Asian Computer Scientist -- What are my chances?

Colleges & Universities A-Z Princeton University
1

<p>My main concerns: Lack of research and awards.
Strong points: Extracurriculars in the scientific field I am passionate in, but good at humanities as well.</p>

<p>Gender: Male
Nationality: Asian-American (how much does race affect my application?)
Location: New Jersey
School: Good, top-15 U.S. private school, competitive. (is this a good or bad thing?)</p>

<p>GPA: 4.1 (out of 4.3)
Sophomore year: Took Calculus BC.
Junior year: AP Chemistry, Physics C, Honors Calculus-based Statistics
Notes: I tend to get A's, with A+'s sometimes. My lowest grades from Sophomore to Junior year are A-'s. I have a few A+'s in math and english. I like to think of myself as a humanities and science kind of guy. Though my school does not rank, I am probably in the top 10 students of my class.</p>

<p>SAT scores: (taken in Soph. year -- currently waiting for results from a retake)
Crit Reading: 770
Math: 760
Writing: 800</p>

<p>SAT II:
Math: 790</p>

<p>PSAT: 223</p>

<p>AP scores:
Calculus BC: 5</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:</p>

<p>Co-CTO and Developer of a student-run startup company -- unnamed for privacy reasons. This company was among the top 5 finalists for the Intel Innovators competition. In my work, I implemented backend features in Ruby on Rails 3, including a post ranking algorithm, user post submission, user profiles, commenting, and voting (including voting on comments).</p>

<p>President and Founder of my school's programming club. Host weekly meetings to teach programming, algorithms, and web development to members. Taught Python, Java, and C#. Led projects and prepared members for competition programming. In addition, I'm planning on taking the AP CS exam independently this year.</p>

<p>Wrote Java applications for basic card games, tic-tac-toe, and ball bouncing in Android SDK. Developed a fairly sophisticated two dimensional platform game.</p>

<p>Participated in the 2011 AI Challenge -- Created a solution for an ant robot using pathfinding and collaborative diffusion (i.e., weighted goal-finding).</p>

<p>USA Computing Olympiad – Active Competitor. No rewards yet, but planning on reaching Silver/Gold in senior year.</p>

<p>Participated in Princeton University Math Competition (PUMaC), Harvard-MIT Math Tournament (HMMT), Delaware Valley math competitions</p>

<p>I am also planning on working a computer-related internship at a company this summer.</p>

<p>Also: Princeton U offers classes for high schoolers to attend. Would it be worth it to sign up for a computer science class? Doing so would probably wreck my senior-year schedule.</p>

<p>Thank you! Please be harsh if need be -- is Princeton a "reach" for me?</p>

2

<p>You’re definitely competitive, but P is a reach for every applicant.</p>

<p>Being Asian serves as an ‘anti-hook’ but it doesn’t rule you out at all.</p>

<p>Taking classes at P would help.</p>

3

<p>Reflecting on the admissions process, I don’t think race honestly is even that big of a deal as everyone on CC makes it seem. As an ORM, I personally wrote about my ethnicity in my Common App essay and it tied in beautifully with my personal, extracurricular, and academic interests and strengths. Don’t be one of those self-loathing Asians who refuses to check off the ethnicity box on the Common App. I’ve always found it kind of self-defeating to disown one’s race… it’s more productive to embrace who you are and just keep going forth with what you do and love in life, especially in regards to things you put on an application. That being said, I think you’re strong enough of an applicant that your ethnicity won’t be a reason for you not getting in. Sure, having an extra URM/legacy hook might push you over the fence and get you into most top schools and reaches, but being Asian won’t keep you out. You seem genuinely passionate about comp sci, math, and science in general. Just let that shine through on your application. And take the Princeton course. I was going to take a Princeton course as a senior this past fall but I opted not to since it was in a subject I was not very passionate about and felt like it would compromise me from taking other classes I was more interested in. You seem to love comp sci, so definitely go for it.</p>

<p>So in summary,</p>

<ol>
<li><p>No, I don’t think Princeton is a reach for you. It doesn’t mean you’ll get in, but I think you’re headed down a road where you’ll see good news coming your way, even if it is not from Princeton.</p></li>
<li><p>I would definitely consider applying SCEA.</p></li>
</ol>