Im scared asl
Long post but I want to give full context because my situation is kind of unique
Background
I'm a rising junior at TAMS (Texas Academy of Mathematics & Science), it's an early college program at UNT where you withdraw from high school and take actual university courses for junior and senior year. You graduate with a high school diploma and 60+ transferable college credits. I'll be applying to colleges as a transfer student after my senior year. But I just got COOKED in AP CS
**The bad news — my sophomore year**
I had a rough second semester sophomore year. Grades dropped across the board . After I got in TAMS I stopped trying lost all motivation and cooked myself:
- AP Calc AB: 91 → 83
- AP CS A: 97 → 85 (double weighted)
- AP Stats: 87 → 86
- AP Physics 1: 92 → 87
Current HS stats: Weighted GPA 5.129, Unweighted GPA 3.971
The good news
Despite the grade dip, I should get 5s on AP CS A, AP Calc AB, and AP Stats that same semester. Got into TAMS which accepts ~200 students statewide.
TAMS Coursework (what colleges will actually see on my UNT transcript)
- Junior year: Calc 2, Calc 3, Chem, CS 1 in C++ (CSCE 1030), English
- Senior year: Linear Algebra, CS 2 OOP (CSCE 1040) maybe go further 2nd Sem, Data Structures (CSCE 2100), Physics 1+2, more
Target TAMS GPA: 4.0
Projected ECs by application time
- CS nonprofit, 100s of students taught, atleast $5k+ raised, expanded to Africa, India, and across the US
- productivity app, 5k+ downloads
- Personal CS Brand: YouTube/content, 5k+ followers, 100s of videos and articles on Medium and YT
- UNT Research: targeting IEEE publication, ISEF/TXSEF qualification
- Competitive programming: Codeforces, hackathons, Congressional App Challenge
- DECA: targeting ICDC top 10 collegiate, possibly district officer
- Speech: NSDA qualifier, ASDA Nationals placement, TFA qualifier
- Paid CS internship
- TAMS club (TBD)
Questions
- How badly does the sophomore dip hurt given the context (5s on the same exams, TAMS admission, strong 9th grade)?
2 Is UT Austin CS realistic as a transfer with a 4.0 TAMS GPA + this EC profile, or am I dreaming?
3 Any advice on framing the sophomore dip in the additional info section or essay as a comeback?
Target: UT Austin CS, Rice CS, Emory CS, Vanderbilt CS, Uchicago CS, Cornell CS, UWash
Reach: UC Berkley CS, UPenn CS, Georgia Tech CS, UIUC, Carnegie
Safeties: UTD, A&M, UCSD, Maryland