<p>Stats:[list]
[<em>]SAT: na/ -results given dec 21st
[</em>]SAT II: Math Level II : 790 Physics: 800
[<em>]ACT: not taken
[</em>]GPA: 4.00 UW
[<em>]Rank: 5/111 ish (the top 20% of my school gets into ivies each year)
[</em>]Other Tests (AMC, AP, IB):[IBH Math 7; IBH Physics 7+;IBH Chemistry 7+; IBS Economics 7; IBS English (A1) 7-; IBS French B 6- (these are my junior/senior year semester grades, not actual IB marks); In addition I have a shocking upward trend of grades between 9th and 10th grades. My average was a 5/7 (C) and it became an average of 7+/7 (higher than A+) pretty much overnight. ]
Subjective[]
[<em>]Essays: First one is about how my extremely close relationship with my blind and severely epileptic mother has influenced my outlook on life. I talk about how family circumstances mean I basically never see my dad and have to singlehandedly take care of my mother and how this affected my values and aspirations.
The second essay is about my obsession with making robots with LEGO Mindstorms since I was 10 and my passion for programming. I wrote about all the robots Ive made and in particular the book scanner I made to digitalize my textbooks using OCR (optical character recognition) I gave a link to it working and the final product on youtube.<br>
[</em>]Recs: First is from Chem teacher who believes I am an otherworldly genius (he even stated that he thinks I could teach the course better than he does in the rec letter)
The second is from my econ teacher who also likes to exaggerate and use SAT words
probably raving but seeing where I am applying it is basically a requirement.
[<em>]Supplementary Material: Research abstract for research in Physical Chemistry with an interesting result.
[</em>]Summer Activities:
- Programming in Wolfram Mathematica, JAVA, C++ and Python for 3 years. I have been able to make several models for my IBH science courses.
- Making and Programming LEGO Mindstorms robots since I was 10 yrs old. Made a book scanner.
- Unpaid Internship at American Cancer Society NY Branch Was able to get a rec letter from the head of the program praising my work in setting up the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer event. 110 hours for both Junior and Senior Years.
-Attended a Columbia U. Materials Science and Nanotechnology program. I impressed the program head so much that he (a Columbia Chem Prof) wrote a really nice rec for me.
- Volunteer work at my school for helping little kids for 2 years (180 hours total)s
[<em>]Hook(recruited athlete, legacy, Nobel Prize):[you tell me
Also, does being Italian make any difference? Ive been getting a mixed reaction about this; tell me what you think + justifications]
Personal[list]
[</em>]Location: NYC
[<em>]High School Type: Small--Private
[</em>]Ethnicity: White (Italian citizen; US Permanent Resident)
[<em>]Gender:[male]
Other[my mother never went to college; my dad did. I am middle class in terms of wealth.]
[</em>]Extracurriculars: I pursue all my summer activities during the year with the exception of the American Cancer Society and School Volunteer works with little kids.<br>
In addition:
-President of Math Club for 2 years (my school is by no means a STEM magnet school...)
As president I tripled membership and was able to break the School records for AMC participation (the Club advisor , the head of the math department, wrote a raving rec for me about how I revolutionized the club)
- I have been playing Go (ancient Chinese board game look it up, its quite interesting) for approx. 15 hrs/week for the past 4 years and have won some local tournaments.
[li]Awards: Nothing big like Siemens or Intel STS unfortunately just very generic stuff.[/li]-Principals award for academic excellence years 10,11,12.
- Award for best history student in 10th grade (who would have thought
?)</p>
<p>Intended major : Computer Science</p>
<p>OK, now that my info is done, a couple of small remarks.
Yes I am aware that my ECs are the black hole of my application, the point from which all hope escapes and does not return.
My MIT interview was pretty good (lasted for quite a bit, around 1.5 to 2 hours and I got the sense that the EC liked me a lot), however, MIT is way over my head, I wont get in either way.
I am only applying RD.
Yes I have realized for some time now that my top schools are way over my head especially Stanford from which I seriously expect rejection , white male + nonathletic = impossible there (or really anywhere for that matter) . Is Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science a realistic goal for me?</p>
<p>Places I am applying to:
Stanford
MIT
Caltech
Columbia Fu engineering
Carnegie Mellon
Harvey Mudd
Macaulay Honors College at CUNY
SUNY Stonybrook
Rensselaer Polytechnic I. </p>
<p>Oh yes and about SAT Is. I will get them on dec 21st and update then. If you feel you cant chance me without them, then DONT WASTE YOUR TIME TELLING ME SO. Otherwise, please consider putting in the effort to tell me my chances for different SAT I score ranges.
Thank for your time</p>