FIRST Robotics; either lead design or team captain as a senior; very successful, won a world championship in my time on the team
3 Years of Cross Country/Track; I’m quitting next year
Summer job teaching a Java summer camp
Dozens of hours tutoring younger children in math and computer science
~300 hours community service mentoring FIRST Lego League teams and volunteering at various robotics competitions
Duke TIP Physics of Propulsion Summer Camp
1st Place District Math Bowl 2015
In addition, although it’s not official yet, I’m almost definitely going to be a National Merit Semifinalist since I’m well above the usual cutoff for my state.
Also, a friend and I have been working on a new kind of digital steganography (encrypting a message in a picture), and it works very well. We are thinking of applying for a patent on it, with the intention of creating a Chrome extension and a Firefox add on implementing the encryption in web browsers. I feel like if this materializes it could be one of my biggest selling points.
I know my application is pretty solid overall, but I’m still worried about a few things. The number one thing I’m worried about is a somewhat low unweighted GPA. The second thing I’m worried about is a relatively low class rank (my school does class rank really weirdly). Finally, my SAT score is mediocre for the schools I’m hoping to get into. Are these flaws significantly hurting my application? Should I retake the SAT? Do I have a good shot at getting into Caltech?
You have a chance, but it’s low and will depend heavily on your essays and recommendations.Your extracurriculars are nice, but typical for competitive applicants to Caltech. Your GPA is low, your SAT and ACT scores about average for a competitive applicant. This is high reach school for you, as is for all candidates. Best of luck.
I think you have solid chances. I wouldn’t worry too much about your unweighted GPA, because your class rank is pretty good. Near top 5%, and over 95% of Caltech students were in the top 10% of their class in high school. ECs are pretty solid as well. Nothing really sticks out, standard robotics math comp sci stuff. The world championship and your research on digital steganography will definitely help. Good luck!
You are solidly in the mix for Caltech. You are correct in that your GPA is low, do you know why that is?
The rest of your scores are right in there, and I don’t understand why you think they are low.
Finally, you are correct in perceiving that your creative digital encryption work is going to be one of your greatest assets for admissions. I would definitely work on that to the point of getting some kind of definitive recognition for it before application time. You need to start thinking about how it represents you personally in order to write some essays.
I forgot to mention recommendations, I know for sure I’ll get a stellar one from my math teacher, and although I don’t know specifically what my Chem teacher would write I’m almost sure he’s going to write me a spectacular one as well.
@JustOneDad
The reason my GPA is low is because I tend to get Bs in my non-STEM classes. I have yet to get an A in high school English. However, I have always taken the most rigorous schedule possible. 1 AP as a freshman, 3 as a soph (with AP Scholar), 6 as a junior, and probably 5 next year (would be more but I’m taking multivariable calc and organic chemistry which can only count for honors)
Grades are okay - I know Caltech stresses academics though so this might hurt you. I would just submit the ACT score if I were you. As for robotics, it seems sort of strange to say oh yea I just “won a world championship in my time on the team,” no big deal. What does this mean? Was this some sort of local/state/national competition called the “world championship” or was this the actual world championship. I mean, if what you’re saying is true, then you should obviously put this as the main focus in your essay. Good Luck!
@blargenshmargen
It was the actual FIRST Robotics world championship, and robotics is by far my largest time commitment. I was planning to write about it in my essays anyway. Thanks for the advice!