Chance me for MIT

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

Stats:
Class rank: 3/499
GPA: 3.98 unweighted, 4.5 probably i think weighted never checked
Courses: 10 APs, 5’s on all but 2, taking college lv linear algebra atm
SAT: 1550 first time 1560 second time, (800 math, 760 reading, 8/12 essays)
ACT: 35, 32/35/36/36 cuz i figured i would score better on sat second time so I took it for fun, didn’t realize how many problems were in math so I left around 10 blank by accident
public high school pretty meh ranking

EC:
did all the volunteering ones for all 4 years, NHS, historian in key club
volunteered in panama (built a court over a week) and china (Taught english for a week)
mainly Knowledge bowl (3rd and 2nd in region past 2 yrs)
and Science Olympiad (1st in state in multiple events, 4th at nationals in one event)
Did state science fair in fresh and soph year, won 1st in category both times but didn’t qualify for ISEF
junior varsity golf freshman year, c team tennis junior year
was vp of math club in soph year but it was only 4 people large so…
National merit scholarship semifinalist 1490 score
went to MIT for selective summer course this summer (90/400 accepted, 50 with full rides including me) called BWSI
also went to UMBC for an internship (4 weeks long) Afterwards, should be a decent rec letter
also play a lot of video games wonder if i should list that (diamond 3 league, legend hearthstone)

Letters:
all should be pretty meh, might have a decent one from my math teacher who’s known me for 3 years and i’m one of the top performers in her class/actively participate

Essays:
ugh having a lot of trouble writing them cuz im really bad at writing but hopefully should be above par by the end

Demographics:
100k+ income, chinese, male, washington state

definitely doing either CS, Math, Physics or EE in college, currently my list is

MIT: reach
Ivies + stanford: reach
Berkeley: match
GTech: match
Carnegie Mellon: match
Harvey Mudd: match
UW: safety

does that sound about right or am i overestimating my chances. what other good cs schools are there?

thanks

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bump

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Your numbers are definitely good enough. Submit your SAT scores only. Your ACT isn’t as impressive and not necessary. As an Asian male, you’ll need strong letters and extracurriculars. I can’t comment on your video game skills, but I’m guessing that isn’t something that will wow the admissions committee. Maybe someone else can shed better light on that. Pursue the Science Olympiad because high achievers at the national level is what will help your cause. All the other things you’re doing isn’t compelling enough to make much difference.

4

UW is a match or low-reach for CS or engineering.
CMU and Mudd are reaches for everyone, even if they’re not as high of a reach as MIT.

5

MIT: reach
Ivies + stanford: reach
Berkeley: ?
GTech: ?
Carnegie Mellon: reach (the cs acceptance rate is like 3%)
Harvey Mudd: reach
UW: high match (CS is uber competitive)

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bump again cuz im bored

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When are you applying? What are your subject test results?

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@lazyafazn If you were not able to get your Georgia Tech app in by the EA deadline of Oct 15, may
turn out to be hard to get in as an out of state student, if you put computer science
as your major. I have seen about four (small sample size, but just
so you know ) perfect grade and perfect scoring students from Colorado,
even girls, get a wait list or reject from GT when they apply RD. Those same students
get into Berkeley and UCLA by the way. They have the stats, but GT is about half
the size of the really large public schools. 15,000 versus 30,000 undergrads.

Think about adding Purdue and UIUC to your list, almost guaranteed you will
get into both. UIUC has the identical program to MIT’s EECS, but it is a monstrously large
school, with lots of Chicago kids in cliques. Purdue I think may be a tad easier once you get
there, but the rank of Purdue Engineering is right up there, in the top ten.

How about Caltech? Its small like MIT, may be easier as an Asian male to get into Caltech.
Caltech is on the quarter calendar, which is very intense, compared to the semester calendar
for some students. Caltech does not offer the breadth of majors, like business, economics, urban planning,
political science etc you would get at MIT, or any of the public programs,
but for your intended majors, its at the top of the heap. (math, physics, EECS).

Harvey Mudd College does not have the research options on campus that all your other
choices have. Its a very small undergraduate school, and you would get to know your professors
very well. Apparently its harder to get As at Harvey Mudd than it is at Caltech or MIT, there are posts
about the tough grading you can read. So if you want to attend grad school, think about that tough grading
system.

Both Caltech and MIT offer at least one semester or quarter pass fail.

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Because the Beaver Works summer program is very new, I don’t know how much that will help your MIT application.
Paradoxically it may help your application at all the other schools, given the MIT name on your resume.

RSI is a well known and very competitive summer research program housed at MIT, that seems to be helpful
for participants to get into top colleges, but I don’t know how Beaver Works will be viewed, its focused on engineering, here are the details for those that want to learn more.

https://beaverworks.ll.mit.edu/CMS/bw/bwsi

You do have some great extracurriculars and I hope those programs helped you narrow your major choice between engineering, CS, math and physics. As I mentioned above, other top CS program is UIUC, really is stellar, for physics, EE and math as well. If you can stand a large program, like Berkeley, UIUC might be a bit less distracting. UIUC has a lot of students from mainland China and Chinese American students. Not sure if that would be a positive, neutral or negative for you , but
the midwestern flavor would be different than your home state. Its about 2.5 hours from Chicago as well. . There is enough to do at UIUC minus the political protests that seem to be cropping up on the west coast right now.

UCLA is another good choice for CS, if you prefer the west coast.

Cornell U is a very top computer science program as well, if you want to be in a colder climate, with lots of skiing
and hiking close by.

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Wow, that was super descriptive! Yeah I’m definitely applying to Caltech as well but idk about my chances haha. I haven’t heard about UIUC before so I’ll definitely check that out. Thanks for the detailed reply, extremely helpful!

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rebump again cuz im procrastinating on an essay

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Do you mind sharing which college you got in because my son has very similar profile as yours. I want to know his chance for MIT. He is a junior now. Thanks.