I’m currently a junior in high school (in-state), and College Park is one of my current top choices.
Stats-
AP Classes:
-Government -U.S. History
-World History -Physics
-Human Geography -Language and Composition
Weighted GPA: 4.43
Unweighted GPA: 4.0
-I’ve made my school’s Honor Roll multiple times.
Activities:
-Marching Band (I’m going to be section leader this year)
-JV Volleyball (Freshman year only)
-Academic Challenge Team Captain
-Volunteer at local summer camp program
-Member of Rho Kappa (Social Studies Honors Society)
-Debate Club
-Mock Trial Team
-Physics Olympics Team
-I currently have over 400 service hours.
-Pianist for our school’s last two musicals as well as this year’s.
SAT: 1430
Math: 690
Reading: 740
Essay: 21
-I’m taking it again one more time in the spring, but I’m worried about how my scores will turn out.
Thank you in advance for your honesty!
You did not mention any advanced math classes, so not sure if that is an oversight…What interests you about engineering?
In my opinion, you need to bring your math score up for engineering. A good strategy would be to focus your attention only on practicing for the math portion since Maryland super scores and your current reading score is good/will be used regardless of how you fare on the second go round. While your math score is within range for general admission to the university, it is not within the 25th percentile of students admitted to engineering. I believe that the math score is more critical than your combined score.
Here is the profile for current engineering freshmen …
AT/ACT/GPA information for the class of 2020 is as follows:
Average GPA: 4.44
Combined math/critical reading SAT scores:
Average: 1402
25th percentile: 1340
75th percentile: 1470
SAT math scores:
Average: 730
25th percentile: 700
75th percentile: 770
SAT critical reading scores:
Average: 671
25th percentile: 620
75th percentile: 720
ACT scores:
Average: 32
25th percentile: 30
75th percentile: 34
Keep up the great work on gpa!
I’ve only taken the Honors Math classes so far offered by my school - Algebra I and II, Geometry, and Trig/Pre-Calc. I’m looking forward to AP Calculus AB and BC next year.
Engineering interested me since I’ve always enjoyed the math and problem-solving aspects of engineering, and a huge love for anything in space.
Thank you for your advice and information!
My son’s high school was same way - only honors offered up until Calc which was AP, but that helps to know as without mentioning those classes at all, I was not sure where your interest in engineering came from because math is so fundamental to the field.
Since you are a junior, you may want to consider doing one of the summer pre-college programs that Maryland offers. There are two that may be of interest. There is https://oes.umd.edu/middle-high-school-students/terp-young-scholars which I highly recommend - it offers 3 engineering class options - I would suggest the engineering design class, but any of them are good. That is a 3 week residential program that offers 3 college credits. In addition to taking an actual engineering course, it’s a great opportunity to live on campus and see what college life is like, and I highly recommend it. The applications open Feb 20 and engineering seats do fill up fast.
Alternatively, there is also a one week program http://www.ursp.umd.edu/summer which has not been updated for 2018 yet but should be by next month, so def check back on that one if that interests you more, but act quickly because that one only takes 30 students. There are no college credits earned for this as it is more of an overview of engineering rather than an actual engineering course.
Best of luck!