Chance me for Penn, Northwestern, Cornell and more

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m a senior right now (white male, PA competitive public school, no need for financial aid), applying to the following schools for mechanical engineering:

UPenn (ED)
Cornell
Carnegie Mellon
Northwestern
University of Michigan
Penn State (UP + Schreyer’s)
Pitt

Here are my stats:

1470 SAT (one sitting, 740M 730R)
3.99 UW 4.20 W (45 of 330)
6 AP’s, 8 Honors
SATII Math II and Physics scores on the way

ECs:
FBLA President, 2x state qualifier 1x state champion/national qualifier, currently running the largest fundraiser in my school’s history
Finance Club President: manage and invest a $30000 fund
German Activity Club Vice President (I’ve taken 5 years of german)
FIRST Robotics (School team was a national champion last year)
Student council
Club council (each club sends one rep and we meet with the principal once a month)
Leadership course (had to apply for an extracurricular class taught by head principal on top of our existing course load, high honor
NHS
Yearbook (academic editor)
Academic team/quizbowl varsity

I know a lot of the schools are reaches and my academic stats alone aren’t Ivy material, but I think my essays and LORs are good and my FBLA fundraising should set me apart from most. It involves presenting to local businesses and receiving total donations in the thousands.

2

You are certainly competitive at ALL of these schools. Penn State and Pitt will accept you right away and since both are rolling you should hear very soon (with merit $ from Pitt I would guess). UPenn will like your ECs so that feels pretty solid. You look good for Northwestern and Michigan. Carnegie Mellon may be looking for something else, not sure. Cornell - son was waitlisted with SATs - 780 Writing, 760 Math, 640 Reading, plenty of honors courses, APs, sports, clubs, honor societies, jobs etc. Very competitive high school though so they probably could take only so many of our rock star students, so that could have been it. Took the waitlist deal, submitted new good stuff but did not get off the waitlist. You will have choices. Keep up the wonderful work!

3

@bigbrewer299 SAT is a bit low for Penn but you have other things going that could potentially help to make up for it. Applying ED also helps.

4

@timemanager — there will likely be no merit money from Pitt. 1480 SAT is their listed cutoff and historically they have been very tight about sticking to their published criteria.

https://oafa.pitt.edu/financialaid/academic-scholarships/university-scholarships/