Help me find some likely options?

CausticKiwi
Sun, 01 Jun 2014 07:10:37 +0000

I would be very appreciative of anyone who could provide me with some good matches. Also, thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to read all of this.

=========MY APPLICATION===========

I am a Caucasian male from a fairly affluent family. No help there aside from the benefits I’ve already reaped.

I am a Junior at a fairly competitive and very rigorous liberal arts school in Portland, OR. I calculated my GPA to be about 3.8, but my school emphasizes the harsh grading in its description on our transcript, and sends a list of the class’s grade-distributions rather than a calculated GPA or class rank. I would imagine I’m in the top 10-15% of my roughly 70 person class.

We don’t technically have AP courses, but most of my science class and all of my math classes have been designated as accelerated/honors.

My classes as of Senior year will be:
-4 years English
-3 years Spanish (ending on IV)
-3.5 years History
-3.5 years Computer Science (one honors)
-4 years math (all honors/accelerated) - I took a precalculus/trigonometry substitute and was able to get into Calc Junior year. Will end on Calc II.
-4 years science (3 honors/accelerated) - the only class of note is going to be advanced physics Senior year

Testing:
-2140 on the SAT. I hope to improve in October after rigorous Summer preparation, but obviously there is no guarantee.
-790 SAT II Math II
-Will take SAT II chem, but I don’t expect to do as well as math
-may also take SAT II lit, but I don’t plan on studying, so probably won’t do well
-Took Comp Sci and Calc AB AP tests, but I don’t have the scores yet. At best I’d say 4 and 5, at worst 3 and 4
-Plan on taking Physics and Calc BC AP’s next year

EC’s as of Junior year are:
-3 years moderately important member of my schools fairly successful robotics team. We’ve made it to worlds every year I’ve been on it so far.
-3 years track team. I mainly Pole-vault and placed 6th in Sophmore year and 5th this year in the Oregon’s 3A competition.
-I was a second-degree black-belt in Taekwondo, which I did for maybe eight years. I acquired some teaching experience, but I had to quit to make time for track and robotics.
-I’ve fulfilled my school’s community service requirements, but haven’t done anything distinguishing.

And finally, due to my school’s emphasis on liberal arts as well as a short summer camp on college-essay-writing I will be attending, I expect my college essays will at very least not be complete crap (don’t use the writing in this post as and indicator please ).

===========COLLEGES=============

I have a rough list of options, which follows:
Reach Possibilities:
Stanford
Carnegie Mellon
UC Berkely
Cornell
UPenn

Main Schools:
Harvey Mudd
UMich
UCLA
Rice

Safety Schools:
U of Washington, Seattle
U of Il, Urbana-Champaign
Georgia Tech

I am almost certainly going to major in computer science, although physics and math are also options.

So… firstly, I know that my safety schools are all highly regarded for computer science, but they also have high acceptance rates. Please let me know if you think those rates are deceptive. Of all of the listed schools, the only ones that are set in stone are Stanford (my dream school, plus I have a legacy), Cornell, and possibly UIUC or UW. A majority of these schools were picked out of US news’ graduate computer science ranking, because it’s pretty damn hard to find rankings for undergraduate computer science school rankings.

I am aware of how difficult many of these schools are to get into, and also of how lacking my application will be compared to many of the people who will be turned down by them. This is why I’m asking for other suggestions. I’m looking for fairly distinguished schools that will look good on my resume, but also one that I have a reasonable chance of getting into.

=============================

Again, a huge thank you to anyone who actually read this all. I would be super grateful to anyone who can suggest a good school for computer science that I would have a reasonable shot at. Equally appreciated would be any comments on my chances of being accepted to, or the merits and disadvantages of any of the listed schools.