 1500+ lines to production; developed trial system for enterprise clientele
Co-Founder. Smart DECA Studying Website. Built a DECA studying app; gained 200+ monthly active users and 10,000 flashcards answered. Improved competition prep with analytics & personalized tools
Curriculum Coordinator/Toastmasters International (public speaking organization). Taught 100+ students public speaking
Soccer. Varsity Athlete for one, JV for 3
NHS member. 200+ volunteer hours across tutoring, robotics mentorship, and local service
Essays/LORs/Other:
Essays: 9/10 LOR: English Teacher: 8.5/10 Stats/CS Teacher: 8/10
Extenuating: depression (suicidal & self-harm) sophomore year
Given depression and suicidal issues- which of these colleges are close to home and your mental health team? I’d focus on that. The world isn’t running out of CS. How do your parents feel about you being far away?
Agreed with @blossom - in fact grads today from all schools are struggling.
Also any budget issues ? Some of these are $90k plus and many of the publics will have no aid. UCs are $80k-ish.
So you need a budget unless unlimited.
Also the UCs will not see your test.
I could be wrong - I don’t think UMASS is safe. The school yes but not CS.
One last question - what is your math and science coursework ? What will be your highest math class ? What science have you taken ?
But please focus on your mental health. This is a rigorous major - for many may be stressful. The school name matters less. Your mental health matters more. So be mindful.
They def would rather have me close but I’m still applying to farther schools because I would attend them. My mental health is better but I understand your concern. Thanks for bringing it up.
For budget issues my parents said they would pay for everything, but I wouldn’t attend a school for 80-90k that I don’t think is worth it. I’d rather just go to a safety. Yeah, UMASS isn’t a safety more of a target for CS even though I’m in state. The highest math class I will take by senior your is Calc AB and for science I’ve taken bio, chem, and physics and I’ll be taken Physics AP senior year.
I will def be considering my mental health when making a decision. Thank you for your concern.
This is very good. This is not going to impress most of your reach schools. My personal guess is that all of your reaches are just a waste of time, effort, and application fees. At a minimum I would cut your list of reach schools in half. Even better might be to just drop nearly all of them from your list.
UC San Diego is very good for CS. I do not understand why you would prefer it to U.Mass for CS. UC San Diego would be a lot more expensive and is a long way to go to attend a university that is just as good as your in-state options.
I am not completely confident that U.Mass is a safety for CS, even being in-state. Similarly I am not completely confident that McGill is a safety. You might want to make sure that WPI and RIT are really safeties, and might want to consider adding in an application to U.Mass Lowell, and/or UNH.
OK - here’s my truthful assessment - but I am not an adcom.
The UW GPA is low - and the UCs and UW (with a 2% OOS acceptance rate) won’t see the test.
I think you’ll get into WPI and RIT, possibly UMASS. No idea on McGill.
I think you are over rating yourself - UCSD is a high reach as is NEU, etc.
I see just two most likely.
You might consider a Minnesota, Ohio State, Stony Brook level of school as more realistic targets for large public. UNH is also close if distance matters.
I cannot imagine that your doctor, therapist, etc thinks it’s a good plan to be 3,000 miles away from home. I had a kid ( an adult by then) working in San Diego and wow, what a painful trip that was for everyone. We are closer to the NY airports than to Logan but if there had been an emergency I cannot bear to think how long it would have taken to get there.
The weather in SD is always gorgeous. But snow, rain, nor’easter on the East coast backs up the flights in both directions. If the “in the air” time is 5 hours, that’s only true if the flight doesn’t get cancelled.
You really want to be on a red eye flight heading home if you need some “at home” time during a stressful semester? And then turn around Sunday to get back to campus?
There are so many great options within a few hours drive of home. Your mental health is more important than anything else.
Regarding mental health issues, an anecdote or two: Several years ago I toured Carnegie Mellon with my son who was at the time a high school junior. Our tour group was led by a couple of computer science/physics majors; and at one stop, another student walked by our group and loudly said, “Have they told you that Carnegie Mellon has the highest suicide rate in the country?” Now, this was a few years ago, so things may have improved; but another poster here on CC – who attended CMU, if I recall correctly – shared how in one multistory building on the CMU campus somebody painted a bulls-eye target at the bottom of a tall stairwell because of suicide attempts there.
I am not trying to pick on Carnegie Mellon, but rather to suggest that a lot of schools that are difficult to get admitted to can have a high level of stress among the student body. (I don’t know whether there are published statistics on suicides at colleges and universities.) Many of the schools that you have listed as “reaches” or “targets” likely have very high-pressure environments that some students have trouble dealing with; and attending a school that has a higher admission rate but still has a good computer science program might be a better choice.
Welcome to College Confidential. Congratulations on a competitive academic profile.
The California UC’s are test blind so your SAT score will not be considered for admissions or scholarship consideration only course placement. They are also expensive for non-California residents so the Cost of Attendance is around $80K/year with little no need-based or merit financial aid.
That said, you can calculate out your 3 UC GPA’s and please note that only AP/IB and UC Transferable DE courses are weighted in the Calculation. OOS “Honors” designated courses are not weighted in the UC GPA calculation.
Below are some 2024 admit rate information for the UC campuses you have listed. Hopefully 2025 data will be available soon.
Although the UC’s have an early application submission by December 1, you will not hear back about your admission decisions until March so they are not Early Action campuses.
For UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, you can list an alternate major when applying. CS at UC Berkeley has moved to the College of Computing, Data Science and Society (CDSS) and no longer in the College of Letters and Sciences. UC Berkeley normally only considers the alternate major during the waitlist process while UC San Diego will consider both majors during the application review. UCLA only considers your primary major during the admission process. For all the campuses, if CS is your goal, then you want to get a direct admit since there are no guarantees you will be able to switch later.
Your list is waaay too long, and as others have said, the tippy top reaches are quite unlikely. If you want to apply to a few, go for it. But better to revamp a balanced list of reaches, matches and likelies.
OP, I am not a chancer, but I did want to express my surprise at everyone saying you had little chance at your reaches. My understanding is that top 10% of the class at a top (read: competitive and likely well-known to selective colleges) public high school in Massachusetts would be noted in a fairly positive light.
All this said, your reaches are reaches for all, especially in CS, but I would note the strong SAT, strong rigor of curriculum, and strong class rank that could hopefully be expressed in a counselor letter. The UC GPA feels more fraught, so maybe those are ones to consider dropping in favor of private targets that might give you some merit money.
Many, many years ago I heard that MIT had this distinction. It is possible that CMU might have edged out MIT on this point.
One issue is that the majority of students at any very highly ranked university will have been very close to the number 1 student in their high school. They are not all going to be in the top half of the students at CMU or MIT (or Cornell, Yale, Duke, …). Someone, or more accurately a few someones, are going to be close to the bottom of the class, and this is likely to include many someones who had no prior experience in being anywhere near the bottom of any class.
Many years ago at an event for incoming freshmen at MIT the speaker asked the group of freshmen “how many of you expect to be in the top half of the class at MIT”. About 90% of the incoming freshmen raised their hand. Obviously they were not all correct (and most of them probably figured this out at the time).
I think that the point here is that every student should be thinking about what schools would be the best fit for them, and this does not necessarily include the highest ranked university that any particular student can get accepted to.
