ABSOLUTE CALTECH FAN. really wunna get in. PLEASE CHANCE ME :D

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
1

<p>Hi There, </p>

<p>I had posted on the chances thread but only got stunned reactions from the cc community. I figured out that probably the caltech band would know better about my realistic chances for CIT.</p>

<p>So here goes..</p>

<p>International Student: East Indian</p>

<p>School: Math/Science specialty school with insanely hard modules and global ranking</p>

<p>SAT 1: Math-770
CR-730
Writing-710</p>

<p>Total-2210 (First Time, will take another time to make it to prob 2.3k)</p>

<p>SAT2: Math:800
Chem: 800
Physic:800</p>

<p>APs: Stats:5
Chem:5
Physic C E&M:5
Physics C Mech:5
Calculus BC:5
Calculus Ab:5
Physics B: 5</p>

<p>GPA: 4.5/5 (erm, very good for my school but obviously not the best. topper prob is a 4.7)</p>

<p>Main Listed ECAs:</p>

<p>Academic honors:</p>

<p>1) Singapore Science and Engineering Fair Gold Medalist</p>

<p>2) Singapore Space Challenge Overall Champions</p>

<p>3) Principal's List for academic excellence</p>

<p>4) Singapore Physics Olympiad Bronze Medalist; trained in the Top 20 students National physics training Team.</p>

<p>5) AMC12 High Distinction, AIME qualifier.</p>

<p>6) Singapore Mathematical Society essay competition on Game Theory and Natural selection won the Gold Medal in competition</p>

<p>Activities:</p>

<p>1) Vice President, Physics Interest Group: Presented in front of ministers (Prime minister too) and diplomats from Singapore/Malaysia (came on the news). Outreach programs and other stuff too. we try to make physics interesting using demos</p>

<p>2)Vice Captain and school team, School Tennis club</p>

<p>3)Editor: School yearbook and international competition journals, published article in a university mathematical journal</p>

<p>4)Event Organizer: 1 national seminar and 1 national competitive engineering competition</p>

<p>5)My research project in Cancer Research (won the science fair) has patented a drug molecule. I will be going to japan to present my findings to an international audience (students mostly).</p>

<p>6) My project on Satellite surveillance (won the space challenge) has been published in the national newspaper. An international aerospace company has written about our design and model in their media events. We have been invited to showcase our project in asia's largest satellite conference in 2010</p>

<p>7)Currently interning at a university, designing a payload concept for their pioneering nanosatellite program.</p>

<p>8) My successful cancer research was done interning at a govt biotech agency.</p>

<p>9) Finalists in the 'creative plane' category in an RC plane competition</p>

<p>10) 2nd place in a university level projectile launching competition (fired stuff using a spud cannon :P)</p>

<p>11) Defense Science Organization: Researched on modeling dyslexia using simulations,won the merit award in a science fair</p>

<p>12)Built a Thermal Camouflage suit for the Defense Science Organization (Research),won the Distinction award in a Youth Science Conference.</p>

<p>13)Currently taking Undergard yr 1 electrical engineering module at a Uni</p>

<p>14) Volunteer teacher for Physics Olympiad for Senior high school students in my school.</p>

<p>15) community service with yellow ribbon (helped out ex-convict kid in academics) and currently tutoring another kid as part of my ethnic community organization.</p>

<p>16) Probably heading off to Perth (not yet decided by school, in initial phase) to do another research venture, went over to Malaysia for some astro stuff too.</p>

<p>Recs:
I believe should be very solid. My teachers were there with me throughout my activities</p>

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<p>you sound pretty damn smart. i really have no idea since i’m just a student, but i bet you’d get in a lot of places. congratulations on all your accomplishments, and good luck (not that you’ll need it)</p>

3

<p>hey jsu! r u a student from Caltech?</p>

4

<p>Wow. If you were domestic I would say you’d get in within a doubt. You’re certainly qualified several times over, I’d be very surprised if you didn’t get in. I wouldn’t worry about your SAT scores. You’re presenting research projects for God sakes (and they sound pretty impressive to me), why would anyone then care about your ability to place a comma on the SAT writing?</p>

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<p>hey dauntless.</p>

<p>lol I wish I was local too lol</p>

<p>thanks for your comment though =D</p>

6

<p>indianmonster, seriously… your accomplishments are absolutely amazing, stop worrying!
i’d say you’re in, even for international you have a great chance.
if you don’t mind me asking, how in the world did you get to work at such high level research in gov’t agencies as a high school student?</p>

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<p>hi pinkbunny =D</p>

<p>I got them mainly through performance and contacts.</p>

<p>For the cancer research, I started off with a school project which was pretty impressive. Then the school asked me to go for an internship with a govt biotech firm as part of their youth exchange program. I cleared the interview and selection round and I got posted with a research team. I worked 9-5 with their very interesting projects on liver cancer for like about 3months. My prof requested me to stay on even during the school term, which i did (mainly during the weekends). </p>

<p>I was given some very impt tasks like realtime pcr analysis and my mathematical knowledge was very impt to help them (i must agree, their math is a bit fail =D) to analyze the statistical significance of their data.</p>

<p>The rest was history</p>

<p>As for the space thing, my group presented in front of key industry players like arianespace and AGI during the prize presentation ceremony of a competition (which we won after like 6months of hardcore research). they were a bit too enthusiastic about our design and offered us to display our project in GSTC 2010. </p>

<p>Along the way, a university prof (in the audience) spotted our clever design and recruited us as interns to work on their nanosatellite project (which we duly accepted).</p>

<p>the rest also goes along the same lines. mainly through contacts.</p>

<p>and yea, I finally realized, networking is key</p>

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<p>oh yea I forgot to add.</p>

<p>one of my team-mates was posted to MIT satellite research center for RSI 2008.</p>

<p>So his contacts with his prof back in MIT was also influential to our success</p>

9

<p>You’ve got some really good stuff. Are you applying for financial aid? Because international admission isn’t need blind. Even if you are though, I think you still have a really really good chance.</p>

10

<p>I am applying for <a href=“mailto:aid@caltech”>aid@caltech</a>. it really is a bit too expensive :(</p>

<p>but aid for internationals is really competitive. hence, I am applying early for caltech (to evade many of the regular applicants from my school who are better than me)</p>

11

<p>Wow, you sound pretty accomplished to me. I say you have a very good chance of getting in. Being international does make things pretty competitive, but you are totally qualified to compete. We have about 30 international students this year, 2 from India.</p>

<p>Don’t stress about the test scores. I got in with lower scores.</p>

<p>Your selling point is your research. Caltech loves applicants who have done research. Almost every frosh I know has done research at some point.</p>

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<p>See [Caltech</a> Undergraduate Admissions: International Students](<a href=“http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/applying/international]Caltech”>http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/applying/international) If you are international and applying aid, you must apply RD.</p>