Hi everyone! I’ve been creeping around CC for a while, looking at others’ "chance me"s so I decided to try it out
P.S. I realize I should take all responses with a grain of salt because, well, college admissions are quite mercurial…but I’d really like to see if I have a shot at any of these!
Silly stat stuff:
School: 2nd ranked public school in the state, 2800 kids so pretty large, majority are white, area considered affluent
ACT: 36
SAT: 2200 (only took this for national merit stuff so not sending this in)
SAT II: Math 2: 800 Lit: 660 (retaking this in the fall and studying this time lol)
GPA: W: 4.7 UW: 3.85
Class rank: my school doesn’t rank since we’re pretty competitive, but I’d say I’m the top 8%? not sure
AP: chinese: 5 euro: 4 lang: 5 us: 5 physics 1: 3 calc bc: 5
NEXT YEAR’S SCHED:
-AP micro
- constitutional law (i’m a criminal minds fanatic hehe)
- AP chem
- honors seminar writing
- math topics (multivariable calculus)
- AP computer science A
- AP studio art
Race: 1st Gen Asian
Gender: Female
Potential major: Engineering but with the purpose of helping still-developing countries (like service)
Summer:
- Internship with a mechanical and chemical engineering professor last summer, conducted my own experiment with shock tubes, ethylene combustion and whatnot, and wrote a paper on it (didn’t submit to get published though idk why)
- This summer I went to Costa Rica and did a lot of service there (50 hours in two weeks) and LOVED. IT.
ECs:
- varsity poms, jr pommer coach (poms is like cheerleading but more focused on dance),
- forensics (speech team)
- varsity badminton - went to state as a jr
- peer leadership - committee member, attendance manager, committee chair
- student council all four years
- playing piano since I was 4 - AIM theory level 7 and technique level 10, taught myself guitar
- danced competitively for 2 years
- sold a teapot set I made for $200 so I guess you could say I’m a working, albeit not starving, artist? lolz
Work:
- tutor at Kumon
- taught piano to neighbors’ kids
Jeez that was long lol but THANK YOU (!!!) for taking your time to go through this post if you’re reading this now
Any advice for me?? I honestly have no clue which schools I’d like to apply ED to (if at all) so it’d be very much appreciated.
P.P.S. anyone know of any safety schools similar to the ones i’m looking for? ya girl gotta go to some college in case none of these work out
Being an intelligent female trying to do engineering definitely helps you out as there is a lack of women pursuing this field.
Brown: Reach
Swarthmore: high match-low reach
Claremont McKenna: high match
Harvey Mudd: high match-low reach
Tufts: high match
These are all super selective school, but you have good stats and should get into at least 1 or 2. Still you cannot just rely on those happening and should pick some good safeties. Safeties would prob depend on what state you’re in.
Apply ED only if there is one you really want to go to.
@virsha24 thank you so much!! yeah i was thinking that about engineering too, but I’m not quite sure as it seems like there’s gonna be an influx of female engineers this year bc of the demand for them…?? hopefully not though.
I’m not sure why someone interested in engineering would apply to Claremont McKenna. You have excellent stats so you are competitive but remember that CMC has an acceptance rate of 9.76% so it has the lowest rate after Brown at 8%. CMC looks for fit, too, so you need to articulate why CMC. Frankly CMC and Harvey Mudd don’t belong on the same list. They may be in the same consortium but they are very different. If you are unsure of major and want to keep the possibility of engineering in play then you need to look for a larger school that doesn’t require you to apply separately to the school of engineering.
@Corinthian Sorry for the late response! Just saw this. You do raise a good point and I understand that Harvey Mudd and CMC are quite different, but since they are in a consortium and I do intend on graduating with a BS from a liberal arts school, I would use cross-registration to allow me to explore more while fulfilling my credits. However, Harvey Mudd and CMC aren’t my top schools right now, so I’ll look deeper into the two of them to figure out which school would be a better fit. Thank you for your advice though - it really helped!
Mudd seems like a much better fit than CMC. I’d say you have a decent shot there (low reach) if you take the time to understand Mudd well and do a good job on the essays. Fit is important there. It actually does seem like a school you should take a close look at, especially given your desire to do something socially worthwhile with your engineering degree. That is right in Mudd’s wheelhouse.
Also, don’t worry about an overabundance of female engineers. – the field is a long way from parity! Mudd is one of the few STEM schools with close to 50% women, which is one of the things my D (rising junior) loves about it, though.
President Maria Klawe would probably love to have you at HMC, but CMC could be a good fit too, as a fair number take advantage of CMC’s strength in speech and debate, government, and econ while doing a 3/2 engineering program, of which CMC has several. The social style of all these schools are very different, though, and you should certainly visit every school you consider.
@intparent Thanks for your insight! I didn’t realize HMC’s engineering curriculum aligned with graduating engineers in pursuit of having a social impact, since I figured PItzer handled that aspect. My only concern with Harvey Mudd was that it has a reputation of having a student body whose interests aren’t as diverse and everyone is extremely concentrated in the STEM area. Is that true? However, given your experience with it, I think I will look into it more closely. How does your daughter like it?
@CollegeBuff Yeah, I’m planning on it. One of my best friend’s sister goes to Pomona, so her mom may have the two of us stay with her to tour the Claremonts, so hopefully that’ll help me decide which school is the best fit for me. I had a pretty lengthy conversation with Peter Osgood (the dean of admissions at HMC) at a Claremont convention over spring break and he gave me his contact card and wrote down the admissions officer’s name for my region, but I doubt he remembers me lol.
My daughter adores Mudd. She definitely has other interests – for example, she was a literature expert in Quiz Bowl in high school, and is a bit of a French Revolution junkie. :). She has friends at Mudd who play in the 5C orchestra, too. Now… The first 3 semesters are intensely devoted to Core, so she only took a few humanities courses then, but now she is taking a couple a semester. I’d suggest you visit and check it out.