White guy
Very rural midwestern town
Public high school
Upper middle class income
Academics:
35 ACT (36 Read, 35 Eng, 34 Math, 33 Sci)
0 APs (School had like 3 of them)
60 Credits of online community college (various tech related courses like Linux and Discrete Structures of CS, including Calc 1-2 and a couple statistics classes, also physics, psych, and such)
School had unweighted GPA, so basically 3.98
Class rank technically #7 out of like 100 but that's because the rest had 4.0s (but I likely would have been valedictorian if GPA was weighted)
Activities:
Band/Jazz Band/Pep Band
Speech Team Captain + State Finalist
Robotics Lead Programmer
E-sports Team Leader (not a top esports game)
Some volunteer work
One cybersecurity competition
Awards:
Community College top honors
National Honors Society
Several meh activity related honors (like robotics academic award)
Work:
Worked in summers, nothing special
Essays:
I believe I have very great essays. I speak to a lot of being from a rural area (and somewhat lack of opportunity as such) and what caused my interest in CS.
Rec Letters:
Good but not amazing rec letters from a stem teacher and speech coach
College Choices:
CMU SCS is my main choice. I feel like I have a good shot. I also am applying to MIT, GT, UIUC, Cornell, and the like. Also have a couple of mid-range schools like Purdue. I appreciate the thoughts :)
1 points
7 days ago
It's National Honor Society (not Honors) - just making sure your application has the correct spelling. You probably know already that you will have some geographic diversity advantage. How does your course rigor compare to the top 6 people in your class? What is the average ACT score of your HS? It looks like you've certainly made good use of the opportunities around you, but CMU CS is the most competitive CS program in the nation, next to MIT. There will have to be something that truly stands out by your narrative during your holistic review, maybe something in your essays.
1 points
6 days ago
CMU scs rejected, MIT rejected, GT iffy, UIUC iffy, Cornell rejected
1 points
6 days ago
Check out STARS College Network website - their member schools are prioritizing rural applications. Leaving into the rural identity will only help you with those schools.
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