Chance me for Stanford, Berkeley, Carnegie

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m a senior currently working on application essays to my reach schools, and I was interested to hear your thoughts on my chances of acceptance. I’m from a top competitive Michigan public school that sends about 1 or 2 kids to the ivies and about 25-40 kids to the state flagship Umich(another top choice for me) each year. I believe my academic and basic extracurricular stats are competitive enough for these schools and I’m just wondering if my application will be unique enough for these schools.

Here are my basic stats:

ACT Composite: 34 (Math: 36, English: 32, Reading 32, Science 36)
SAT II: Math 2 800, Physics 800
GPA: 3.99 UW, 4.42 W
Class Rank: 7/540

Senior Schedule:
AP Computer Science A
12th grade english
world history
finance
computer programming
Introduction to C++(at the local community college)

AP tests: 5 5’s and 3 4’s
Calc BC, physics C both mech and e and m, lang, environmental science, chemistry, APUSH, stats

Ec’s/awards:
3 years track and field,
2 years cross country,
1 year swim,
hopefully this year, I will make the varsity basketball team now that I’ve grown taller

mmpc(math competition) top 200 x 3 years,
AIME math competition sophomore year
national AP scholar as a junior

Race: Asian
Gender: male
Income bracket: 100k+

I know my senior schedule seems relaxed but I will explain in my essays and below why.

Essays: I want to talk about my entrepreneurial spirit, what I’ve accomplished so far and what I want to accomplish in the future.

Ever since I’ve been a little kid, I’ve always wanted to do something to help others. Toward sophomore year, I discovered I could achieve my goals through computer applications. Over 2 years, I’ve self taught myself how to develop complex web apps that are used my 10s of 1000’s of people. The reason why I’ve taken a step back from my junior schedule of 5 ap classes and an ib is to focus on growing my web application business from a small side business to a more substantial one. Overall, my websites have gotten over 100K combined visitors over a year, with my current project growing rapidly in traffic. I have also made 100s of dollars off of ad and commission revenue which I hope by the end of senior year I can turn into 1000s of dollars. I plan on pursuing a degree in cs so that I can create a company capable of delivering subsidized clean energy to all Americans through crowdfunding. Ever since I learned about the changing global environment while watching TV when I was a kid, I have always vowed that when I got older, I would do anything I could to help combat the deterioration of our global ecosystem.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, and if you were curious I’m currently planning on applying to 6 schools, Stanford, Berkeley, carnegie, Umich, University of waterloo and u Toronto

Thank you very much!

2

Stanford- Reach for everyone
UC Berkeley- Match for L&S, Reach for EECS (EECS is a reach for everyone)
Carnegie Mellon- Match
UMich- Match

I do not know much about University of Waterloo and U Toronto.

3

CS at CMU has one of the lowest acceptances rates in the world (5%). It’s a high reach for everyone. Check out admissions statistics:

http://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/undergraduate-admission-statistics

4

Umm, guys?.. I’ll chance back.

5

Your chances at Waterloo and U of T are high. However, they have become very competitive in the past few years. Their engineering programs have become more holistic. Their computer science programs may become holistic soon.

Canadian schools will look at your 12th grade grades more closely than your other grades. They won’t even look at 9th and 10th. It’s very likely you won’t get a decision from them until May.

6

bump

7

UC Berkeley is a public school funded by the California taxpayers. :(|)

Can your parents afford $55K per year for 4 years? At your parents income level, that doesn’t seem plausible. There is limited to no financial aid for OOS students. EECS is impacted. Being OOS won’t help.
Also, the UC’s require 1 year of visual or performing arts in a graded classroom. I don’t see any art curriculum listed.
http://www.ucop.edu/agguide/a-g-requirements/f-visual-performing-arts/index.html

Stanford will be a big reach since the trend seems to be CS majors and there are lots of them. You don’t appear to have any “hooks”, sorry.

8

I changed my mind, UMich is actually a high match/low reach because you are OOS. SCS at CMU has a really low acceptance rate (like 5%), so that is a low reach. I still think you are a competitive applicant, and you should definitely apply and see what happens.

9

I would suggest editing the essay before you submit it. Not sure, but I think you meant “by” not “my” in this sentence, “Over 2 years, I’ve self taught myself how to develop complex web apps that are used my 10s of 1000’s of people.” Also in that sentence, one-word numbers are supposed to be spelled out. so “two” “tens of thousands.” It looks like you are sending a text message when you don’t spell it out, rather informal. But, not all people agree with that rule so do as you wish.

10

@QuiteAverage90 Didn’t the OP say that he was in state for UMich?

Stanford is a reach, but you can definitely get into some of them. Do you have any safeties? I have no idea about the Canadian schools though.

11

thats not my essay @Runners , that’s just some ideas on what i’m writing about

12

Oh good, then those are good ideas.

13

Sorry, I did not read his thread properly the second time.

14

You should not have eased up in your senior year acadmics because you wanted to do other adventures! That will not look good to adcoms! How can you assure them, that you are not going to do the same once you get into collage?

15

If that is your essay, you should try to make it more personal and make it more about what the things you did mean to you. Might be helpful to keep some if the content if you are applying for early admit to Ross and CoE. My take:

Stanford- Reach (for most everyone)
UC Berkeley- Match , Reach for EECS
Carnegie Mellon- Low Reach
UMich- Match/Safety LSA, Match CoE, Reach Ross Pre-Admit
University of Waterloo - Match
U Toronto- Match

16

No OOS applicant is a match for Berkeley unless he/she has a Nobel prize lying around somewhere. It’s quite simply the most competitive public university in the country (though UMich can give them a run for their money), and nobody who calls these schools (or any Ivies/Stanford/MIT caliber colleges) a match for an OOS student is worth listening to.

17

-UC Berkeley and CMU are within reach based on your academics and EC’s, but don’t expect to think it’s an easy shot. Like what the other comments said, CMS SCS has a ~5% acceptance rate
-Stanford: you’re going against the best of the best (like Malala, the Nobel Peace Prize winner). This is an automatic reach based on the ~5% acceptance rate.
-Dropping down course rigor may not have been the best idea, but if that’s you wanted to do, then that’s fine.
-If you want to get into these schools, make your essay VERY PERSONAL
-I don’t know much about Waterloo and Toronto

-It’s still worth applying to CMU SCS and Stanford (you may never know). Keep UMich and Michigan State in mind and some safety schools just in case you get rejected from all of the colleges you applied to.

-Hope this helps and good luck applying!

18

@JMS357 Thanks!