Chance a worried Senior for Caltech, HMC, and others.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello,
I am currently a Senior working on my Common and UC apps. I was wondering if I have any chance of getting into some of my reaches, so I thought I’d post this here.

Schools: Caltech, Harvey Mudd, UC Berkeley, UCLA, MIT, Brown, NYU, UChicago, UW (in-state, safety)

Desired Major: Physics/Biophysics or Math, possibly both.

Demographics: White male, WA state, 99th %ile parental income, one-on-one high school but taking most of my classes this year at UW.

UW GPA: 3.97 (4.00 in college and major-related classes)

ACT (10th grade): 36 (36 M, 36 E, 36 R, 35 S)

SAT (10th grade, only submitting to UCs): 1530 (770 M, 760 E, 15 essay)

SAT Subject Tests: 800 Math 2, 800 Physics (both 11th grade)

9th grade AP Tests: 5 Calculus AB, 5 Physics C: Mechanics

10th grade AP Tests: 5 Calculus BC (5 AB subscore, self-study), 5 Physics C: E&M, 5 Statistics (self-study), 4 Chemistry

11th grade AP Tests: 5 Biology (self-study-ish), 5 Computer Science A, 4 English Language (self-study), 4 Macroeconomics (self-study), 4 Microeconomics (self-study)

Non-AP college and college-level courses: Introduction to Complex Analysis, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, Introduction to Number Theory, General Biology, Modern Genetics, Molecular Cell Biology, Bioinformatics, Differential Equations, Fundamentals of Music, The Chinese Language, Methods for Partial Differential Equations, Introduction to Fluid Dynamics, Special Topics in Applied Math (stochastic modeling and diffeq), Thermal Physics

Planned College Courses: Biophysics, Fundamentals of Optimization, Mathematical Analysis in Biology, Introduction to Dynamical Systems, Wellness for Healthcare, Mechanics, Inferring Structure of Complex Systems, Advanced PDEs, The Research Paper, Applications of Quantum Physics

Extracurriculars: Aerospace & Rocketry Club, Summer Stretch Number Theory, PROMYS (including seminars on Probability and Algebra), volunteering at paleontological dig site, just starting research with professor, self-studying math, origami, programming (one of my projects - a mod for a video game - has been downloaded over 86000 times).

Awards: None of any significance. 3-year pi recitation champion at my high school and National AP Scholar.

Essays: Somewhere between “meh” and good. I hate my own writing, but my teachers seem to think it’s decent or better.

LoR: 10/10 from endowed professor and former department chair who attended one of my top choices. 8-10/10 from another professor (although whom I ask will depend on the school and whether a non-STEM recommender is required).

2

The “only submitting” part should be “only submitting in isolation.” At all-scores schools, I’ll obviously be submitting both.

3

Do you have high schools grades?

Which UW? If either Wisconsin or Washington, it is a great school. If Wyoming, I don’t know anything about it (other than Wyoming is gorgeous).

Can you afford to be full pay at any school on your list without any debt?

4

To answer your questions:
Yes, I do have HS grades. My HS-only GPA is still around 3.95.
The UW in question is Washington.
I can afford to go full-pay without any debt.

5

I should also have made clear that the UW in “UW GPA” stands for unweighted, not University of Washington. My GPA at UW (the school) is currently 4.00.

6

Where are “college and college-level courses” from? Did you take some in UW? How did you manage to take so many, and when are you going to take “planned courses”? Dodn’t your main recommendations have to come from high school teachers?

7

Two of those courses covered college-level material but were not taken in a college per se, both of which are from 10th grade. Six are from a college other than UW and six are from UW.

All but two of the planned courses are at UW. I’m planning to satisfy the Health and 4th year English graduation requirements with CC courses. This list includes courses that I intend to take during Winter and Spring quarters this year (I’m certain I can manage the workload given the courses I’m performing well in now).

The professors I’m asking for LoRs taught and/or are teaching some of my classes. Since I know of others who have used LoRs from CC instructors whose courses they took through DE, I figured it would be permissible to do what I intend to do.

As for how I am taking the courses, the page at https://www.nondegree.uw.edu/register/ should provide ample information.

8

My personal opinion is that U.Washington (the UW that matters for you) is a great university. Your stats are superb and make you competitive at any school.

With a great university “in the bag” as an in-state safety, you should relax. Do the best that you can in your applications, and keep up the good work in school. Try to have some fun while you wait for results. You will be at a very good university a year from now. Which one it will be, you will find out over the next few months.

Also remember that if you attend MIT, Caltech, or any one of most if not all of your reaches, then you are going to suddenly transform from one of the top students in your high school, to a very average university student. These schools require a lot of work. You appear to be ready for this challenge as long as you want to do it.

Even if you end up at UW, you will find it to be significantly more challenging than high school, particularly as you get to upper year classes.

9

Thanks for your advice. I am already aware of the step up in difficulty that I’ll face at a place like Caltech, and that’s exactly why I want to apply. There were people at PROMYS who were much better at number theory than I was, and I found that I learned more when I wasn’t the best in the room. Two of the classes I’m taking at UW this quarter are 500-level (fluids and special topics) and having to spend a significant amount of time reading and working on challenging problems is way better than coasting. So if I get in, not only would I tolerate it, I would welcome it. I can learn a lot from people who are more skilled.

10

Caltech loves research and collaboration. You said you’re just starting research, but there’s anything promising in there, by all means emphasize it. I don’t see much in your post on how well you work with others, so you might want to pay attention to this also. Basically, you obviously love to learn, but you need to demonstrate creativity and initiative.

By the way, I know a kid with a similar profile (lots of college courses, no major awards) who was accepted to Stanford this year.

11

I certainly think there are ways I can integrate collaboration into my supplements. Several of the extracurriculars I mentioned demanded it inherently, and I’ve tried the best I can to assist on the multiple occasions when other students in my university courses asked for assistance.

Whether or not the research is promising remains to be seen. I believe that it might evidently be by the time I finalize my Common App, but not necessarily. It is very interesting in my opinion (using methods from optimal control to model bacterial proliferation) and definitely not just scrubbing petri dishes.