Chance me for Stanford / MIT

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Chance me for my admission in Stanford / MIT for an undergraduate degree in Computer Science. Although I will be applying to other colleges, these two are what I am aiming for.
(All criticism and compliments are welcome) </p>

<p>Since I am currently in Grade XI, there are a few things I am mentioning which are predicted (for eg a few AP scores and ACT scores). This is where I plan to be by July 2015 (some specifics not mentioned to protect anonymity)</p>

<p>Although, I know that these don't guarantee my chances of admission into my dream college, I would certainly appreciate any and every advice or suggestion, which could increase my chances (even by a small amount).</p>

<p>AP Scores :
Calculus BC : 5
Computer Science : 5
Physics C (EM) : 5
Physics C (Mech) : 5
Chemistry : 5</p>

<p>SAT II :
Mathematics : 800
Physics : 800
Chemistry : 800</p>

<p>ACT (expected)
Math : 36
Composite : 35 - 36
Writing : 34</p>

<p>CLUBS :
Computer Club, School
Aerospace Society, School
Physics Society, School
Chemistry Society, School
Maths Society, School
Law Club, School
Mensa, India</p>

<p>MUSIC :
Learning Indian classical for past 12 years
Achieved SoA with Distinction in online courses relating to music theory and guitar
Part of the Indian music choir
Played at various events</p>

<p>NGO :
Working as an Associate Technical Developer in a large NGO in India. Frequently go on field trips to schools for underprivileged children. Developing applications for them (to be run on devices provided by the NGO) to aid in reading and learning. </p>

<p>ACADEMICS :
9th : CGPA 10
10th : CGPA 10
11th : 93%</p>

<p>WORK EXPERIENCE : </p>

<p>Started work as an intern at a start-up in May '14. Currently positioned as Technical Director, handling two projects regarding mobile application development. Involved in joint venture with TWG, Canada to set up a base for outsources in India.</p>

<p>Developing mobile and desktop applications since the past 3 years. Developed applications for iOS, Windows Phone, Android and Windows Desktop. Currently working on an advanced voice assistant application. </p>

<p>TECHNICAL SKILLS :
Programming experience in over 15 languages
Software development : iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8
Digital Imaging, Web designing
3D Modeling in various softwares
Certified as a Microsoft Specialist and a Microsoft Professional Developer</p>

<p>EXTRA CURRICULAR :
NTSE Scholar
JSTSE Scholar
AIR 3 in the HDFC Meritus Scholarship. Awarded a cash prize of Rs. 50,000
AIR 2 in the MJ Maths Scholarship exam. Awarded a cash prize of Rs 15,00,000 </p>

<p>Aiming to be part of the IOI Team representing India in IOI '15</p>

<p>Awarded a cash prize by the as a part of the Government of India's SEATS Scheme to supply budding scientists with resources so they could make science projects. Designed and created a robotic remote control car which could be hooked up to a computer and run with a self-designed software.</p>

<p>Selected for the INSPIRE Internship, organized by the Government of India, Department of Science. </p>

<p>Awarded the Best Research Project Award at the Intel UNESCO Hackathon coordinated by Intel and UNICEF</p>

<p>Winner at over 15 state-level maths and science quizzes and competitions.</p>

<p>Completed a multitude of online courses on Coursera, edX and Stanford Online (15+) in various fields : Computer Science (Theory, AI, Software development), Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Quantum Mechanics and Chemistry. Achieved a Statement of Accomplishment with Distinction (wherever possible). Top 1% percentile in all courses. </p>

<p>Winner at over 20 state-level competitions in Programming, 3D Modeling, App Idea pitching, Crossword, Quizzing, Software Development and Audio Editing. </p>

<p>National winner at various online programming events (not mentioned to maintain anonymity)</p>

<p>Internationally Rank 1, Unified Cyber Olympiad
Internationally Rank 3, National Cyber Olympiad (this started of as a national event but has expanded to schools all over South East Asia)
Internationally Rank 5, International Mathematics Olympiad (held by SOF. Not to be confused with "THE IMO")</p>

<p>AEROSPACE : </p>

<p>1st in the International Space Habitat Design Competition (SHDC), attended a one-week course at the EuroSpace Center (ESC) in Belgium, courtesy ESC.</p>

<p>Stood 3rd in the International NASA AMES competition, invited for the International Space Developers Conference (ISDC) in San Diego.</p>

<p>Runners up at the Asian regional Space Settlement Design Competition (ARSSDC) in Asia (2012, 2013)</p>

<p>Runners up at the International Space Settlement Design Competition (ISSDC) in Asia (2014)
Appointed as the Vice President - Engineering ISSDC 2014, held at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. </p>

<p>I have a year left for my college applications to be submitted, which gives me a lot of time to build up my resume.
Open to all suggestions :D</p>

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<p>I’d say your chances at MIT are better than at Stanford. For Stanford, you need more extracurricular activities, or something unique. You still have very good chances for both though. </p>

3

<p>OP. Yes, Stanford is the most difficult school to get into in this country. But, they do not care how many extracurricular activities you “list” or involved with…rather, they are looking for someone who is actively and passionately involved with one or two activity(ies) and is striving to be the best at it (whatever it happens to be) preferably internationally>nationally…</p>

<p>…and it looks like you are doing what you are passionate about. Keep it up!</p>

4

<p>@niktheslick‌ Thanks for your opinion.
Could you give me some tips on what would be unique ? What all could I do ? </p>

5

<p>While Stanford and MIT are reach schools for anybody, I think you will definitely be a competitive applicant to either of those schools. Keep up the great work and I’m sure you’ll end up at one of those top schools!</p>

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<p>@sabmohmayahai‌ - I would advise you to also consider CMU SCS.</p>

<p>Regarding your odds at top colleges in the USA - you will likely fall into the “academic superstar” category, and could well be admitted on this basis alone - in which case ECs will only play an ancillary role in your application. I think you will enjoy good to excellent chances at any college you decide to apply to, including Stanford and MIT.</p>

<p>Good luck on your ACT!</p>

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<p>you look more like a MIT student than Stanford. Enter siemens and see how you do- it should help. If you don’t live in America, try Google Science Fair instead.</p>

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@BldrDad‌ Thanks a lot! I just got my ACT results :
Composite : 36
Maths : 36
Writing : 34 (10/12)

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@sabmohmayahai - Congratulations! As top-tier college admissions decisions are unpredictable, If you are serious about studying in the USA, I would advise you to apply to several schools you believe would provide sufficient academic challenge, and - if you need aid, the aid you need (either need or merit-based).

Some other schools you might want to considered based on their academic reputation and aid policies might be Harvard, Princeton, CMU SCS, and Harvey Mudd, as well as some of the public universities with highly regarded computer science departments (Georgia Tech, Michigan, UC Berkeley, and UIUC, to name a few). If you do require aid, you would likely get little need-based aid from the public universities but some of them offer merit scholarships to top students.

You won’t be able to apply to MIT early action, and it’s not clear there is an advantage to applying early to Stanford, so you might want to consider early applying to other schools (either Harvard or Princeton SCEA, or any combination of EA schools).

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A beautiful application but a big part of those ECs/Competitions are meaningless. The competitions are awesome and really show your passion for computers;however, it looks like you just entered any competition that you could possible find whether it holds any merit or not. Crossword competitions? Audio editing? Those can’t be competitive at all but I guess they do help to round your application. A lot of those awards are really specific and non competitive, some are definitely not, but lots of them are. IMO looks great… until they realize it’s not IMO. Online coding competitions? What even is that? Winner at over 15 state-level maths and science quizzes? You won quizzes…? like quiz bowl? That’s okay I guess.

Your application is great without all of the padding that you’ve put on to it. It looks like you’ve just listed everything you’ve done from the 8th grade onward… I don’t think the schools really want to see all of it. Condense it down in to the achievements that represent you the best.

I’m not sure at all, but I really dont think technical skills should be listed on a college application unless you’re certified in them or else people would list everything they have even the slightest skills in. You’d have someone who has taken a basic computer science class putting stuff like “Programming in C, C++, C#, Python, Java, Visual Basic, and PERL. Web design in HTML, PHP, ASP, and JavaScript. Wrote programs in all of those.” When in reality they barely know any of the syntax and have written one “hello world” program in each and since colleges cant really verify they look the same.

Remember that the acceptance rate for Indians is generally 1/3-1/5 of the normal acceptance rate, so you have to be in probably the top 10 students in all of India to get in. In fact, I just checked and the acceptance rate is around 3 percent. Your application looks amazing but it’s very hard to say that you’re one of the absolute in the country. It would be hard to say that no matter what you did. Overall, you’ve done pretty awesome and I think you have as good of a shot as you can get.

P.S. Dang, rupees are worth like nothing; I though those prizes were like tons.
P.S. Would you mind PMing me a little bit about getting certifications from EdX, Coursera, and Stanford Online? I’ve taken a few courses from there but I really have no freakin’ clue how to get a certification from some of them.

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Hi! I am a 11th grader from India applying this year too!

First of all, congratulations on scoring well throughout your school years and also that 36 on the ACT!

I agree with @MandarinSin‌. Although you have a great application, most of the stuff that you have listed above is redundant. I would shorten the amount of activities that you put on the application to only the ones that truly represent who you are and what your goals are. For example, being in the Law club or playing music isn’t of any help to a CS major. Same goes with the crossword, audio-editing contests etc. Other activities such as the CS club, Physics/Chem club are great! Have you attained a leadership position in any of them? That would be better!

Second, I would remove the list of courses that you have taken on several MOOCs and retain only a few that have some meaning to your application. They are free to do and there isn’t any exclusivity or prestige about them. You could also condense your list of quiz contests and other competitions to list only the ones that are relevant and worth mentioning.

NTSE. Great! and JSTSE? (I haven’t heard of this one, but I’m assuming its somewhat the same as NTSE). List the scholarships only if you are confident that they are worth mentioning.

Making the IOI team is pretty difficult. Still, try your level best as making it will increase your chances drastically (although not guarantee you admission).

All in all, I see a somewhat average application for any serious Ivy League applicant with some sparks of brilliance in between. ARSSDC is something that I see every applicant doing, whereas, I haven’t come across a single person who has worked so closely with an NGO and also acts as a TD for a start-up (which, I’m assuming is something serious, not like the start-ups that every other kid in town seems to be doing). With great essays, I am sure that you can make it to any college of your choice. Do not mess up anything now and work hard towards your final year in school and your essays.

If you have the time and money, you should look into summer programs such as SUMaC, etc. SSP was one great program but the deadline has passed.

Best of luck!

PS: Are you from DPS, RKP?

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@MandarinSin‌ I agree with you in that all those state-level competitions don’t really mean much. A few of the inter-schools do hold merit, but they are international / national level. Regarding the quizzes, yeah they were like quiz bowls, but I don’t think I’ll send it in as part of my application when applying to colleges.
“Programming experience in over 15 languages” does not refer to writing a “Hello World” program. All the languages I have listed there (forgot to mention them here) are those which I have done an online course, acquired a certification , or used in developing applications, softwares or websites. I have not mentioned any language here which I don’t use in a professional field.
Haha, yeah Rupees do seem like a lot in the beginning, but converting them to dollars seems like diminishing their value. That scholarship converted to dollars would give about $25,000 by the current conversion rate.

I realize that all those clubs don’t really matter in the end. I initially thought it would. I really agree with you in that adding them would just make it look like I’m “Resume Building”.

Overall, after removing all these, I think I have some space to fill. I have been selected for IOI TC, IOL TC and possible IMO TC as well (results will come out in the next couple of days). So I will be working on extensively those till July.
What do you suggest I do in the remainder of the year?

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@mumbai98‌ Glad to know your views on my application. I have already applied to SSP, and am finishing my application for SUMaC.
JSTSE is like NTSE, but held for the state of Delhi, so maybe that is why you haven’t heard of it.
As I wrote in my reply to MandarinSin, I will remove a lot of the ‘not-so-valuable’ things from my resume, and leave only the major ones. While writing this post earlier, I was under the impression that they were important.
You mentioned that “being in the Law club or playing music isn’t of any help to a CS major”. I agree it doesn’t. It doesn’t accentuate my computer skills. On the other hand, it shows my interests. It shows them what I love to do when I’m not on the computer.

I’d like to get in touch with you. PM me ?

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It’s an axing application for sure and you will definelty be competitive at MIT and Satnford but definelty check out Carnegie Mellon too! You seem more like a CMU or MIT guy then a Stanford guy so check them out! Great ACT

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*amazing sorry

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@sabmohmayahai‌ It is great to know that you have made it to such TCs. Congratulations on that feat! I appeared for the NMO but messed it up big time because I did not get a lot of time to study. It would be great if you can make it to IMOTC too. But aren’t they held at nearly the same time? IDK about the linguistics one but I am pretty sure that IOITC and IMOTC are held at just about the same time. Which one would you choose should such a situation arise?

BTW, I have PMed you.