Chance me for USC, Rice, Cal Poly...

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>hello everyone
coming up on my senior year and been getting the college apps all compiled
here's my stats</p>

<p>3.83 UW GPA
4.2 W GPA</p>

<p>ACT: 29
English: 35
Math: 29 (Highest)
Reading: 26 :(
Science: 28</p>

<p>SAT: 1900
Verbal 630
Math 650
Writing 620</p>

<p>Baseball all 4 years var letter 2 yrs
Cross Country (this next year) looking to letter
Football 2 years</p>

<p>APs US History 5 AP Eng Lang 3 AP Span Lang 1<br>
Looking to take AP Gov, Calc AB, and Eng Lit this next year</p>

<p>ECs: Missions' trip to an Indian Reserv. (painted two houses)
Habitat for Humanity
Sunday School Teacher roughly 40 hrs
Convalescent Home visits roughly 20 hrs
Park clean-ups: roughly 30 hrs</p>

<p>Also attended a renowned leadership camp in Thousand Oaks called TOYLC
-recognized as Team Leader for a day
I'm applying for the academies and looking for schools with good rotc programs </p>

<p>here is a list of the schools I want to apply to:</p>

<p>USC
Vanderbilt
Rice
Cal Poly SLO
Tulsa
Westmont College
Washington Univ in SL
+US Service Academies (West Point, Annapolis, AF)</p>

<p>Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated and any UC suggestions would be great (I live in Cali Male) Thanks :)</p>

2

<p>forgot to mention but I am interested in Engineering programs</p>

3

<p>USC, CAL POLY seem like a strong chance. However, Rice is pretty much harder to predict…</p>

4

<p>Thank you for the help</p>

<p>I also forgot to mention I am ranked 1st in class of 140</p>

5

<p>I can’t speak to all the choices on your list, but your SAT scores are not competitive for either USC or Cal Poly SLO as an engineering major. Your AP classes also do not reflect rigor in sciences- neither chem nor physics. Most applicants to these schools took Calc AB as juniors. If you retake and improve your SAT scores and earn high grades in Calc as a senior, you may have a shot. It would also help if your ECs reflected an interest in engineering or other STEM interests. UCs to consider- UC Merced and Riverside. UCSB has an excellent engineering program but it has gotten very competitive. Good luck!</p>

6

<p>Your class rank is good and your GPA is okay, but your standardized test scores and ec’s are a little weak. I would probably recommend retaking them, if you think you can perform better. With the SAT and ACT scores you have, I would probably say:</p>

<p>USC: Low reach
Vanderbilt: Reach
Rice: Reach
Cal Poly SLO: Match
Tulsa: Match
Westmont College: Safety
Washington Univ in SL: Reach
+US Service Academies (West Point, Annapolis, AF): I’m not really familiar with the admission policies.</p>

7

<p>SLO, Tulsa, and Westmont are probably easy for you to get in, but SLO is hard to get in on engineering.
Vanderbilt, Rice, and USC, I’m not too sure. You’re SAT score needs a little bit of work which could help you with Rice.
US Services I hear is pretty tough to get into, and I think it is falling in the same category as USC, Rice, and Vanderbilt. West Point in particular is most prestigious of all the academies so I don’t know.
Do you know what your major is because it can make a little bit of a difference when applying?
Have you thought about UCSB, UC Davis, or UC Irvine?
Interested in any Cal States? There is a Cal State affliated Maritime Academy in Nor Cal.
San Diego State, Long Beach State, and San Jose State are some other good Cal States.</p>

8

<p>Your grades are great for most of the schools you talked about, but your sat scores don’t match them unfortunately. Being an engineering major just makes this disparity clearer. I say due to your grades and rank you have a good chance at most of your schools but i dont know about service schools. west point is supposed to be very competitive</p>

9

<p>btw i may not even send my sat scores i just put them on there just for show I’m looking to improve my act score if anything to a 31+ just need to boost that reading score I’m taking calc next year and physics so that should be sufficient…obviously I’m not anything like some the “superstuds” on this forum but I’m at the top of my class so im content with that</p>

10

<p>I want to echo what Mimmymom said – SATs are too low for the top engineering programs, AP courses don’t reflect interest in math/science and your ECs don’t reflect an interest in science/engineering. Similarly, too many of these schools are in the top 25 on the USWNR list, and your scores/ECs aren’t competitive enough for anything in this range. Sorry to be blunt, but it seems you need a wake up call in this department.</p>

<p>If you want to improve your chances of being an engineering major, apply as undeclared. Otherwise, you will get rejected from the better engineering schools on this list.</p>

<p>You have a great GPA, so I’m curious why this didn’t translate to your test scores and AP scores. A 1 on an AP test won’t reflect well on your application. Similarly, someone interested in engineering who is adequately prepared for a top-tier engineering program would have a 700+ on their Math SAT and a similar ACT score. </p>

<p>ECs are pretty weak for any top tier school as well. Most people will hold impressive leadership positions – ie: team captain, for those who play sports – and I really don’t see that here. Unless there’s a reason why you couldn’t commit to anything more than volunteer work (government internship, science/robotics club, etc) and why you weren’t a team captain for your athletics, you won’t stack up against some of the more competitive candidates applying to these schools. Places like USC get applicants with 4.0s and near-perfect SATs who were class presidents, yearbook editors, team captains and had impressive internships – you get the idea.</p>

<p>Your strength seems to be in the humanities – so maybe you should consider majoring in something in that area. It seems you have an interest in the military, so why not international relations, international business or a foreign language?</p>

<p>It’s probably too late to fix your ECs, but try and get a 2100+ on the SATs or boost your Math score on the ACT to a 32+. You will be competing against math whizes if you apply as engineering.</p>

<p>Anyway, as it stands now, if you applied with these scores as an engineering major:</p>

<p>USC - rejection
Vanderbilt - rejection
Rice - possible acceptance
Cal Poly SLO - rejection (this is a VERY competitive school!)
Tulsa - acceptance
Westmont College - acceptance
Washington Univ in SL - rejection
(I don’t know much about the service academies except they’re hard to get into.)</p>

<p>I think you should rethink your list and look into these schools. Many of them are reasonable reaches or perfect matches and some have really great engineering programs. Also, since you’re a CA resident, you should really consider peppering some Cal States and UCs on your list; your scores are at the level of the Cal States and the lower UCs.</p>

<p>Santa Clara U (good engineering)
Loyola Marymount
Chapman
Cal Poly Pomona
UC Davis
UC Riverside
UC Irvine
Penn State
U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
George Washington
Pepperdine
Syracuse
Boston U
U of Maryland
Rutgers
Worcester Polytechnic
Northeastern
Virginia Tech</p>

11

<p>Thank you for the advice; I will try to join the schools robotic team if thats an option; throughout my years in high school I’ve never had below an A in math and science; it’s just I do average on these standardized tests; I tutor people in Geometry and Algebra; I’m looking for majors that would both be applicable to the military and that interest me.</p>

<p>Civil Engineering would work out or possibly computer science; again thank u everyone for giving me advice; I will work hard to increase my ACT score for September and look to be a TC for my sports and be a club rep for my schools FCA; also I’m part of NHS and want to be president or vice-president for that club; well thanks again everyone and hopefully I’ll be able to round out my profile for this next year</p>

12

<p>Also I’ll look into UCSB thank you!!</p>

13

<p>I agree with alaina101’s assessment of your chances in post # 6, revising Cal Poly to a <em>High</em> match. I do not believe your chances at Rice are better than at USC, as Zelda suggests in post # 10. Both my kids got waitlisted at Rice (S applied to Engineering same as you intend to do) and both were accepted to USC. Rice ED has a higher acceptance rate than USC (no ED available) but their applicant pool is much more competitive than USC to begin with. When you factor in RD applicant’s acceptance rate, Rice is clearly more selective. Rice is comparable in selectivity to WashU.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

14

<p>Cal Poly Engineering 2010 admitted Freshmen Engineering stats:</p>

<p>Avg GPA: 4.03
Avg ACT: 31
Avg SAT (math + CR only): 1372</p>

<p>Not sure about the high match part Jshain.</p>

<p>I think if you raise your test score, then you would be a match for sure.</p>

15

<p>^Based on the admissions data for all incoming freshmen in 2010, OP’s stats are in the 75th percentile. Odds of admission for the more competitive Engineering major still gives him about 50/50 chances, imo. Where did you get your stats profile, BeingSLO? Was it for Engineering majors exclusively?</p>

<p>[Cal</a> Poly San Luis Obispo Profile - SAT Scores and Admissions Data for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo](<a href=“http://collegeapps.about.com/od/collegeprofiles/p/Cal_Poly_SLO.htm]Cal”>Cal Poly San Luis Obispo: Acceptance Rate, SAT/ACT Scores, GPA)</p>

16

<p>The stats I gave are just for Cal Poly admitted engineering freshmen 2010.</p>

<p>So you are of course correct that if the OP apply for a major outside of engineering in CPSLO, his chances would be markedly higher.</p>

<p>here is the complete profile:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.ess.calpoly.edu/_admiss/Pdf/Profile10_51910.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ess.calpoly.edu/_admiss/Pdf/Profile10_51910.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

17

<p>@jshain</p>

<p>I neglected to mention that the stats you provided in the link might be incorrect or dated. </p>

<p>For Fall 2010, Cal Poly freshman acceptance rate was 32%, and the overall university’s acceptance rate (freshman + transfer) was 29%.</p>

<p>For Fall 2011, it will most likely be lower than 32% because Cal Poly is reducing its overall student enrollment from 18,320 to 16,000.</p>

<p>It will feel like a no one is going to school, given the enormous size of the campus.</p>

18

<p>Most highly regarded Engineering schools make transferring into Engineering, from another major, very difficult. My S is an incoming Freshman Engineering major at UCBerkeley and wondering if Cal Poly, like Cal, is next to impossible to change into?</p>

19

<p>Just want to remind the OP that improving his ECs isn’t enough to get him into these schools. You will HAVE to boost your SAT score to have a chance at a majority of these. </p>

<p>I really suggest you peruse the schools on the list I gave you or find some matches on your own, or else you might be disappointed once the letters roll in.</p>

<p>To the poster who talked about USC vs. Rice – I guess I don’t know much about Rice. All I know, as a USC alum, is that his SATs are way too low for Viterbi (USC’s engineering school.)</p>

20

<p>Do most of these top schools put heavy emphasis on class rank?</p>