Top Computer Science Universities

Chance Me / Match Me
1

I wish to apply to these universities:
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Georgia Tech
University of Toronto
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
UC Irvine
NYU
Rochester Institute of technology
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
University of Connecticut
Pennsylvania State University
Arizona State University

Unweighted GPA: 4.00
Weighted GPA: 4.32

APs: US APs aren’t offered at my school, but I will take 3 AP equivalent classes in senior year (I just finished 11th grade). These include Advanced Level Precalculus, English and Spanish, the only ones that are offered for 12th graders. Hoping for A+ in Advanced Precalculus and English, in addition an A in Advanced Spanish.
Honors classes: Honors math since 10th grade

Struggling to find a community college to take Calculus during the first semester, should I take it online for credit?

Class Rank: Top 5-10% of a class of 379 students.

SAT: 1300 (Going to retake for a minimum of 1450)
Math: 650
CRW: 650

SAT Subject Tests: (Going to retake, hoping to get a minimum of 650 on each.)
MathII: 580
Chemistry:580

Extracurriculars:
National Honor Society (2 years): one year as a regular student and another as part of the officials with the role of sub-historian.

Student Counselers: Role of president, club focused on helping students find what they want to study and where they want to study. We organized various trips and activities which strive to show students the wonders of university.

School technology club: Have given presentations in Department of Education activities.

Engineering Camp: got selected to the most popular engineering camp that had an acceptance rate of about 50%
Won a distinguished student award (about 20% of the participants got this)
Won 2nd prize in the group engineering project competition

Techno Student Challenge: Stayed 1 week in a boarding school where the students that represented Puerto Rico in the International Science fair competed against students from the 3 specialized science & math schools. the science fair team won first place.

Work experience: I worked as photographer for the school activities during the past year.

Community service: Part of the school community service club, was member of the 4-H club last year and am part of my community’s Emergency Response Team (CERT).

Awards:
1st place in school/district/regional science fair (Computational Biology)
Regional science fair Intel Excellence in Computer Science Award
Intel ISEF finalist (11th grade) (Computational Biology)

1st place in school math Olympiad (9th & 11th & 11th grade)
1st place in school microbiology competitions (10th grade)
One of the highest scorers in island math competition (in the top 50 out of more than 300)

2

UCI is not the only UC with good CS program. Are you California resident?

3

Sorry @Ballerina016 that was a note I had written next to it on my list and it got pasted there. I know it’s not the only one with a good CS program, I just really loved their school for CS. I am from Puerto Rico.

4

Can you afford UCI? Or any of the other public universities on your list?

OOS residents do not receive financial aid at California public schools.

5

Yes, I can afford them with some small grants and a few loans :slight_smile: @“aunt bea”

6

I am assuming you will get the grants and loans from your home country?

7

@Gumbymom I have looked at the financial aid each university gives and some give merit-based grants and need based grants too. Puerto Rico is a US territory :slight_smile: I will also have to be committed to work-study.

8

As @aunt bea stated, you will get no financial aid at the UC’s and they also give very little merit aid (usually top 1-2% of applicants) so expect to pay $55K/year or more. As a student, you can only take out federal loans of $27,000/4 years. How will you make up the gap? Even if you get some merit aid from the schools, you would have to come up with a minimum of $23K tuition plus your family’s EFC for the UC’s. Just making sure you understand the costs so you do not end up applying to schools that not affordable.

9

Really? I don’t know of any grants and loans that cover $55k per year. Perhaps you’d like to share that information with other OOS students here, who are desperately seeking monies to attend the UCs?

FWIW: taking out Parent Plus loans, if your parents qualify, of over $220k for 4 years of schooling, is really a bad idea.

10

The UC is not my first choice school.