Applying for Fall 2018 entry:
USC (top choice, not sure if this school is a reach or a match tbh)
Stanford (only doing it because my aunt wants me to try…most def. a reach school)
UIUC (I’m in-state, if that helps anything)
Northwestern
Carnegie Mellon
Baylor
Michigan-Ann Arbor
WashU
University of Washington
Ohio State University
Vanderbilt
Race: Asian
Gender: Female
Intended major: Comp Sci/Engineering (possibility of Electrical Engineering)
GPA (UW): 3.76 (only got Bs in some AP classes and Honors, but never get more than 2 Bs a semester)
GPA (W): 4.40
SAT: 1420 (1430 superscore) (retaking this october)
ACT: 30 (31 superscore)
AP Classes taken/taking (11 total):
Freshman Year - World History (4) [only one available for students in this grade]
Sophomore Year - US Gov. and Politics (4) [only one available for students in this grade]
Junior Year - Physics 1 (3), English Lang (3), Comp Sci Principles (4), US History (5), Calc BC (5) (5 AB subscore)
Senior Year - Physics 2, English Lit, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics
Courseload - Highest classes possible, but dropped Honors Spanish after sophomore year to take a computer science class (got A+'s in the 2 years of spanish). In my school’s Project Lead the Way program since sophomore year, which consists of honors-level engineering classes.
ECs:
FBLA - active member. Placed at State competition 10th and 11th grade (10th and 7th, respectively)
Track - JV since 9th grade
National Honor Society - admitted 11th grade
Active member of church - help out during mass and also a part of a committee there
Internship - worked as a cybersecurity intern for a big company this past summer. Returning again next summer before college.
I know these posts can get annoying but any advice would be much appreciated!
USC - High Reach
Stanford - Out of reach, in my opinion
UIUC - Match
Northwestern - High Reach
Carnegie Mellon - Reach
Baylor - Match
University of Michigan (OOS) - Reach
University of Washington (OOS) - match
Ohio State University (OOS) - match
Vanderbilt - High reach
Your unweighted GPA definitely hurts at a lot of these school. In addition, your SAT is below the 25th %tile for every school except Baylor, Ohio State, UW, and UIUC. You should aim for a 1450+ or a 32+ for better chances of admission to some of these schools.
Your should add Purdue on the list which should be a match for your.
Your stat is a bit lower than the mid 50 range of UIUC in corresponding majors although being an in-state student would definitely help. It would be a very high match to low reach for you.
Northwestern and UMich engineering are also pretty high reach for you as your test score is below the 25th percentile while your GPA is also far below admission average (3.9 at UMich).
You may want to reduce the number of reach schools on your list. Only UW, Baylor and OSU would give your reasonable admission chances. Even UIUC would be in the border line.
USC has no EA or ED but a priority deadline. It will still show your interest. Make sure you contact the school for info early to express your interest too.
As a female, you will have a hook for engineering/comp sci but Asian being a ORM could work against you at places like Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt. You don’t want to apply to Stanford for the sake of applying, it’s lottery odds for Asians and it’s not easy as buying a lottery ticket, there’s a significant amount of work in addition to the common app. I’d also swap out Vanderbilt with Georgia Tech, they’re both reaches, you might as well apply to the better engineering program. Apply early to a couple of the public universities on your list so you have a sense of where you stand and where else to apply RD. Good luck!
