I was wondering what my brother’s chances are for USC, Cornell, Brown, Caltech, Harvey Mudd and Columbia. He is a legacy for USC, Columbia and Caltech.
Desired Major: Computer Science
SAT 1: 2250 (770CR 680W 800M) only sat for the test once
ACT: N/A
SAT 2: Math II 800 Physics 760 Biology 700
AP Courses: Sophomore: Computer Science: 5 Junior: BC Calculus: 5 AB Sub score: 5 Biology 5 Senior (In progress): Physics, Chemistry, Statistics, Psychology, Multivariable Calculus (Continuation of Calculus, college level course taken after hours first semester)
GPA: 3.88 UW 4.29 W
Rank: not provided
Extracurricular and Work Experience
Freshmen: Robotics Club
Summer after sophomore year: worked in the USC lab in a project collaboration between the Computer Science and the Biology Department that came up with a computer program to match chromosomes together, specific task was to come up with the code to program the system
Junior year-present: paid Computer Science internship with a cloud developer company in Palo Alto
Recommendations: One of the USC professors that he collaborated with on the project offered to write him letters of recommendation
Other
State: CA
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: 1/4 Japanese, 1/2 Taiwanese, 1/4 White
School Type: public
Is he a true legacy at Columbia (parent went to the college or engineering school?) You list that he’s a legacy at three schools so obviously at least one of them, you are counting a grad school. Legacy is no longer much of a hook at Columbia and it only apples if he apples ED. I don’t know anything about USC’s legacy policy.
I’d say his odds are best for USC. The rest are major reaches – his competition will have much more robust ECs, and it makes a difference for schools at that level.
No clue honestly about his chances. He seems like one of those really smart Asian kids that gets rejected by pretty much every school. Doesn’t really have the stats for a caltech or the ECs for an Ivy so he’s just in an awkward spot, especially for an Asian.
I think your brother should strongly consider using his ED wisely. There is a legit shot he could get rejected everywhere and I think ED would go a long way to helping his cause out. I recommend shooting an ED to Brown or Cornell, working really hard on his essays, making sure the rest of his app has something to standout and hoping for the best.
I only listed a handful of schools that he applied to here. He also applied to UCSB, UCSD, UCLA, UCB, University of Washington (in Seattle), University of Michigan, Rice, Carnegie Mellon, and MIT.
Did you apply to like, 20 schools? These schools are so different and I can’t infer what you like/your personality based on this huge school list.
Maybe what’s appealing is rankings&prestige?
Anyway, use your ED wisely. I would suggest Cornell or Carnegie Mellon.
Caltech, Mudd, Cornell, Brown and Columbia are fairly unlikely due to ec’s. USC is possible just bc scores are there. Probably accepted into all UC’s, except maybe UCB, not sure how much of a disadvantage OOS is at UW so I can’t really predict that, UMich is hard to get into OOS but I believe CS is easier to get into than Ross or Engineering, I think he may get into Rice just because many of the people I know who go to Rice were people with great numbers but not so great EC’s (maybe that’s just my experience, though), CMU CS is insanely hard to get into as is MIT, so neither of those are likely.
My brother applied to a large range of schools to increase his chances of getting into at least some good ones. Although these schools might be different, all of them (save UCSB) are ranked top 20 for computer science, which was why he found these options to be so appealing.