Hello!
I am a rising junior and I am wondering if I meet all of them or at least most of many colleges’ acceptance requirement. I will just explain my current situation and my future plans, and tell me if this meets many prestigious school’s requirement (not their test requirements, more of expectation in EC)
GPA:4.0 (weighted) my freshman yr was 3.9 and sophomore yr was 4.1
Grades in all my classes are either going up or staying. For example, Honors bio was B- but Honors Chem was A- / history 9 was B but history 10 was A+.
Volunteer/outside of school:
volunteer at church, helping the disabled kids - 200 hrs
volunteer at Liberty Science Center - 100 hr
member of Midnight run - 40 hrs
volunteer at senior center, teaching computer to elderly - 10 hrs (just started)
Online courses (have 3 certifications in CS)
School activities:
treasurer of French Club
president of chem club
president of Liberty in North Korea
member of Interact club
won $1000 (grant) from my home county to install a water fountain at my school
future intern at Columbia Univeristy’s research center in NY (not the morningside campus)
won 3 awards from the national french contest (one was a platinum for perfect score, two for gold)
member of NJSL team
AP’s:
Calc AB
Chem
Stat
Computer principle
computer programming
Physics 1
French
Calc BC
I have already taken Calc AB in school, and I am going to study for BC on my own.
SAT:
PSAT 1300
SAT 1380
SAT II French, Math 2 C, Physics
Taking ACT in september and another SAT in August.
I am thinking about majoring in CS or any engineering (preferably environmental engineering). Are my extracurricular activities and grades fine for CS ?
you seem to have a misunderstanding of how college admissions works in the US. There is no dividing line of “requirement” in which those below it are rejected and those above it admitted. Instead at selective colleges they look at the entire record (ECs, recs, scores, essays, GPA) to make a decision. A strength or weakness is some area(s) affects their decision but there is no simple rule. There is a reason the subforum here is called “What are My Chances?” and not “Do I Meet the Requirements?”
Are you an international applicant?
Yes, they look pretty fine to me. A couple of points to keep in mind:
College Admission Committee people tend to have an uncanny ability to ferret out EC’s that were motivated by genuine passion vrs those that were added to a resume to “meet requirements”.
Another point: deep commitment in a smaller number of EC’s counts more than an unending list of shallow commitments. It appears that you have a passion for computer sci and environmental science. Let your passions help guide you to the EC’s that you want to commit to, and devote your energies there.
Instead of trying to spread yourself thin to more EC’s, work to keep your grades up and get your SAT up to the high 1400’s or 1500’s - that will open more doors for admissions and scholarships.
Keep up the good work!
Hello, thanks for all the comments. I just want to add that I am not an international student. The purpose of phrasing my question in such a way was because, I did not want to be too specific, since I’m looking at least 15 colleges; I am also acknowledging that every college has different requirement/preference. I thought that even if there is a slight difference, all of the prestigious schools tend to have some sort of guideline when accepting students. If not, I am totally mistaken:(
I am spending this summer to raise my SAT score… It’s harddddd. In terms of extracurricular activities, I do more EC than what I listed it out in this post, I sorted them out in a way that they are the ones that genuinely interests me. But, even to me, it looks like i am just doing anything to meet the “requirement.” Thanks for all the comments!
You can look for the admission stat of the school’s you are interested in. You should also calculate your uwGPA as wGPA has no standard. With your test score, you probably should look at some school’s around or below top 50.