Chance me: International applying for Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics -
Indian male
International
Full pay (no need for aid)
Major: Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering

Grades -
SAT: 1540
AP/IB: Not offered by my school
No GPA and Rank
Highest course rigor throughout
IGCSE - 5 A* 1 A 1B 1C (B and C were in English and French) (As in all my sciences and econ)
AS Level - 4 A’s
A - Level Predicted - 2As 2As (A’s in chem and econ. A* in maths and physics)
Transcript. Had a ■■■■ ton of B’s and C’s in my 10th and 11th internal grading but did well in that year’s final board examinations.

EC’s

  1. Designer, Builder and Interface Developer, Skyroot Aerospace - Building a drone for India’s first private rocket launch. We used Solidworks, EAGLE, and BetaFlight to make an Arduino-friendly body and system.
  2. Co-Founder, Lazarus Propulsions - Co-founded a model rocketry organization. We built a twin-staged rocket with a focus on sustainable propulsion systems, funded by Birla Space Club.
  3. Researcher, Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) - I researched green propulsion alternatives to current propulsion systems for small and medium-lift rockets with a payload height in the lower orbit.
  4. Researcher, Individual - I researched the feasibility of using splash blend fuels as a permanent alternative in internal combustion engines in high-performance vehicles.

5) Technology officer, Student council - I maintained and formatted the website on Wix. I organized the weekly meetings. We also planned events to ease the move to regular schooling.

6) Team Leader, NYAS Junior Academy - We designed a hand-held device that detects eutrophication using anion tests. I will be filing for a provisional patent and continue working on it.

  1. Certified course, Indian Space Research Organization- I took part in ISRO summer school twice. I learned about remote sensing and satellite functioning. We also looked at real-life applications of these.

  2. Delegate, Executive Board and Secretariat, MUN’s - I attended over 20 conferences of which 15 were as a Delegate, 6 were as an Executive Board member and 2 as a Secretariat. I won 13 awards as a delegate.

  3. Debater, Indian Schools Debating Society (ISDS) - I am an active debater and was qualified regionally to represent team India in the WSDC tournament 2020.

  4. Volunteer, Ishva foundation - Taught government school children speaking and presentation skills. I also taught them to play volleyball.

Essays

Common app - 8/10 ( reviewed by counselor multiple times ). spoke about my need for speed and go-karting.

Add info - explained my EC’s better and the dip in grades. Also included more ec’s like 2 study projects, my model rocket built completely from scratch and my stock market interests. I also included a research project on using the Laplace transform to model brain tumors.

Supplements - 8/10 ( again, got them reviewed)

LORS

Counselor - 9/10

Chem teacher - 8/10

Math Teacher - 5/10 at best (pretty mid. she gave other students good ones apparently…)

Research Mentor - 10/10 (spoke about all the skills I demonstrated while building that drone)

List

StAnFoRd (LOL), Princeton, UPenn viper, cornell, carnegie ed2, northwestern, umich, gtech, rice, usc, ucla, ucb, purdue, madison, uiuc.

Ik my grades are the weakest link here… ah ■■■■. grade deflation in my school is a real thing (copium).

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Did you apply EA to any of these schools? Did you do an ED1? Any decisions yet?

You have a good profile, but have applied to many reach schools. If you really want to study engineering in the states, I would add Iowa State and U Alabama Huntsville. I assume you have college options in your home country, or elsewhere?

I am concerned that your math teacher LoR in not strong…how do you know that? If really 5/10 that may be an issue at some schools.

Also note that if you go the aerospace route, as an international you will be extremely limited in internship options in the US, as well as post-grad jobs. Good luck.

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The fact that you are able to pay full tuition without any aid is going to help you for the less competitive engineering schools. You are unlikely to get into the most selective schools, but I don’t think so much so that you shouldn’t put in applications, especially since finances aren’t an issue. You still have time to throw in a few more applications. Consider adding RPI - they have great mech engineering, the car clubs take freshmen, and they’ll love that you’re full pay. Also look at U Colorado at Boulder, UT Austin, Embry-Riddle in Daytona (location), Worcester Polytech, Texas A&M, Virginia tech, Ohio State, Penn State.

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Congratulations on being a competitive applicant. I will only address the UC’s which will be Reach schools. They are test blind and need blind. Since test scores are not a consideration, your academic record will be weighted heavily in their admission decisions. Did you get an LOR request from UCB?

Overall International 2022 admit rates:
UCB: 5.5%
UCLA: 5.8%

UCB admit rate for ME: 7.42%
UCB admit rate for AE: 4.45%

UCLA admit rate for ME: 8.3%
UCLA admit rate for AE: 5.6%

Best of luck.

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i did emrby , tamu penn state and cu boulder. i got into embry and penn state too. The math LOR is porlly a over statement… it’s prolly around a 7/10.

my counselor read them and told me their overall rating.

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thanks for the info! nope i did not get an lor req

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ed2 carnegie. no ed’s. i sort of over exaggerated the quality of my math teachers LOR. its prolly a near 7/10… but worst case 5/10.

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Well…you have two acceptances. So now…just wait and see about the rest.

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So far, you’ve been accepted to Embry and Penn State? That’s great! Since finances aren’t an issue for you, you already have two good options. Now you would have to consider whether you would possibly prefer any of the other schools people have mentioned, and of course, if they don’t appeal to you more than the acceptances you already have, don’t bother.

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