10-11th Unweighted HS GPA: 3.91/4.0 (putting this for UC schools)
10-11th Weighted HS GPA: 4.48/4.0 (putting this for UC schools)
SAT Score: 1450(790 Math, 660 English) will probably retake
AP Scores: Didn’t take last year, took this year and felt decent about them
Coursework:
APs(we basically can’t take any APs until 11th):
11th Grade: AP Calculus AB, AP Physics 1, AP Computer Science Principles, AP Macro/Micro
12th Grade: AP Calculus BC, AP Computer Science A, AP US Government, AP Statistics, Maybe AP Lang
Extracurriculars:
Eagle Scout, Scouting since 3rd grade, gave back to the community through Eagle Project(100 service hours)
Varsity tennis player, high school tennis player since freshman year and have been playing for around 7 years(D1 Competitive High School)
Trumpet player for around 6 years, high school symphonic band 2nd chair,
Artificial Intelligence club board member, building AI models and coding grades 10 and 11
Doing a Careers in AI internship over the summer
Participated in Rubik’s cube competitions throughout high school
Will attempt to code an app from this summer to the end of the year
Awards:
CIF High School Tennis Winners
(hopefully will get an AP award and a competition award)
Essays/LORs:
Will attempt to write good essays, will probably get LORs from math and CS teacher, and tennis coach
Schools:
Give me suggestions for schools for Computer Science(Safeties/Targets/Reaches) that I can apply out of state(public or private) and I will base my budget off of that. For the UCs and Cal Poly SLO, I will probably be applying computer engineering or math(other than UCR and UCSC, will be applying CS) as many of my senior friends with near perfect to perfect stats were getting waitlisted/rejected for CS so it would be great if you guys could predict my chances.
What about WUE universities ?
Look into WWU, UUtah, for instance.
Would Cal poly Pomona and Humboldt be of interest?
Run the NPC on UPuget Sound, Whitman, Occcidental, LMU, Santa Clara, UOregon, UNM, UA, ASU.
Look at the Midwest: UCincinnati if co-ops are of interest, UWisconsin, UMN.
UIowa has a quasi-automatic system with the Regents’index: hit 265 pts and you’re basically in.
If you have a 50k-60k budget (no parental loans) Purdue, Penn State, UMass Amherst, UDel, Michigan state (some merit possible at the last 2).
Alwayd apply to Honors for scholarship chances and other perks.
Some 2023 admit data if available are listed below. UC Berkeley has some 2024 updated numbers. From this information you can see where you stand. Note that the UC’s consider the Unweighted UC GPA, Capped weighted UC GPA and Fully weighted UC GPA.
Campus
CS
UC Berkeley
1.9% 2024 preliminary EECS- 7%
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.
Campus
Computer Engineering/CSE
UC Berkeley
EECS 7% 2024
UC Davis
<20% Selective Major
UC Irvine
28% CE/CSE 24%
UCLA
Comp Eng 3.7% CSE 3.2%
UC Merced
91%
UC Riverside
42%
UC San Diego
No data but <10% Top 5 most popular declared major
UC Santa Barbara
19%
UC Santa Cruz
57%
Cal Poly SLO
21%
Cal State Long Beach
36%
San Diego State
43%
San Jose State
31%
Campus
Applied Math/Math
UC Berkeley
29% Capped weighted GPA: 4.15-4.29
UC Davis
37.9% College of Letters and Sciences/ Capped weighted GPA: 4.03-4.27
UC Irvine
35.6% Capped weighted GPA: 4.07-4.28
UCLA
11% for College of Letters and Sciences/ Capped weighted GPA: 4.20-4.31
UC Merced
99% Capped weighted GPA: 3.48-4.08
UC Riverside
98% Capped weighted GPA: 3.76-4.18
UC San Diego
No data Estimated <30%. Capped weighted GPA: 4.11-4.29
UC Santa Barbara
32% for the College of Letters and Sciences/Capped weighted GPA: 4.13-4.29
Following on this post …
Michigan State may be worth a look. Based on their website and recent experience … if your high school gives colleges your weighted GPA, you can expect $15,000 in auto scholarship from Michigan State, bringing the final cost down to about $40,000. You may qualify for more money if you get into honors, or fall into other scholarship buckets.
This is a much lower price point than many of the Big 10.
Yes, please calculate using the UC GPA calculator. Make sure that you check which honors classes at your high school are given an honors bump in GPA by the UCs. Many times courses that a HS labels as honors are not considered honors in the UC GPA calculation.
At Cal, Computer Engg aka EECS vs CS wouldn’t make a difference. In recent times CS admit rates have been slightly lower but it’s probably down to people getting scared of the EECS admit rates and thinking CS is easier.
At UCLA, Computer Engineering is one of the hardest majors to get into. IIRC, it was around 2% when my son applied in 2022.
That said CE vs CS might be a better strategy at some other places such as SJSU where you can check your impacting score against prior admission thresholds.