<p>Stats:SAT: Math : 700 Writing:800 Reading: 750
SAT II: Math Level II : 790 Physics: 800
ACT: not taken
GPA: 4.00 UW
Rank: 5/111 ish (the top 20% of my school gets into ivies each year)
Other Tests (AMC, AP, IB):[IBH Math 7; IBH Physics 7+;IBH Chemistry 7+; IBS Economics 7; IBS English (A1) 7-; IBS French B 6- (these are my junior/senior year semester grades, not actual IB marks); In addition I have huge upward trend of grades between 9th and 10th grades. My average was a 5/7 (C) and it became an average of 7+/7 (higher than A+) pretty much overnight.
Subjective:
Essays: First one is about how my close relationship with my blind and severely epileptic mother has influenced my outlook on life. I talk about how family circumstances mean I basically never see my dad and have to singlehandedly take care of my mother and how this affected my values and aspirations.</p>
<p>Second one is about my passion for programming and building robots with mindstorms which make my life easier from age 10. I explained how I made a book scanner which I used to digitalize my textbooks using OCR technology w/ youtube links.</p>
<p>Recs: First is from Chem teacher who believes I am an otherworldly genius (which as you can tell I am not...)</p>
<p>The second is from my econ teacher who also likes to exaggerate and use SAT words probably raving but seeing where I am applying it is basically a requirement.</p>
<p>Supplementary Material: Research abstract for research in Physical Chemistry with an interesting result.
Summer Activities:
- Programming in Wolfram Mathematica, JAVA, C++ and Python for 3 years. I have been able to make several models for my IBH science courses.
- Making and Programming LEGO Mindstorms robots since I was 10 yrs old. Made a book scanner.
- Unpaid Internship at American Cancer Society NY Branch Was able to get a rec letter from the head of the program praising my work in setting up the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer event. 110 hours for both Junior and Senior Years.
-Attended a Columbia U. Materials Science and Nanotechnology program. I impressed the program head so much that he (a Columbia Chem Prof) wrote a really nice rec for me.
- Volunteer work at my school for helping little kids for 2 years (180 hours total)</p>
<p>Hook:you tell me Also, does being Italian make any difference? Ive been getting a mixed reaction about this; tell me what you think + justifications</p>
<p>Personal:
Location: NYC
High School Type: Small--Private
Ethnicity: White (Italian citizen; US Permanent Resident)
Gender:male
Other:-my mother never went to college; my dad did. I am middle class in terms of wealth.
Extracurriculars: All my summer activities minus American Cancer Society and School Volunteer work with little kids.
In addition:
-President of Math Club for 2 years (my school is not a STEM magnet school...)
I tripled membership and was able to break the School records for AMC participation (the Club advisor , the head of the math department, wrote a raving rec for me about how I revolutionized the club)
-I have been playing Go (ancient Chinese board game) for approx. 15 hrs/week for the past 4 years and have won some local tournaments.
Awards: Nothing big like Siemens or Intel STS unfortunately just very generic stuff.
-Principals award for academic excellence years 10,11,12.
- Award for best history student in 10th grade (who would have thought
?)</p>
<p>Intended major : Computer Science</p>
<p>Yes, and I am aware of how crappy my ECs are.</p>
<p>I am applying to :
Stanford
MIT
Caltech
CMU (School of Computer Science)
Columbia U. Fu Foundation SEAS
Harvey Mudd College
RPI
SUNY Stony Brook
Macaulay Honors College at CUNY </p>
<p>Only the Columbia Prof and teacher recs will be seen by colleges.</p>