Chance at MIT, JHU, Duke, WUSTL, etc?

Applying to College
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<p>Hi, I'm a senior and am waiting for my college responses. I just need to know what my chances may be of getting into any of these schools.</p>

<p>Schools I applied to: MIT, Duke, WUSTL, UPenn, Carnegie, JHU, Cornell, GeorgiaTech, Rice, and one or two others.</p>

<p>Schools I have been accepted to w/ scholarship + financial aid: NYU Poly $40k/yr, U of R $25k/yr.</p>

<p>My GPA Unweighted isn't great, 3.58 as of junior year. After taking around 12 or 13 AP's. My weighted GPA is well over 4.0 but weighted GPA's are a joke.</p>

<p>My SAT I, single and combined is the same, Math 800, Reading 720, Writing 700, Total 2220.
My SAT II, Math 800, Chemistry 790</p>

<p>Basically half the AP tests I've taken I've gotten 5's and the other half 4's.</p>

<p>Freshman: The only things I took were honors everything and then Pre Calculus.
Sophmore: AP Stat, AP Calculus BC, Chemistry H, English H, and honors everything else.
Junior: AP Latin, AP Chem, Physics H, AP US, Calculus 3 (most schools don't even offer this, it is more advanced than AP), AP Lang, and some other AP's
Senior: AP Physics, AP Bio, AP Psych, AP Econ, AP Lit, Already took Calc 3 so nothing more advanced offered</p>

<p>By the end of junior year, my greats weren't great. I had a 3.58 GPA because I was quite lazy and didn't always go for the best grades in English / Social Studies. My good grades were basically all in math and science. In Math, I took AP Calc in 10th grade already and then went on to Calc 3, in Physics H I ended up with a 98 average, Ap Chem I ended up with a 99, AP Physics I am on the third quarter and exceed 100 from extra credit. Don't say this is easy because "I am in a non-competitive public school" because my public school is ranked on the top 50 in the country and we have around 5 people getting accepted to EACH prestigious school every year.</p>

<p>My Extra-Circulars are that I am ranked top 5 in Math League and am on Team A, I do chess club, bridge club, Chinese club, and a ton of other clubs. I don't take lessons anymore but I spend more than 5 hours a week playing piano because I enjoy it. I also swan on the highschool swim team for two years and played on the highschool tennis team for two years.
Please read this before you comment. I'm not arrogant at all and personally think I'll get rejected from most, if not all, of these schools. This is why I'm really trying to get my brother to become a harder working version of me.</p>

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<p>Also, the 3.58 is out of 4.0 UW and my weighted GPA is like 4.4-4.8. The schools I really want to go to are MIT, Duke, JHU. When I said I took the SAT II Math and got an 800, it was the most advanced one. I am also in the top 5% on my class of over 500. I was a finalist for the national merit scholarship award. I also got awarded the Bausch and Lomb scholarship. In our school we have a Xerox scholarship and a Bausch and Lomb scholarship. Only 1 person is awarded each of these, I got the Bausch and Lomb and one of my friends who is very hard working and got into Stanford, got the Xerox one. They’re basically the same thing just different companies. Please chance me and I will be happy to give you a chance on your colleges.</p>

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<p>Your gpa’s kind of low. :confused: english and history does matter… :/</p>

<p>MIT- Reach; possibly low reach because of your science/math grades and ECs
Duke-reach
UPenn- Reach
Carnegie- low reach
JHU- reach
Cornell-low reach
GeorgiaTech- low reachish
Rice-low reach?</p>

<p>It was still worth applying… Higher end schools accept students with a ~3.6 average year… Not a whole ton, but you never know!
Good luck!</p>

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<p>What do you mean by “possibly low reach because of your science/math grades”. They were all 98+ and I took AP Calculus BC in 10th grade, would that help maybe? It sounded as though you meant they are dragging me down. Thanks by the way. Also though Duke and JHU and better than Carnegie and Cornell so I would most definitely rather go to Duke or JHU. GeorgiaTech actually is the easiest out of all of those to get into. GeorgiaTech, Cornell, and Carnegie are the easiest on that list. But yeah, I’m not really expecting to get into any though.</p>

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<p>Yeah possibly low reach… Low reach is better than just a reach… When I said ‘reach’ I meant mid-high reach…</p>

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<p>Oh I was confused, thanks man. You really helped out. If you want me to chance any of your threads, I’d be happy to. Also Rice is really hard to get into and I’ve heard possibly even harder than MIT.</p>

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<p>Any leadership activities?</p>

<p>Sent from my DROID RAZR using CC</p>

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<p>Not really. Though it sounds very important, I’ve heard that mainly the english / ss side focuses on leadership. I’ve heard the main basis for engineering schools is a good understanding in concepts and great problem solving.</p>

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<p>Where did you hear that? By the way, I’m an alumni interviewer for one of the top schools on your list. </p>

<p>Sent from my DROID RAZR using CC</p>

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<p>i actually heard that from classmates. They’re probably wrong haha. Yeah, I’m pretty disappointed in my grades and I see like tons of people have like 2300’s on their SAT and mines just a 2220. I feel as though I would be a good fit in the schools but I really wouldn’t expect to get into any of the schools that I applied to.</p>

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<p>I can assure you your 2220 is not disappointing at all and your GPA is compensated slightly by your course rigor and your SAT IIs. Here goes:
MIT- High reach (They like leadership)
Duke- Low reach
UPenn- Mid reach
Carnegie- High match
JHU- High match
Cornell- Low reach
GeorgiaTech- High match
Rice- Low/mid reach</p>

<p>Chance me back?
A lot of the schools you mentioned I’m interested in too!
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1282445-chance-mit-other-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1282445-chance-mit-other-schools.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I think you have a good shot! My weighted GPA was 3.84 when I applied to MIT (Early Action this year) and I got in! I had 2050 for my SATs so it’s possible to get in without the best grades. Hopefully I’ll see you there in the fall :slight_smile: Don’t give up hope! :D</p>

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<p>Wow, thanks bandits, that really boosted up my confidence. Still, I don’t really expect to get in. I mean, there’s a chance but I don’t think my grades are just good enough.</p>

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<p>Actually really good. Sure, you could say your GPA is low, but you clearly have a very challenging schedule and excel at math and science, which is probably the main thing schools like MIT look at (although I’m no admissions officer, so I could be wrong). Still, extremely high SAT’s and SAT II’s, high schedule difficulty, lots of extracurriculars, you have a pretty good shot at most of those.
Granted, I feel like schools that aren’t necessarily geared for science/math (see: UPenn), might not look past your english/social studies grades as much. But honestly, assuming you want to go for a STEM major, you should be more worried about the schools that have better STEM programs anyway, like Cornell or Carnegie.</p>

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<p>Yeah probably not the best advice. But at this point, it doesn’t really matter. </p>

<p>Sent from my DROID RAZR using CC</p>

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<p>I also forgot to mention an important part of my resume. I did an internship for the lab of laser energetics, which is a science research project dealing with the stronger laser in the world at the u of r. Only 16 people were accepted and it is supposed to look great on the resume of engineering colleges.</p>

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