My concerns about university

[Horus]

Hi all I'm new here.


I'm a grade 12 student and I like programming alot, and so I want to go into CS in university.

In my school, I'm at the top of the class in CS, however when I did the dwite contest 2 days ago, I noticed I'm only average. I only managed to do the first 2 questions in dwite, and the third question I got 4/5.

Now I'm worried about myself falling behind when I get to university.

I want to go to UW, however my current average is only 80.6, I probably can improve 2-3% next term, but i'm still worried about my marks being too low to get accepted.
asides from marks, there are the other factors that determine going into university, I'm not if what I'm doing is good.
for CCC, i probably will get pretty low like my dwite result.
for Euclid, I get on the honor roll for math contests half of the time, so I'm probably ok.
The extra curriculum acitivities:
I'm the VP for the school's chinese chess club and a regular member for school's computer club.
I only have exactly 40 hours of volunteer experience.
However I do have 400+hours of work experience as a lifeguard (I don't see how this is related to CS)
And I have level 8 piano, but I stopped playing after gr 10.

Do you think I can make it?

Asides from UW, I'm still thinking which universities should be my 2nd/3rd choice.

here's all the universities I've considered:

carleton (they say that they have all the big companies like IBM for your coop program)
UFT (I live in toronto)
Western (one of my best friend is going there)
UOIT (labtop based university FTW?)
McMaster (they seem to have higher admission average than all the universities above, so I think they are good?)

which one should be my 2nd/3rd choice?

[Zeroth]

I like how everyone assumes you need mondo fantastic marks to get into these universities. Well, Horus, have you done any independent research yourself, like say checking the school's website for their admission standards? Or talking to your counselor? The school's do not lie about their standards, nor do you need to be extra-special these days to get in. Just make sure you are a well-rounded student, with a good social life, responsible for homework and studying, and mature enough to live on your own.

[rdrake]

You should be fine with that average. If you can bring it up, all the power to you.

As far as schools are concerned 40+ hours is still 40 hours, it's just a check mark on your record.

All the extra curricular activities are good. If Waterloo's your thing, be sure to submit a listing of what you do outside of classes on the AIF.

Personally I like the atmosphere of UOIT. It's pretty small and professors are always around to help you with questions. The only disadvantage is there isn't much else non-school related to do on campus, and sometimes your schedule won't work out nicely.

[Horus]

Thx for the replies both of you.

I did do my research, I've been to the university fair. They say that it's 85% to guarantee that I'll get admitted, anything between 80-85 is a maybe.

(and I want to get into COOP, not regular)

One more thing I should have said is that I took gr 12 English in summer school, because I suck at English and want to get it over with. my final mark was 66%...
This might be bad... especially when summer school usually give higher marks and I get so low.

I'm also worried about my CS skills, sure I might be at the top of the class in my school, but in DWITE i'm only average and below when I wrote it. I'm not sure if I can follow in university.

and PS when you said submit everything you do after school on AIF, should I submit about myself playing computer games?
In this game I'm the VP of a 100 member guild, and our guild rank in the entire world is #19.
will they go like "wow impressive" or will they go like "game nerd, not worth of entering"?

[nike52]

You won't fall behind in uni all because you didn't do well on those programming contests.

That 66% hurts your chances, but apply anyways.

I would pick UT as second choice.

It's not the end of the world if you don't get into UW.

[ali_dada]

Hi Horus,

Well, it is one thing to have this nagging feeling inside of you about your capabilities and on the other hand the 'reputation craze' regarding the Universities.

My friend, just chill. Your average is very high and you are very intelligent. At high school you only took what - 2 or 3 programming related courses. Also remember, in each of those courses, you probably learnt half of the material you have yet to learn at a University.

Just come to Ryerson - it is too in Toronto and has a decent reputation - all the big companies like Microsoft or IBM, etc will hire you (provided you pass their interview).

The university only requires 70% average to get in and the teach programming from scratch.

[Dan]

DWITE is fun, educational and great practice for writing other contests.

However what it is not is a measure of your worth as a programmer or CS student. Most programming contest writing skills do not translate well to the real world or learning.

What you need to get in to university is to prove that you can learn, they don't except you know everything before you get there or to be the best contest writer in the world.

To be honest most university's don't look at much other then grades for undergrad and normally the requirement is just over 70% overall (and some times over 70% for each class) and that you have the required classes.

Things like additional information forums are only imporantent if you are close to the cut off point or for getting scholarships.

If you are worried about getting in, apply to many universitys, if you apply to all that you listed (you can apply to more then 3 if you pay more, i applied to 18 when i did it.) and keep an average about 70% in each coruse i say you have a 99% chance of getting in to at least one.

P.S. Almost all universitys have co-op programs that include big companys like IBM and RIM for computer sci. (At least lakehead does and if lakehead can do it....).

[endless]

well i'm in about the same situation as you average-wise, and i basically have no experience in programming besides some karel the robot stuff, haha. and well waterloo CS co op is my first choice, and i know what you mean about the mid 80's area. you have more extracurriculars than i do so you could probably gain a couple extra points with those.

i was at the open house and they really stressed that even with no experience in cs you can be just as successful. I have a friend there now and he says that it is extremely math intensive.

if it's any consolation, my backup is carleton; because of their co op rep (100% placement last year supposedly.)

[Dan]

Many (if not all) universitys assume you have no CS or programming kownagle coming in will start you off with basic programming and consecpt courses.

Some universitys like waterloo have diffrent starting class options to get students to the same level for 2nd year. I blive waterloo has 3 diffrent levels of interdouction clases for students with no excpeice, some and alot.

[Shameless Lakehead Ad]
Also being a lakehead student i have to give them a plug. Lakehead acpectes most students with 70% or more and has a great co-op program and computer sci program. We are a small school so clases sizes are very small (for example i have had clases with less then 6 students). We are also priamly foucesed on undergrad studies so must of the funding goses there and there are chacnes for undergrad reasarch.
[/Shameless Lakehead ad]

[Horus]

thanks for the reply guys.

Waterloo is going to be my first choice, and I really want to go there, I know that waterloo is math intensive and that's another reason I prefer waterloo, because I like math.

since , every university have coop, I guess my 2nd choice would be Carleton for 100% coop rate which is better than other universities.

3rd choice would probably be UFT for high rep than all the other universities.

Sorry, Dan and ali_dada I'm not going to pick lakehead or Ryerson...

I'm not worried about my marks being too low for the other universities except for Waterloo. The reason i'm worried about Dwite is that it reflects my CCC mark. and that's what UW looks at, especially if you are on the edge.

[endless]

what i've been told about the math contests (COMC atleast) is that it wont have a negative influence, only if it is above average does it matter. I think it looks better to take a contest and be below average than not take it at all, especially for waterloo because it's their tests. I'm guessing this is the case with the computing contests too, so i wouldn't worry about that.

you might want to see if there is anything to be done about that english mark though, many uni's have a base level % in which your english should be which is generally 70. but it could be different in your case because your other marks must be pretty good to by over 80 av. with a 66. i'd still look into something though.

[Horus]

well, the reason I took summer school was because that summer school gives higher marks than regular schools.

but in the end I got 66%... UW doesn't have a base mark requirement for English in comp sci.

However if I retake english I will lose 1% on my overall avg when I apply to waterloo, that means 6% deduction in english. I doubt that I can get over 72% in regular if i only get 66% in summer school.

So i did not take English this year. (and that's the reason why my other marks are so high, cause English is the most time consuming course for me)

[endless]

i just checked, you're right. which leaves you in pretty good shape then for admission since they will be focusing on the math courses; that, matched with your programming experience.

[CodeMonkey2000]

Imo you should redo english. It is important, since it's more about your communication skills. Try to get it over 80, it will look good. Ask your teachers for help, or join peer tutoring or something.

And just because you did average on DWITE doesn't mean you will have a hard time in CS at UW. Contests usually go above and beyond the curriculum. People who do really well in contests are usually gifted, and have been practicing for a really long time. As long as you work hard, should should be able to keep up in university. University can't be that different from highschool.

Sigh, I'm in grade 12 too, and I worried about getting into university. I'm confident I will get in, but it's the 40 hours I'm worried about. I have 9 so far. At the beginning of the school year I didn't have enough credits to get a diploma, since a lot of my courses got canceled. So I'm applying with a tonne of science courses, and not many computer/math related courses . I have exactly enough to graduate now, but my mark won't be high enough for scholarships. My average was above 85 for all of highschool except in grade 9 (stupid french).

Apparently it's good if you join a club or two. I joined ultimate Frisbee and chess. You seem to have great extracurricular experience, that should help you out a lot.

Good luck, and hope to see you next year at UW .

[Horus]

it's too late for me to redo english, cause i'm already in gr12. and our school is a term school, not semester. (except for AFCALC)

I don't think high school english have anything to do with your communication skill or even literacy skill.

what we're learning in english is shakespeare, which have nothing to do with modern english. I really hate reading shakespeare stuff, it's outdated for like 200+years. I also hate the essay that we have to write. e.g: in gr 11 I have to write about is shakespeare sexist. and I don't like that topic at all. I had a private tutor (which my mom got for me and payed him $30/hour) My tutor used to be a high school teacher even after he edited the essay for me, I still got 60% on that essay. Basically because my english teacher doesn't like the idea from what I (and my tutor) wrote.