Chance me for MIT, Columbia, Berkeley, UChicago, CMU, Stanford:

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Chance me for MIT, Columbia, Berkeley, UChicago, CMU, Stanford:

(Note: I am American citizen, but currently live in the UAE)

UW GPA: 3.79 (sadly with downward trend junior year)
ACT: 35, 36 Superscore
SAT subject scores: 800 for Math, 750 for Physics

Extracurriculars:

  • Researcher at Local University of Solar optimization for a year and a half (paper going under peer-review at UAE EE/CS publisher)
  • Keynote speaker at School Tedx on AI, now one of the key presidents
  • Founder of a multi private school Hackathon with over 70 kids (one of the largest in the country)
  • Founder and President of School STEM club that has over 60 members and participates in STEM competitions in the country.
  • Intern at a Fortune 500 company redoing their network for a summer
  • App developer with over 10,000 downloads over 2 apps.
  • Captain of Forensics and Academic Games team (one 2nd and third at multiple tournaments)
  • 80 volunteering hour at local organization
  • President of some smaller clubs
  • Hobbies: building Farnsworth fusers, Tesla coils, other unorthodox projects (wrote essay on this)

Hooks/Awards:

  • Top 10 in CS and AI olympiad (ranked 5) in the UAE. Currently undergoing training to participate in a international competition
  • Top 100 in Physics olympiad 2 years in a row (88, and 15 respectively) Got really close to participating in the IPHO this year!
  • Won multiple smaller awards for Physics and CS in school.

I think that my Ecs and my scores are good, but my gpa is really bad, really due to a bad year in junior year. Do you think it’s going to sink me?

2

Do you have a weighted GPA? Your UW is not really bad, just low for the schools you’re looking at. All of those schools are reaches for everyone not a legacy or majorly hooked. You’re in the same boat as most people, so I’d say your chances will come down to your essays and recommendations.

3

If you had straight A’s junior year, then “MIT, Columbia, Berkeley, UChicago, CMU, Stanford” would still be reaches. In the unlikely event that you get accepted to any of these schools, expect them to be quite a bit more difficult than your junior year of high school was.

You need to be also applying to other schools that you actually expect to be accepted to. There are a lot of other universities that are very good and are easier to get into.

Can you afford to be full pay at UC Berkeley?

4

My Weighted GPA is 4.4 I believe (as I have taken all honors and gifted courses, and have taken IB courses junior and sophomore year: HL physics, HL math, HL CS, and HL Econ, SL lit, and SL Spanish, and the 4 HLs proved to be a little too much)

Also, I kind of want to touch on my awards, my physics olympiad award is equivalent to being selected for the top 20 for training in the USAPHO (as there were a total of 7,000 test takers this year)

My AI/CS olympiad award will hopefully allow me to go with a team to compete at an international level, as I am the top 10 in the country of 6,000 students.