Will I get into a T20 College with bad grades for CS?

RichInPitt
Fri, 29 Mar 2019 09:03:59 +0000

“Once a kid has passed a certain threshold by way of GPA and SAT, they start looking at other things on the application“

While this may be generally true, you also need to know those thresholds.

When a school says “The average self-reported unweighted GPA on a 4.0 scale was 3.94. Fifty-four percent of students reported a perfect 4.0”, the reality is that a 3.7-3.8 hasn’t passed it. When the 25th percentile SAT Math is 790, the 770 that’s great everywhere else, isn’t for that program.

And I say “may be” because almost every top school that breaks down admit rate by SAT, GPA, etc shows rate for 800 > 750-790 > 700-740, etc. (Lehigh is the only exception I’ve seen, and they’ve always been weird, IME).

OP, I’d say UCLA, Northwestern, USC are targets, but add some safety schools. The others are reaches, IMO. Lower grades were early, and are trending up, which is good. A’s the rest of this year and next, or at least limiting lower grades to one or two in English/History will help your case. Your EC’s also help.