Chance me for Stanford REA for CS and UC Berkeley EECS (M&T)?

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Stanford results come in 5 days, and since I’m stressed out anyway, I figured I’ll have my self-esteem destroyed here while I’m at it.

Demographics: 1st generation Indian male, born and raised on Long Island, NY. Upper-middle class family in a middle class, average school district. Graduating with 13 out of 18 APs offered. School only has an Ivy acceptance every 2-3 years.

GPA: 94.6735 UW and 96.8776 W. School uses percentage, not sure how my GPA measures up.

SAT: 1540/1600 with 7-8-7 essay, 22/24 (Super scored 770 Math and 770 English, though highest individual is 1530)

ACT: 36 (36 M and S, 35 E and R) with 10/12 essay

SAT II: 700 chem (yeesh), 790 Math II, 800 Physics

Class Rank: Unknown, not sure if I can find out. I estimate to be top 7% of 307 students, at the very least.

AP Exams: 4s in Chemistry, Physics 1, Psychology, and English Language. 3s in APUSH and AP World History. Not my strongest area. AP Scholar with Distinction.

Extracurriculars: No outstanding "spikes" or awards, probably my weakest part.

Studied a 3-year course of Sanskrit during high school and received a certificate from UPenn. I have been learning conversational Sanskrit since the fourth grade.

Used to host a monthly radio show in my mother-tongue, Telugu. The script was created by two other co-hosts and me, although we had some help from parents regarding vocabulary.

Taught children ages 3-5 the aforementioned language as a form of community service. Approximately 40 hours.

Interned/externed/shadowed at an ethanol distillery in India for 2 weeks. My father is a close friend of the founder, whom I stayed with, observed, and completed some work for. I was able to gain and in-depth understanding of the factory's procedures, and learned what a startup is like.

Volunteered at a local hospital for 70 hours, and at the local gurudwara (the "soup kitchen" portion) for another 10-20 (ongoing). I also peer-tutored after school, but will have to check for hours.

Member of NHS.

Awarded on the state level for DECA in marketing categories, with 5th and 7th place iirc. Also awarded for 4th place in an FBLA Impromptu Speaking competition. Looking to run for President/ VP this year.

Attended a 2-week camp at Hofstra University about coding in Python using Raspberry Pis, and I am self-teaching myself more about Python. Learned some coding online in Javascript and HTML (yes, not really a coding language...). Picked up REALbasic/ Xojo in a programming class at school. Also learned RobotC in my robotics class.

I play tennis for my school, and went from being 3rd singles to 1st singles, then back to 3rd singles as I moved schools and went up a conference. I won 1st place in doubles and 2nd place in singles in a local cultural organization's tournament. I've been playing recreationally since I was 9.

*Hobbies include reading, weightlifting, and gaming.

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Forgot to add:

Essays and supplements should be 9.5/10 as I worked on each for about 7 revisions (11 for Common app essay) with a private consultant.

Talked to my recommenders: Physics teacher said it was the easiest letter for him to write (sounds good I think) and my English Lang teacher said that it’s the best letter he’s ever written, hands down (I was his favorite student, most others slept in his classes). No clue about the counselor recommendation. I had a 3rd optional recommendation from the CEO of the distillery whom I shadowed, not sure how well it was written but he is very well spoken, supportive, and assertive.

As an addendum to the coding section, I wrote and run a bot on Reddit called “SubCorrectorBot” which makes browsing Reddit more intuitive by fixing bad subreddit-links. About 300 corrections a day and high approval rating.

All comments are greatly appreciated!

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Bump??

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Stanford is tough without incredible ECs but I think you could get into Berkeley pretty easily because of your stats

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@Shadoom13579 I think you have great chances at berkeley. Stanford is a crapshoot tho, but you might get in if your essays are super amazing and your personality clicks with them.

@doorrealthe I’m in a very similar situation as the op, except I’m a junior hoping to apply next year. Essentially the same scores with minor minor fluctuations. My gpa will probably be a little lower tho (~3.8 unweighted), but I’m taking the absolute most rigorous classes and will be receiving 3 or 4 b’s first semester of junior year, but I realized my mistakes and should be getting straight A’s next semester. I’m just really worried that I screwed it up this semester. I do have really great ec’s tho, but no spectacular awards. Here is the link to my form: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/2033819-what-are-my-chances-for-mit-stanford-caltech-and-berkeley-eecs-and-how-can-i-improve-them-p1.html.

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Your EC’s don’t point to a particular passion.

Stanford likes to see a passion in the community that carries through.

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@“aunt bea” would you say he has chances at Berkeley for eecs and other similar schools? At least a low to mid tier ivy?

I definitely agree that Stanford is very tough to get into even if you’re extremely perfect. However, do extracurriculars and major accomplishment in a particular passion matter at schools one tier below HYPSM like those I mentioned above?

I’m starting to realize that extracurriculars are very hard. Sure you can be like me and just try and do as much as possible, but depth is what I find difficult. I do have maybe two or three meaningful ec’s as well as a bunch of meaningless stuff. I just don’t do very well in competitions and don’t have a laundry list of awards. But can the spring of junior year and the summer thereafter be the highlight of my application? This is the time when I’ll probably be most involved in projects and research. I also have like 5-10 competitions on my list during this time.

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You guys are at least half right, I ended up getting rejected from Stanford. I think I’m out of Berkeley’s MET program, too, since they didn’t email about an interview (which I hear is the next step in the process). Will update you on how EECS goes.