Demographics: Indian Male, Very Competitive Public High School in Texas, Not applying for FA and I’m very fortunate that my parents are willing to pay for any college.
Hooks: Nothing
Intended Major(s): Computer Science
ACT/SAT/SAT II:
Test optional
UW/W GPA and Rank:
UW: 4.0/4.0, UC Capped: 4.29, 8.5% out of 688
Coursework: Pretty rigorous course load, 14 APs by graduation (evenly split between 4s and 5s so far)
Senior Year (All As 1st Semester):
AP Physics C: Mechanics and E&M
AP Government
AP English Lit and Comp
AP Calculus BC
AP Macroeconomics
Couple of other advanced classes which come after APs at my school
Awards:
National AP Scholar with Distinction
National Merit Commended Student
Cross-Country Association All-Academic Team
Extracurriculars:
Built a recommender system for running shoes using natural language processing, statistics and machine learning. Algorithms used by around 5700 runners from 23 countries per Google Analytics.
Published 6 research articles in Medium which were curated and accepted after review into popular publications like The Startup, Towards Data Science, Towards AI and Data Driven Investor. Most of it was related to recommender systems, word embeddings, natural langauge processing, and social network analytics.
Earned certificates in 6 courses on Coursera from well-regarded institutions (Imperial College, University of Michigan, etc.). Topics ranged from applied mathematics to data science.
Co-authored a 16-page research paper which is currently under review at the International Journal of Business Data Analytics.
3 years of FRC robotics on an internationally recognzied team. Worlds Division Finalist in 10th grade, season cancelled due to COVID in 11th.
2 years of FTC robotics, elected as the Design Team Co-Lead and Co-Driver. Regional Division Semi-finalist in 10th grade.
4 years of Cross-Country, 3 years varsity, 2 years Co-Team Captain. Regional Competitior in 11th grade. Coached at an underprivileged middle school which couldn’t afford a team, this was a big inspiration for my recommender system.
4 years of Track, 3 years varsity.
80 or so hours of volunteering, mostly through STEM summer camps for children.
2 years Rock Climbing, including some medals from local competitions.
Essays/LORs/Other:
I’m not an exceptional writer or anything, but I think my essays were well-written and reflected what I care about and what I have done in a positive manner. LORs were pretty good, but probably nothing crazy.
I applied to some Ivy’s but those can be so random that doing a chance me just doesn’t make much sense for them in my opinion. Mostly curious about some of my other reaches like UC Berkeley L&S, Georgia Tech, UIUC, University of Michigan, and UT Austin. Already been accepted to Texas A&M. Any input is greatly appreciated.
Haha is it a coincidence that we applied to the same universities (all of them), the same major, and almost the same senior year courses!
You have a great chance I believe. But since you’ve already applied, there’s no need to worry much, just let the admission process proceed and wait for results. Don’t worry about something you can’t change.
Did you apply only computer science or did you branch out to other computer science related majors like data science? Because from your ecs it seems like you lean towards the data science/analytics side of things.
Did you send any score to Michigan? On their website they do say that even though they’re TO they prefer you send a test score even if it’s a PSAT so not sending one might hurt. If you’re into TAMU that’s great as I’m sure you know the rest are all reaches for anyone.
UIUC does everything holistically and doesn’t take LORs at all so it’s truly a numbers game. No clue how they will be looking at things with TO optional this year. If you’re applying for CS, they will definitely want CS coursework. Did you take AP CS? They’re big on that.
UT - as a Texas resident and non auto admit I guess you already know how hard it is to get into CNS there. I think they’ve admitted very few so far into CNS so far other than maybe auto admits so it’s anyone’s guess as always with UT.
GA Tech OOS reach for anyone.
UCB - same thing.
Both UCB and UM unweight grades. I can’t quite remember what else UCB does but UM takes out all fine arts and recalculates GPA based on their own formula but obviously having all A’s helps. How are you not top auto admit for UT with a 4.0? National Merit Commended will help as well and solid ECs. Is TAMU your only safety? Overall it’s a super tough year for top students in CS. My son is has also applied for CS and is seeing similar issue and has really cast a wide net. I already have one kid at UT but not for CS and he didn’t like CS there so not going that route, but this is not a fun year for that since many people who don’t know a lot about it or think it’s the thing to go into suddenly now want to go into it. Many schools want you to have a background in it, some don’t care! Good luck!
How is a 4.0 unweighted GPA in hard courses only top 8.5% class rank? Is there both huge grade inflation and a lot of rank gaming going on in your high school?
UT Austin would be a reach for anyone outside the top 6% (and admission to the school does not necessarily mean admission to CS).
UCB admitted 38% of applicants with weighted-capped GPA >= 4.20 for fall 2019, according to Freshman fall admissions summary | University of California . L&S is the largest division and admits undeclared; you then need a 3.3 GPA in the first three CS courses to declare the L&S CS major (about half of the students in those courses earn B+ or higher grades).
Colleges that do direct admission to major sometimes admit applicants to the school but not the major. This is true for UT Austin, since First-Year Applications | College of Natural Sciences says that “Students who apply to The University of Texas at Austin, however, are not guaranteed admission to their major.”
I submitted a 1480 on the SAT (770 Math, 710 Reading) to University of Michigan. Went test optional for the most competitive schools like Georgia Tech.
I didn’t mention it in my original post, but I got a 5 on AP Computer Science A.
A lot of rank gaming, definitely. The school is trying to change the system to prevent this. Huge grade inflation, honestly, I don’t think so. Students in the top 10-15%, which is ridiculously competitive, typically do quite well on standardized exams like AP tests.
This rule only applies to auto admits and possibly in state, I can’t remember for sure the rule for non auto admits. Auto admits might apply for CS and may he admitted to the university and put into a different major. Any other applicant applies to their major in CNS and many other schools there (ie Engineering) and is either accepted or not. OOS apply directly to a major. Schools like McCombs you apply to McCombs and don’t declare a major until later unless you’re in CSB or CBHP, each college is different but CNS is by major only If you don’t get into CS it’s unlikely you will be able to transfer into it at UT and it’s near impossible to get into CS classes as a non major and even some majors have trouble getting into them. As an in state applicant this student is well aware of the system at UT. Since 90% of the students are in state the more difficult majors/programs are very hard to get into if you’re OOS but the very competitive ones like engineering, CS and CBHP/McCombs are hard whether in or out of state.