Chance for the tech schools! Will chance back!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hi cc,
I'm Asian living in Asia, in an international american school and have American passport.</p>

<p>Here are my stats:
UW: 3.88 (A+ = 4.333, A = 4.00, A- = 3.66 etc) 3B's, rest A's
W: 4.22 (Our school only gives AP/Honors +0.5)</p>

<p>ACT:
34C, 31E, 35M, 34R, 36S, 9 essay</p>

<p>SAT II:
800 Math II, 780 Chemistry, 800 Chinese........(waste my money!)</p>

<p>No rank.</p>

<p>AP:
10th grade: Chem 4, Comp Sci 5, Chinese 5
11th grade: Econ (both) 5/5, Physics B 5, Calc BC/AB sub 5/5
12th grade: Physics C (both), Stats, Psych</p>

<p>Senior Courses:
-IBSL english Yr 2
-Honor Linear Algebra
-Honor Differential Equations
-AP Physics C
-AP Statistics
-AP Psychology
-Some robotics/engineering class</p>

<p>Currently straight As, maybe B+ in english</p>

<p>Math/ Science courses:
9:
Honor Alg II: A/A
H Physics: A/A</p>

<p>10:
AP Chem: A/A
AP Comp Sci: A+/B+
H Bio: A/A+
H Calc A: A/A</p>

<p>11:
AP Calc BC: A/A+
Ap Physic B: A/A</p>

<p>Major Awards:
National RoboCup competition: 3rd place (9th grade), 4th place (10th grade), 1st place (11th grade)
International RoboCup competition: quarter finals
AMC 10 school silver medal</p>

<p>AP blablabla
Honor roll...</p>

<p>EC:
RoboCup Team, secretary + treasurer (10), President (11-12)
- devote lots of time, teach members how to build a functional robot from scratch, devote 500 hrs / year (no kidding: practiced 9 hrs / day before the internationals)</p>

<p>Math Team: JV math team
- AMC 10 school silver medal, plans to give math presentations</p>

<p>Talking Books Association: Volunteer
- Did this independently, outside of school. Write programs that converts books to audio books for blind, converted over 50 books, still continuing</p>

<p>Badminton, explained that I have a injury that prevent me from playing sports for a long time, but I still play it weekly (just not for long each time)</p>

<p>Intern at a company that makes touch panels for Apple, HTC etc</p>

<p>Tutor in math</p>

<p>tour guide in the nation's best museum (9th grade)</p>

<p>Essays: 9/10, counselor think its great, about how I use my engineering/programming skills to help my relative</p>

<p>Recs: I assume they are great. From Calc BC teacher and AP Econ teacher</p>

<p>Major: Electrical Engineering</p>

<p>Schools:
MIT (EA), Caltech (EA)
Princeton
Harvard (bc my parents made me)
Carnegie (CS and EE)
UPenn
Cornell
Johns Hopkins (BME)
Cooper Union
UC Berkeley (EECS), LA, San Diego
U of Toronto</p>

<p>Columbia? (my mom lives in NY and wants me to go there, but I want a more techy, not well-rounded education)</p>

<p>Almost done with the essays. Can someone recommend any matches for me? (I asked my counselor, and he told me engineering schools jumps from reach to matches/safeties)</p>

<p>Concerns:
AP comp sci grades: A+/ B+
Will that B+ affect me in applying EE/CS?</p>

<p>Thanks!
Will chance back if you want!</p>

2

<p>Here’s my $.02</p>

<p>MIT (EA)- low reach
Caltech (EA)- low reach
Princeton-reach
Harvard- reach
Carnegie (CS and EE)- match
UPenn- low reach
Cornell- low reach
Johns Hopkins (BME)- high match
Cooper Union- ???
UC Berkeley (EECS)- match
UCLA- match
San Diego- safety
U of Toronto- ???</p>

<p>You have great scores and phenomenal, relevant ECs. That’s incredibly important in the admissions reviews of top tier colleges like the ones to which you are applying (as I’m sure you know). I would rarely (if ever) call an MIT or a CalTech a low reach because of their competitive nature but you are undoubtedly a qualified applicant. There’s no reason that you shouldn’t get into at least 2 or 3 of your low reaches or reaches. Good luck and I hope this helped (sorry about the two ‘???’ But I don’t want to mislead you with a prediction for a school I am not familiar with)</p>

<p>If you could chance back, I’d really appreciate it!
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1583099-chance-me-cornell-aem-ed-will-chance-back-2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1583099-chance-me-cornell-aem-ed-will-chance-back-2.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>I have to disagree with the post above. I don’t think MIT and Caltech are low reaches, and Carnegie is <em>definitely</em> not a match. Carnegie is just as selective as the other two schools, and I see no reason to qualify it as a match while the other two are reaches. But that’s the only difference between my opinion and that of the person above. And I don’t mean to sound too harsh - I think you do have pretty great chances of getting into at least one of those three schools. However, it seems like the one and only thing that your entire app revolves around is your interest in engineering and comp sci, but it’s a fact that colleges look for diversity on campus - and let’s face it, an Asian guy who’s all about engineering isn’t really rare at MIT or Caltech. That being said, you do have a really impressive app, with good grades and scores, and that RoboCup thing looks pretty cool too. So, I’m gonna mirror the chances above, with three changes:
MIT - reach
Caltech - reach
Carnegie Mellon - reach</p>

4

<p>Haha I’m happy that we can agree on most but Carnegie mellons 30% acceptance rate as opposed to the 9% and 13% of MIT and Caltech (respectively) definitely show a discrepancy of selectivity. Then again, I’m not too familiar with the schools outside of their numbers so I could be way off base in saying that. You are obviously entitled to your opinion but I just thought I would share. </p>

<p>To the OP, good luck!</p>

5

<p>@applicant - actually, you’re looking at the wrong numbers. The selectivity of CMU varies a lot by school, and the OP is applying to school of compute science - one of the most selective ones. Here are the stats for different schools: [Carnegie</a> Mellon Admission | Admission Statistics](<a href=“http://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/undergraduate-admission-statistics]Carnegie”>Admission - Undergraduate Admission - Carnegie Mellon University)
School of Computer Science accepted 345 out of 5071 applicants last year - an acceptance rate of 6.8%, which is actually below both MIT and Caltech. OP, I hope you knew that. Otherwise, I might have just ruined your hopes of getting in… But once again, I do think that you’ll get into at least one of these three schools, and several more from the rest of your list.</p>

6

<p>bump! ivanov, thanks for your input</p>

7

<p>bump! ~~~~~~</p>