Chance for Tepper/MCS RD

Colleges and Universities A-Z Carnegie Mellon University
1

<p>Hi all.</p>

<p>I wanna be straightforward - My GPA is not that great (debatably bad), but i'm trying to be the candidate who can compensate with ECs/Testing. What are my chances at getting into CMU RD '17? I applied to Tepper (Finance) and MCS (Mathematical Sciences)</p>

<p>I'm an Indian (as in the asian variety xD)
Go to one of most competitive public schools in MA</p>

<p>GPA: 3.5/4.0 (UW), 4.0/5.0 (W)
SAT (superscore): 2340 (740 CR, 800 M, 800 W)
SAT II: 800 Math IIC (also 800 Math IC but nobody cares xD), 730 Chem (ew), 710 Lit
AP: Comp Sci A - 5, BC Calc - 5, Chem - 4, Physics - 4, US History - 4
Taking Psych, Spanish, and Stats this year predicted all 5's</p>

<p>Current Courseload:
International Relations H
Multivariable Calculus (class which only 6 out of ~500 students in my grade are allowed to take... considered highest math class at our school)
Spanish V H/AP
Psychology H/AP
Madrigal Singers (auditioned group of 24 of the whole school's best singers... out of a student base of 2000... extremely prestigious group)
Statistics H/AP
Science Fiction and Fantasy (unleveled senior elective english class)</p>

<p>Reccomendations:
Math Department Head (BC calc teacher) - has very high opinion of me and should give excellent rec
English III H teacher - likes me as a person .. didn't do to well in her class (got a B year avg). will prlly have a good insight into my personality though.
Counselor rec - idk too much of what the counselor thinks of me.. BUT she's writing her rec based on the recs which i'm getting from outside school which are - 1. TyE Business Competition Mentor and 2. MIT professor who i did an internship with (Both EXTREMELY strong recs)</p>

<p>Extra curriculars... (100 million over here). Listed in order of descending importance:</p>

<p>First High school level Bollywood A Cappella group which I founded in sophomore year (it's been 1.5 years (will be 2.5 when school ends). - Sophomore year thru senior year
TyE Business plan Competition - We spent a whole year formulating a business plan and we got 2nd place in the competition. I was the CFO... - Junior year
MIT RFID Lab internship - I spent the summer working in a lab with PhD students and the RFID dept head helping them formulate thesis. I may be listed as a co-author on these MIT students' theses (there are 2). - Summer before senior year</p>

<p>~Gap here because those 3 up there are the most important of the ECs~</p>

<p>Math Team - Captain Senior year - frosh to Senior year
Madrigal Singers - Senior year
Chess team -Freshman year to senior year - won 2nd place junior year. Senior year yet to be determined (predicted top 3)
Robert Creeley Foundation - Exec. Board member - Poetry foundation honoring deceased poet. We bring in a famous poet each year to our high school to recite for students. We also have an award given to top achieving students in poetry from anywhere in massachusetts area.
Chess Club - Co-founder - sophomore to senior year
Student Council Rep - Junior to senior year
All Male A Cappella group - frosh to senior year
Science Team - Frosh to junior year</p>

<p>Miscellaneous notes/awards:
Presidents volunteer award (1 bronze, 1 gold)
AIME Qualifier
Natl AP Scholar
Massachusetts Math Olympiad Level II Qualifier
I've been singing Hindustani Classical and Bengali Music since I was 5 years old.
I'm also fluent in bengali (spoken, written, listening, and reading)</p>

<p>So... how do i compete?</p>

<p>Thanks all!! and feel free to ask me to chance you as well. I don't know how well i'll be able to do, but i'll give my best effort.</p>

2

<ol>
<li>CMU doesn’t look at freshman grades. What’s your UWGPA without freshman year grades? </li>
<li>What’s your class rank?</li>
<li>What are your grades in math and science? Tepper and MCS will really focus on your math grades, and MCS will really focus on your science grades.</li>
<li>How are your essays? I know that writing is subjective, but try to rank your common app and supplement essays on a scale of 1-10. For reference, a 10 is an essay that you’re extremely proud of and will highly impress the admissions committee.</li>
<li>What have you done to show interest in CMU? Have you visited campus, done a local info session, had an interview, and/or spoken to a CMU professor?</li>
<li>Why didn’t you take AP Econ yet? Does your school offer it at all?</li>
<li>What type of research did you do? I get that you worked on a few thesis projects, but you never stated what field they were in. Based on your description, your research could have been in anything from Ring Theory to Underwater Basket Weaving.</li>
<li>Did you take the AP course for each AP exam you took?</li>
</ol>

<p>I can give you a fairly accurate chancing if you provide answers to these questions.</p>

3

<ol>
<li>um… i’m not quite sure what it would be. My guess would be a 3.6-3.7.</li>
<li>Not given. They don’t rank</li>
<li>Math I have gotten B+ (geo), B+ (Alg II), B- (Trig. REALLY ****y teacher; I could rant about her for hours), A- (BC Calc), and this year Term 1 I got a B+, but Term 2 will undoubtedly be lower because i’m taking Multivariable Calc (a 4 person class) and the grading curve is near impossible. Sciences I have a B- (bio; i suck at it), B+ (chem), B (physics), and no sciences this year.</li>
<li>Essays imo i’m really proud of it. Prlly a 10</li>
<li>Visited campus, BUT it was during Thanksgiving break, so I don’t think i got demonstrated interest points. I took a tour and everything. Is there any way I can request the college to give me these interest points? I’ve had a local session and had an interview (which went 2 hours long - so it must have been pretty good).</li>
<li>We do not have an official AP econ class; merely a regular econ class which consists of a bunch of people reading out of a textbook since the teacher is both lazy and doesn’t teach. Not to mention its not a full AP course so it doesn’t fully prepare you. I debated between wasting valuable time in the school day sitting in a classroom memorizing a textbook for a class that wasn’t even going to be weighted and taking a real Honors/AP course in Psychology and thus i chose the latter.</li>
<li>I ran experiments using RFID tags to test how absorption of rainwater affected nitrate levels in soil and sand. Simultaneously, in a business perspective, I brainstormed fresh new applications for RFID tags because they were rapidly becoming a fading technology. Because I have signed an agreement to confidentiality, I don’t think I can give any more information away yet.</li>
<li>Yes, with the exception of AP Chemistry, which I studied for by taking an MIT AP prep course which met every sunday.</li>
</ol>

<p>Hope that helps!</p>

4

<p>“My GPA is not that great (debatably bad), but i’m trying to be the candidate who can compensate with ECs/Testing.”</p>

<p>my situation exactly. i had very similar stats and i got in early to tepper. my course load was a bit more rigorous, though, which i think they may have taken into account when they evaluated my GPA…but i dunno if anyone can really give you an accurate chance this late in the game, especially considering the disparity between your GPA and SAT scores. </p>

<p>you’ve already applied, though, so just relax!! good luck! :)</p>

<p>oh & btw, i’ve never taken any business or economics courses either, and unlike you, i don’t have any business ECs, so that might not be an issue.</p>

5

<p>To be honest, chancing you is a little difficult. Although your EC’s and research are pretty noteworthy, you grades are really bringing you down. Furthermore, you don’t have any 780+'s on science SAT II’s to compensate for your science grades. No offense, but the adcoms might also find it strange that you’re good enough to make AIME but have B’s in multiple math courses. Your essays could make up for these deficiencies, but don’t expect them to.</p>

<p>Although Tepper is more competitive than MCS, I’d say you have a much better shot at Tepper. While your B’s in math will definitely hurt you at Tepper, the adcoms won’t care as much about your B’s in science when evaluating you as a business applicant. </p>

<p>Overall:
Tepper - Mid to Low Reach: Math grades are definitely bringing you down, but your TyE and research EC’s definitely help.
MCS - Mid reach: Math and science grades are really bringing you down. Also, you don’t seem to have any science EC’s outside of science team. </p>

<p>I might be chancing you too harshly so I hope you at least understand my reasoning. Good luck in the RD round!</p>

6

<p>I would be happy at either Tepper or MCS (just cuz i want a shot at the BSCF degree… altho i know they only take ~10 ppl aka i don’t have much of a chance).</p>

<p>Oh so about the BS in Comp Finance degree… anyone know how competitive it is? like how many usually apply? stuff like that…</p>

7

<p>@FateGoneAwry:
No no its fine xD. Thanks for the honest chancing! Yeah I was hoping to position my ECs to my advantage to make up for my non-science-ness. Honestly, its not that I can’t do the material… I tend to have a problem where I lose the will to give effort in a subject if it’s really dry. Science overall was very boring to me with the exception of Bio which was just plain hard to me (since it was less math applications and more memorization). I have lower than desired grades in math (supposedly my forte) because of the difficulty of classes at our school in general. The B- is due to a teacher who spent half the class complaining about her personal life and would barely teach anything. Hence, we were often forced to do all the learning by ourselves at home. To make matters worse, she gave ridiculously long and unfair tests. The worst part however is that the OTHER teacher who taught a Trig Honors class was much fairer and gave phenomenal lessons in class and gave reasonable tests and grades (AND thus his students had significantly higher grades on average than the kids in my class. One of my biggest disadvantages is that the adcoms prlly will have no way to differentiate. Is it worth spending my time to write them a letter explaining my poor grade in sophomore year math? Or will it just look like a kid who’s making up excuses / ranting about a teacher he hated?</p>

8

<p>Lol, I’m really interested in BSCF myself and plan to apply for as a freshman. I contacted the director of the BSCF program and here’s what he told me:</p>

<ol>
<li>Around (1/3) to (1/2) of applicants are accepted. Around 20-30 students apply for every class and only 10 get selected. </li>
<li>You can apply as many times as you want to the program. Obviously, it becomes unfeasible to apply after a certain point. For example, you can’t finish the major if you’re only accepted in the spring of your junior year.</li>
<li>The admission committee for the program looks for three main qualities: strong quantitative ability (in other words, high grades in difficult math courses), excellent communication abilities, and a deep interest in finance.</li>
<li>You can’t do a 2nd major in business or math if you’re in the BSCF program.</li>
</ol>

<p>Hope that helps!</p>

9

<p>@cneogy - If it really matters to you, have you counselor explain your grades in her recommendation. No college will take you seriously if you try to explain it yourself in a letter. Also, do whatever it takes to make sure that CMU records your interest. Don’t let them think that you aren’t interested.</p>

10

<p>definitely don’t write a letter. that wouldn’t really reflect well on you. they’ll be evaluating you in the context of your school, so if you had awful teachers or the course material was inordinately challenging, grade deflation should be the norm in your school. so a relatively low grade in a challenging course won’t necessarily hurt your chances as long as everyone else was scoring in the same area because of the reasons you cited.</p>

<p>however, if other students managed to excel, they’ll assume that you’re making excuses :P</p>

11

<p>ok I won’t write a letter xD. also, it would reflect in other students’ grades but the problem is it would only reflect in half of them since half of them got the good teacher and the other half got the ****y teacher… BUT the worst part is that it seems that most of the people who got the worse teacher are not applying to the stronger schools so it more or less looks that I just did badly :-/. It’s too late to have my counselor change her rec since she already submitted it :-/
And @fategoneawry: thanks for the information on BSCF! xD well 10 in even 30 was not as bad as i thought xD i thought i was gunna be up against like… 100 others LOL. yay the less the better rofl</p>

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<p>bump</p>

<p>Sent from my XT897 using CC</p>

13

<p>Bump x2
Sent from my XT897 using CC</p>

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<p>Bump D:</p>

<p>Sent from my XT897 using CC</p>

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<p>Post your thread in the “What are my chances forum” if you’re really desperate for more chances.</p>