Demographics: White male at college prep school in California
Intended Major: Computer Engineering
Academics: 3.7 UW (started out weak, straight A’s junior year)
Have always taken the hardest courses possible offered at my school.
ACT:35
SAT II: Math II-800, Physics-750
Extracurriculars:
Internship at highly respected and well-know software company (I attended a selective summer program run by said company and they later offered me an internship)
App in the app store with 500+ downloads
Countless hours dedicated to schools robotics team. I am the president and have been doing it for my entire HS career.
-President of school’s physics club, which has been mentioned on the local news
Member of team responsible for testing new technology and teaching others about it (you have to be selected by my school’s administration to join this)
Other minor IT certifications
President of school’s math club
Notes: I have a really good story for my essay that I can write passionately about
Schools:
Carnegie Mellon
Stanford
Cornell
Vanderbilt
Duke
UC Berkley
UC Davis
UCLA
UCSB
UCSD
UVa
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Cal Poly SLO
Questions: I’m currently a junior, so if you guys have any advice, please feel free to tell me.
If you chance me, leave a link to your thread and I’ll chance you back
ok academics (upward trend can help schools overlook your initial struggles), interesting ECs, and hopefully coming from a college prep school that sends a lot of kids to top schools? I think you’ll get a good look, if you can keep up your gpa.
Robotics Club officers at my school have gone to top schools. I hope I’ll(and you from yours) be next. I think with the lower GPA, Berkeley, LA, Vanderbilt, CMU, Stanford, Cornell and Duke will be a little hard. But good chances for the other one. Chance me? http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19014946#Comment_19014946
@canIgetinCollege Thanks for the reply (I chanced you)! I’m pretty bummed out about my GPA… do you think I have a good chance at getting into at least one of the schools you mentioned are reaches?
My S1 had very similar profile as you and was waitlisted at Stanford, MIT, Caltech. He was accepted at Columbia where dad had attended for masters and cousin was attending. Being a non-urm male from an affluent family in an over represented state can hurt at some elite schools even if you show amazing potential.
The thing is no one can predict your chances at the elite schools even if you have amazing stats and EC’s (which you do). You have no hook so at best they are very slim but applying to lots of them will increase your chances. Just remember you can always go for a masters at one of these schools as long as you get in a top 30 or 40 school and graduate with a killer gpa. Good luck!
@KathleenA Wow! What you say cones as a big surprise for me.Did you son really have a lower gpa like mine and still get into an ivy league? Would you mind PM’ing me more details?
Realistically speaking, you have a great shot at some of the lower rated Californian schools, Urbana Champaign, and Vanderbilt/UVA.
Stanford/Cornell could be a reach depending on how you define early struggles. (If you think your early struggles are bad you haven’t seen my thread lol.)
@TheUKAmerican Thanks for the reply. My early struggles were half Bs and As (I now have all As). What are you thoughts on CMU and the harder California schools like UCLA and Berkeley?
@bitensky I’m not familiar enough with CMU to really say much. It’s a 20%ish acceptance rate which puts you right where you need to be in terms of GPA and ACT scores. Your extremely strong extracurriculars will probably get you into at least one of your more selective schools like Berkeley. You’re not just another “well rounded” applicant. You have passion for what you want to study.