Multivariable Calculus Junior Year (Dual Enrollment)
Planning on taking Lin Alg & DiffEq in Senior Year (Dual Enrollment)
Awards
FIRST Robotics Competition Dean’s List Finalist - 170 / 86000+ FIRST participants win this award
USACO Silver
Best Delegate / First Place at UC Berkeley Model UN Conference
Lockheed Martin Codequest - 2nd Place
Extracurriculars
President of school CS Club & Engineering Club
Junior Officer of school Model UN Club
Volunteering - 80hrs
Robotics - FRC - Assistant Build Director & Dean’s List Finalist
Freelance Programmer for Minecraft Mods - 5mn+ downloads on independent mods separate from contracting, 300mn downloads on mods I’ve contributed to separate from contracting, average of 3mn+ views on videos I’ve been contracted to work on - Sponsored by Server Hosting Company
I can’t chance you for Yale and I’ll defer to others to chance you for the UCs. Just chiming in to say that Yale likes robotics kids. My kiddo chatted with the Yale rep at a STEM college fair he attended during an international competition and was told ~10% of Yale undergrads are FIRST alumni. So, put together the strongest application package you can and be sure to highlight your robotics experience.
For CS major, top 6 UCs are all reach with 4.17 UC Cap GPA. S24 with 4.31 UC Cap GPA for Eng got rejected by top 5 UCs, waitlisted by UCD. You may want to add CP SLO, CPP, SDSU, CSULB to your list. With 1560 SAT, you may want to add OOS such as UW, Purdue, UIUC and etc
CS is insanely competitive. If you are looking at UCs, I would see if there are any less competitive majors that interest you.
If you are dead set on CS, I would also look at the CSUs. This cycle, many CS applicants with very high GPAs and rigor were only admitted to one or two UCs.
OP has UC Merced on the list, which is highly likely at the OP’s GPA – probably would need very poor essays to get rejected.
But if the OP needs 100% sure thing safeties, there are several CSUs like CSUEB, SFSU, etc. (not CPSLO, CPP, SJSU, SDSU) where neither the campus nor CS major is impacted, so they would admit at the CSU baseline (2.5 GPA).
Right. But did OP just list all of the UCs? Would OP be happy attending Merced, Riverside or Santa Cruz? I’m not saying that those schools don’t have good programs, but I’m wondering if they were listed as safeties for the sake of making a list.
Again, there were several very qualified CS applicants this year who were only accepted to a couple of UCs. Since @chuckml97 posted above, I’ll link to their results thread. Note that they were Aerospace Engineering, not CS.
What’s your parents’budget?
Will you need merit (your GPA and scores would guarantee merit in some places) or will you need financial aid (in whixh case have you run the NPC and do you know your SAI?)
You should increase your odds by adding universuch as UArizona, UOregon, perhaps colleges in the Midwest like UMN or Purdue. However, being OOS public flagships, they would be full pay, so if your parents don’t have 40-50k… - Az has scholarships but they’re changing them (lower state funding->budget cuts->OOS scholarships an easy choice).
You may want to consider Ohio State too, S24 OOS got total $14.5K/ yr merit there. With your SAT score, you may get close to $20K/yr merit, bring COA down close to UC.
Take a look at the UC admissions data for your high school - assuming it sends a significant number of grads to UCs, you can get a better sense of your personal odds. Admissions by source school | University of California
I just ran the NPC for UMN with the OP’s stats and indeed, it estimated about $50k after merit (they include merit in their NPC). Good school though, and that’s not a lot more than the ~$40k for a UC if the OP is full pay.
Here are the most current CS admit rates if available for the UC’s and some CSU’s. What the data does not show is how competitive the applicant pool is for the major.
UCSB should go in the Reach Category. UC Irvine and UC Davis in the Low Reach Category. UC Santa Cruz and Riverside in the Target Category.
2023 Data:
Campus
CS
UC Berkeley
2.3%-L&S High Demand Major EECS-4%.
UC Davis
No data but estimated <20% Selective Major
UC Irvine
16.8%Impacted Major
UCLA
3.1% Impacted Major
UC Merced
91%
UC Riverside
32% Impacted major
UC San Diego
No data but estimated 5% Selective Major
UC Santa Barbara
5% Impacted Major
UC Santa Cruz
60% Impacted Major
Cal Poly SLO
9% Impacted Major
Cal State Long Beach
31% Impacted Major
San Diego State
28% Impacted Major.
San Jose State
31% Impacted Major.
Just to give you an idea of how competitive CS has become even for the Cal States, SDSU’s admit rate for 2022 was 40% and now 28% in 2023. Cal State Long Beach CS admit rate for 2002 was 54% and 31% for 2023.
For Applied Math, your current school categorization looks reasonable.
Definitely apply widely for CS and make sure you have at least 2 very likely schools that you are willing to attend.
Since SJSU was mentioned, recent year admission thresholds at SJSU for CS have been around the 4.3 weighted-capped GPA (but varies each year as it is competitively determined). If you will graduate from a Santa Clara County high school, you effectively get +0.25 added. So probably match if you will graduate from a Santa Clara County high school, reach otherwise.
SJSU software engineering is likely to be a bit less competitive.