Demographics
Asian Male, US Citizen, Bay Area, Competitive Public High School, Unhooked
Junior
Intended Major(s)
CS, Mechanical Engineering (Maybe), Business
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
- Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0 @ Brick & Mortar (one A- and maybe another one at end of this semester, but school weights A- as 4), 4.0 @ Stanford Online High School (single course)
- Weighted HS GPA: 4.25 ish, should be higher at end of semester, not sure if SOHS weighs
- Class Rank: Doesn’t rank
- SAT Score: 1580 (790 R/W, 790 M)
Coursework
- Freshman: No APs
- Sophomore: AP Calc BC, Physics C Mech/E&M (@ SOHS), APCSA (all 5s)
- Junior: AP Chemistry, US History, Music Theory, French. Multivariable Calculus @ SOHS
- Planned Senior: AP Econ, Psych, Lit, Stats
Awards
- Mainly DECA/FBLA, many awards stretching three years, ICDC finalist this year
Extracurriculars
- Unique small business with 125k in revenue. Self run, designed own product (mech eng, ee, and cs), marketed, sourced factories, etc. Product in production phase.
- Open source contributions on industry related project
- Paid summer internship with local property management company
- 3x AIME
- USACO Gold
- French National Contest Platinum
- Leadership @ Business Club, three year member
- Founding member + Leadership @ Quiz Bowl Club (won events in our first year together)
- Founding member + Leadership @ Research Club
- Cross Country (one year due to covid)
Essays/LORs/Other
English LOR should be extremely strong, my teacher really likes me.
STEM LOR should be all right, not bad but not outstanding either.
I could ask for a third LOR from Business Club advisor, she’s known me for three years and I’m in her class this year. Would be a very good rec as well.
Essays I have not yet written. I can draw on the subject matter of my business for a unique topic.
Cost Constraints / Budget
Will be full pay
Schools
I’ve only really looked at reaches. Would appreciate reccomendations for matches/safeties.
Stanford
MIT
UC Berkeley MET
UCLA
UPenn M&T
Cornell
Columbia
CMU
Beyond a name or a ranking, what are you looking for in a college? Larger or small school? Rural or more urban campus? What matters to you beyond saying “ivies or t10”? The likelihood of you getting into any of those you listed is a single digit chance.
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Look into Purdue University. Here is a link to their Data Digest: https://www.purdue.edu/datadigest/. If you look at the information from the “Student Enrollment” and the “Applications, Admits, and Matriculations” links, you may be able to get a sense of how you compare to recently admitted students.
Why is your STEM LoR mediocre?
Before anyone can help you, you need to answer this. Otherwise we’ll all just spit out pet schools and they might be a terrible fit.
Reaches seem super easy to identify for everyone due to name brand recognition. Do a little more research in the match and safety category (I would start with safety) and based on these preferences the community at CC will be able to help with more tailored advice. It seems like you’re interested in the intersection of business and STEM? Are you planning on continuing to grow your business while in college or will you be putting that project to bed? I would be tempted to go to a less expensive option for undergrad and use the price differential for a brand-name private university (price difference between say Stanford and SJSU or Cal) to invest in my business. Based on your extensive list of activities (are you actually human?) I would think it would be easy for you to complete your bachelor’s and grow your business at the same time. Just a few thoughts for you OP. Good luck!!!
The other thing that needs to be asked is, what is the goal for an apparent double major in CS or ME + business?
Safeties should be easy to find for an applicant with a 4.0 GPA in hard courses and ability to pay private college list price without debt, if your “fit” criteria are not wrapped up on how selective / exclusive / prestigious the college is, and you are not aiming for a few specific college-prestige-focused types of jobs.
I’d prefer mid-large sized school, preferably urban or suburban campus. Location wise, I highly prefer east/west coast but I’m open to other options as much.
In terms of academics, I’d like decently strong engineering as well as business schools. Is there anything I’m missing?
I can either ask my sophomore or my junior year Chem teacher, I think my sophomore teacher liked me more but that was last year, and this year my Chem teacher has been pretty unreliable and unresponsive to just about anything. I participate and go to office hours but I don’t feel a special bond with them.
Trying to major in both tends to require more than 8 full-load semesters of course work. In addition, some engineering employers are skeptical of college applicants who appear to see engineering as a stepping stone to management (as signaled by lots of business courses).
Which of CS, ME, or business is your primary academic and professional interest?
My primary interest would be engineering. I am more interested in the making things part than the management side.
Industrial Engineering might be of interest.
Better to focus on CS, ME, or whatever other engineering major is of interest to you, rather than try to cram in a second major in business.
Note: industrial engineering mentioned above is about designing processes, operations, and logistics, and has some overlap with some areas of business, though in a much more math and statistics heavy way.
Some safety schools for engineering on the West Coast would be Oregon State University and Washington State University; the University of Utah might be worth looking at, also.
The University of Washington would likely be a match (maybe a low reach?) Here is a link to the UW School of Computer Science and Engineering: Welcome to Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering | Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering
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University of Washington should be considered a reach for CS direct admission. CS applicants are often admitted without direct admission to CS (usually “pre-sciences”), but getting into CS after enrolling is very difficult and competitive.
Some other schools like UIUC, UCSD, and Purdue are similar in this respect of CS admission.
Engineering majors are often similar in this respect.
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Yes, I thought about that after I posted, and I should have removed the term “match”. Certainly the engineering students at those schools have higher stats than the rest of the student body; I know that CS is very competitive for admission at Purdue.
If you want to get in the weeds and “make stuff,” don’t choose IE. It’s about high level systems/operations.
Also, if you want to be in the weeds, don’t do business in undergrad. It will dilute your technical classes and employers will see that your heart isn’t in the tech stuff.
I’m thinking Pitt (nit coastal), BU, Northeastern, Miami,Oregon State, SDSU, maybe Embry Riddle or Florida Tech is aviation is an interest. I’d you want merit and they are not coastal or mis per say but U of Al, U of AZ, and MS State.
If your Chem teachers don’t think you are amazing, what about your Calc or Physics teachers? A so-so LoR can hurt, esp at the tippy tops.
Look into J.Fisher at Penn as well as NETS (reach).