Chance me for BERKELEY EE Major Freshman

Applying to College
1

<p>Can you chance me for Berkeley electfical engineering (my top choice) </p>

<p>and also MIT, Stanford, and Caltech?</p>

<p>Freshman</p>

<p>Alg II/Trig
Regular Biology
Regular Lit
Computer Applications
PE
Chinese I</p>

<p>(freshman aren't allowed to take history)</p>

<p>Summer</p>

<p>Help teach little kids at a summer school, paid 700</p>

<p>Sophomore</p>

<p>Pre-Calc honors
Chem honors
Sophmore world lit
Sophmore world history
Chinese II
TA for regular biology</p>

<p>Summer</p>

<p>Community college C++ I
Community college Intro physics</p>

<p>Junior</p>

<p>AP Calc BC
AP Bio
AP USH
AP Comp Sci
AP Physics Mech (took the equivalent at a community college, called 4A, still took ap test)
AP Physics E&M (same community college thing as AP phys mech)
American lit honors
Chinese III
TA for Chemistry honors</p>

<p>Summer</p>

<p>Programming and debugging (mostly debugging) thousands of lines of code at Stanford Linear particle accelerator for a link and redirector. made a poster and an abstract. got paid 2000, plus im on the website with my quote and stuff</p>

<p>Wrote a physics simulation in java using gui. You can draw any figure and the program will still simulate it according to law of classical mechanics. Still working on maybe adding an object dodging algorithm</p>

<p>Senior</p>

<p>AP Chem
AP Stats
Chinese IV honors
Regular Senior Lit
AP Econ
Multimedia (basically flash, photoshop, just some cool applications)
PE
Differential Equations at community college, and plan to take more math/physics during the second semester</p>

<p>ALSO: Programming at Stanford in Image processing as an unpaid intern, 6-7 hours a week, but may go up to more hours per week</p>

<p>Grades:
All A's, except for one B first semester of APush</p>

<p>Tests:
SAT I: 2350 1 try
SAT II: 800 on math ii, physics, chem, bioM one try each
AP: 5 on every test</p>

<p>Extracurr:
coPresident, cofounder, and the one team leader for schools JETS team in the TEAMS competition from junior to senior year</p>

<p>Robotics programmer since sophomore year</p>

<p>Math club, Northern CA Championship qualifier, but this is VERY easy to get into</p>

<p>Local engineering competition where my team and i built a small car out of spare parts. we didn't win but we built a small car</p>

<p>I also will submit the physics simulation i wrote</p>

<p>Non sci/math extracurr:</p>

<p>Christian club
CSF (California based community service club), not very active though</p>

<p>Cross country 9th and 10th grade, varsity team participant both years, won seven medals, scholar athlete, MVP award for JV team 9th grade (yes lol, technically i was on varsity but got the JV MVP)</p>

<p>Piano, highest level in American Guild test and Certificate of Merit tests. Founder award in American Guild test</p>

<p>So, that's about it, can you chance me for those schools? I'm looking at majoring in electrical engineering.
Im a bit worried about community service though, because I barely have any. I think grand total i have less than 50 hours....</p>

2

<p>Oh and I read physics books in my spare time, dunno if i will be able to put that in anywhere though…</p>

3

<p>Bumpbumpbumpbump</p>

4

<p>Anybody???</p>

5

<p>if you read it, why not just spend like a minute responding?</p>

6

<p>Wait? Are you like, for real lol?</p>

7

<p>What do you mean? Berkeley EE is extremely tough, on par with MIT I believe…</p>

8

<p>Your stats put you toward the top of Berkeley’s applicant pool, and right in the uppper middle for Stanford and MIT, and right in the middle for Caltech.</p>

<p>My advice to you is to write an essay that demonstrates your enthusiasm for learning and discovery. An essay that will make the adcom want to meet you. Throw in some humor, some unexpected turns. Make the adcom say: the students here will love working with this one on projects.</p>

<p>Oh, and don’t take yourself too seriously. That’s so boring when it comes across in an essay.</p>

<p>Here’s my prediction with a good but not great essay: </p>

<p>Berkeley 80%
MIT: 50%
STanford: 50%
Caltech: 50%</p>

9

<p>Daniel, check out post #7 here: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1012403-chance-uc-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1012403-chance-uc-schools.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>you can see your chances quite specifically.</p>

10

<p>So electrical engineering @ Cal is an in? And what does 50% mean, just half chance I get in and half chancei dont?</p>

11

<p>… wow your stats are quite… how you say… good. I agree with DunninLA about the essay part. One of my friends got into Berkeley with quite mediocre SATs and GPA (i think 2000 SAT) and ECs - what got her in was her essay. So make sure to express the ONE thing that you want the admissions committee to say “hmmm this is a very _____ person” (perhaps in your case analytical).</p>

<p>I also agree with DunninLA’s stats except CalTech might be a bit lower. </p>

<p>I talked to the dean of MIT recently and he was saying that the bottom line is, the school really only cares about MATH AND SCIENCE… and since you seem to have a passion for those, use your passion to your advantage. </p>

<p>And don’t worry too much about your community service… its never too late. Try and use your technical skills to help out someone at your school, community etc…</p>

<p>You have the stats… all you need is to explain the person behind the stats.</p>

12

<p>and yes Cal is an in… being that you are instate as well, right?</p>

13

<p>Forget Berkeley. You’re practically in at MIT and Stanford.</p>

14

<p>yeah thestranger1 im instate, </p>

<p>iono about MIT or stanford though, my family is at the financial area where we make jsut enough so that the cost of private school is super high, but the financial help is jus tnot enough.</p>

15

<p>oh and is not having math/science awards bad? b/c i didn’t qualify for the AIME in junior year even though i tried…</p>

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<p>your.stats.are.amazing.period.</p>

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<p>no … lacking a plethora of awards isn’t bad AT ALL… as long as you’ve shown genuine passion for what you like to do - you’ll be okay :)</p>

18

<p>Then just curious, how would this application stand with the ives? I mean I’m not that interested in them because Berkeley has better engineering programs imo, but still, would they take note of my science stuff?</p>

19

<p>Just a bit of warning… Remember that NO ONE is a lock at any of the tippy top universities (Ivies, MIT, Caltech, etc.) All you have to do is go to some of the acceptance threads to see how many truly exceptional students are rejected each year. You have terrific stats so be confident that you will be in the running, but dont’ be cocky!</p>

20

<p>Yes they would daniel… but still don’t worry about the schools that don’t interest you. And I agree with momfirst3 as well, in that perfect stats don’t always get you accepted to these Ivy League schools. They look to create as DIVERSE a community as possible while still maintaining strong academic position.</p>