Do I have a shot at Waterloo CompSci?

[aitkjoe]

I'm just starting grade 12, and I was wondering if I had a shot at getting into Waterloo, and if not, what other schools I should consider. I have next to no extracurriculars, just a fairly high placement (27th in Ontario) in the OBEA Accounting Contest. I will be doing the Euclid contest and CCC. I expect my top six, give or take a few percent, to be close to:

Functions: 85
Calculus: 80
English: 85
Economics: 95
Computer Science: 90
Computer Engineering: 95

Assuming I get these marks, is there a good chance i'll get in? And are there any other schools I should consider? I'd like to stay in Ontario, but anything else is an option

Thanks

[rdrake]

Short answer yes.

Long answer, please read some of the stickies. They're full of helpful information to avoid topics such as this.

[Analysis Mode]

Your marks are fine.

CS-wise, I'd go for Waterloo regardless.

[aitkjoe]

Thanks for the replies. So the lack of Extracurriculars won't keep me from getting in? And if I lose a few points, and my average drops down to 85ish, I'll still be ok?

[bbi5291]

It is not as hard to get into Waterloo as you think it is, and generally Canadian universities do not place a great deal of weight upon extracurriculars - although it's nice to have the Euclid. Your marks are fine, as others said. If I were you, I'd be worried about your high school not having adequately prepared you for CS at UW, and not about whether or not I'd get in.

[aitkjoe]

bbi5291 @ Mon Sep 07, 2009 1:29 pm wrote:

It is not as hard to get into Waterloo as you think it is, and generally Canadian universities do not place a great deal of weight upon extracurriculars - although it's nice to have the Euclid. Your marks are fine, as others said. If I were you, I'd be worried about your high school not having adequately prepared you for CS at UW, and not about whether or not I'd get in.

haha, thanks. And I've got worries about that too. Definitely no shortage of worrying for me. Could you recommend anything I could do on my own to further prepare myself?

[bbi5291]

That depends on where you are right now. Have you taken the CCC before? If not, there are copies of previous contests on the CEMC page. If you do decently on those and are pretty good at math then you should be fine.

[aitkjoe]

bbi5291 @ Mon Sep 07, 2009 1:40 pm wrote:

That depends on where you are right now. Have you taken the CCC before? If not, there are copies of previous contests on the CEMC page. If you do decently on those and are pretty good at math then you should be fine.

I haven't taken it yet, but I plan on taking it this year. I'll look over some of the previous contests, thanks

[Analysis Mode]

Sign up to the USACO Training Pages.

www.train.usaco.org

TopCoder is also a good site for tutorials, and there are plenty of online judges, such as SPOJ and UVa.

[A.J]

By the way, being a bit off topic (sorry), but do you know if there are new training pages for USACO (as I finished the old ones)?

Brian, you heard of any such thing?

[[Gandalf]]

I'm pretty sure they only look at participation in the CCC/Euclid. Top results would then be just an extra bonus.

[bbi5291]

Quote:

I'm pretty sure they only look at participation in the CCC/Euclid. Top results would then be just an extra bonus.

I talked to Troy Vasiga (director of the CCC) and he tells me that, indeed, results on the CCC aren't very important, especially for Junior; however if you make stage 2 then you are essentially guaranteed admission. (A friend of mine was actually rejected, but they reconsidered after he made stage 2, and "un-rejected" him.)

High Euclid scores are good for scholarships.

[bbi5291]

A.J @ Mon Sep 07, 2009 6:58 pm wrote:

By the way, being a bit off topic (sorry), but do you know if there are new training pages for USACO (as I finished the old ones)?

Brian, you heard of any such thing?

After finishing all the problems from the "basic curriculum", you can e-mail or AIM Kolstad and he'll enable access to the next module of training problems (it's mostly DP apparently, I haven't started on them yet). He interrogated me about cryptcow (I guess to check I wasn't cheating; apparently what actually happened was that I solved it after 43 tries but submitted 10 "suspicious" solutions afterwards which were copies of the analysis) - so make sure you're ready to answer his questions.

[A.J]

Thanks Brian, though I'll probably not do the new USACO questions (as I have a lot of other work to take care of, academic related)

[Crazymik3]

I had similar marks, and I got into Waterloo. I guess I did something right on Euclid because I got like $2k, too.