Chance me? (HYPSM)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m a current high school junior, and with one year left before applying to college, I was wondering how I could improve. I am looking at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, UPenn, Ga Tech, and UGA(Safety). I will most likely major in electrical engineering/CS.

Objective:
SAT I: 1550 (770 M, 780 CR + W)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.9
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 5/626

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):

  • FBLA(Treasurer) - won awards and organized schoolwide student/faculty events to raise money for the club.
  • Robotics - This is a very time-consuming EC and I enjoy being on the programming team. Currently, I contribute to developing the code and debugging it for the robot. Only seniors are allowed to hold leadership in the club, but I have a strong chance at becoming captain of the programming team in senior year.
  • Science Bowl- We are a very small team with no leadership, and we haven’t won any awards, but I still enjoy the club.
  • Interact(Historian, Treasurer) - organized service projects and kept records for the club.
  • I’m in a couple other clubs(HOSA, Beta, NHS), but my involvement isn’t strong enough to put on an app.
    Volunteer/Community service: Tutoring students in algebra, Volunteering at the local hospital and library, NHS/Beta/Interact stuff, altogether about 150 hours so far.
    Summer Activities: Unpaid internship at a genetics lab at Emory University in the summer of sophomore year, hope to do something similar next summer.

Other:
Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes
Intended Major: Engineering/CS
State (if domestic applicant): GA
School Type: Large public school in a rural corner of Georgia
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: 55k-60k
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First Generation

2

Reach as for most everyone.

3

HYPSM is a reach for everybody, including you. It is especially a reach for you as you have no extremely distinct/unique ECs and are Asian (although your gender can very much reduce or negate the effects of being Asian on your college app). Make sure to look for lots of engineering and CS colleges that accept lots of women - UIUC is definitely a big one, they’re a top CS school that tries to get around 50% of their CS students to be women. Best of luck!

4

BUMP

5

@ImAwfulWithNames What are examples of “distinct/unique” ECs? I know it doesn’t compare to the ECs most CC applicants have, but there aren’t many opportunities where I’m at.

6

@PandaTrope It doesn’t have to be crazy like some of the top CC students, but it has to be something besides a club or a job. For example, maybe you’ve submitted an Op-Ed to a credible newspaper, or you’ve built an app (even if it doesn’t have more than 1,000 downloads). Do something that shows you have passion for what you do. For example, that Emory University one is pretty unique, but it certainly won’t carry you to being a memorable applicant. By distinct/unique ECs, I mean something that will make the admissions counselor think of PandaTrope as “the person who did X unlike most applicants” or “the person who did Y because she truly loves the field” or “the person who got to do Z, a once in a lifetime opportunity”, etc.