Chance Me - International Asian Male senior for ME-ish majors, 4.7/5.0, 1550

Chance Me / Match Me!
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  • International student
  • South Korean
  • Private High school
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity: Asian, Male
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): NA

Intended Major(s)
ME
AAE
IE
Engineering Undecided
(Any of these are okay)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.78 / 5.00 (RD GPA will be higher, around 4.8)
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): NA (Prb around 4.3)
  • Class Rank: NA
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1550 (790 M, 760 RW)
  • AP Test Scores:
    AP Macroeconomics - 4
    AP Microeconomics - 4
    AP Statistics - 4
    AP Physics 1 - 5
    AP Physics 2 - 5
    AP Calculus BC - 5
    AP Environmental Science - 5
    AP Chemistry - 5
    AP Physics C: Mechanics - 5

Coursework
AP Psychology
AP PhysicsC
AP Computer Science
AP Statistics
AP Calculus BC
AP English Literature
AP Chemistry
AP Spanish
AP Environmental Science

All other classes than AP classes are Honors.
Took all AP courses offered in school except AP Bio

Awards
Format: (name/description, size, place/award)

SAGE, National, 2nd place
Korean Young Physicists’ Tournament, National, 4th place
Odessey of the Mind, National, Silver prize
German Environment Competition, International, 1st place
Research Paper Competition, International, Gold Prize(Lead Author)
European Invention Competition, International, Gold Prize
World Invention Creativity Olympics, International, Gold Prize
School volunteer award x2
AP Scholar with Distinction (Does this matter?)

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)

-Navigation app development for the disabled; gained $1500 for development of idea; mentioned in 2 internet newspapers, had a role of algorithm development.
-School/Community ecosystem analysis, restoration of school’s pond; did experiments, made filtration devices; expanded restoration project to a river in the local area
-Virtual work experience program in an aerospace company; project team lead; developed Martian lander system proposal to executives
-School’s only Model rocket development team president; won grant from local government($750) for project; developed a L-Class motor
-UCLA Engineering Summer camp; Model Rocket Project lead two times
-School’s 10th-grade students’ TOFEL study tutor; Tutor overviewing 42 students
-Wrote a letter to Korean war veterans; letter chosen for public display in a museum.
-Wrote four articles in total for two school newspapers
-Class vice president for three consecutive semesters
-Preliminary (level) figure skating certificate

Essays/LORs/Other
LOR from counselor: Will try to explain the low GPA
LOR from Samsung Innovation Center Ex-President

Cost Constraints / Budget
None

Schools
(Not applying for any Scholarships)
(No Idea which schools are reach, target, etc.)
(Additional recs are welcome)

Purdue -West Lafayette / EA
Georgia Tech / ED II
University of Washington / RD
UT Austin / RD
UC Berkeley / RD
UCLA / RD
CMU / ED
UIUC / RD
Virginia Tech / RD

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Paging @AustenNut since they can probably help better than I can!

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Errors I found → Georgia tech should be EA II, not ED II

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@Chase4, you have a good list of achievements. Congratulations!

Since you can afford any school, your list looks fine to me.

You do need at least one, and often two, LORs from teachers in core subjects. You have only mentioned your counselor and a non teacher.

At some schools you will automatically be considered for a scholarship.

Georgia Tech, UWash, UT Austin, Berkeley, UCLA, CMU are all reaches.

Purdue, UIUC, VTech are high targets, could be low reaches for an international student.

For Mech E, Penn State, Ohio State and UMD might be additional schools worth considering. All have very strong Mech E programs and are easier admits than most on your list.

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You should move your RD schools to EA. They are public universities that will fill up the engineering cohorts in the EA round.

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For anything engineering, UIUC is definitely a reach for anybody, and I would say that it’s likely the same for Purdue. That being said, UIUC does like full pay international students, so that MAY knock it down to a low reach.

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Congratulations on being a competitive applicant.

The UC’s are test blind so they will not consider SAT or ACT test scores when making admissions decisions or awarding scholarships. They may be used as an alternative method of fulfilling minimum requirements for eligibility or for course placement after you enroll. Note: SAT and ACT scores may only be reported in your application post-submission.

The UC’s have their own GPA calculation and consider all 3 UC GPA’s: Unweighted, Capped weighted and Fully weighted. As an International applicant, only AP/IB or UC transferable DE courses will e given the extra weighting in the GPA calculation.

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

UCLA and UCB will emphasize the Unweighted and Fully weighted (uncapped) GPA’s in their admission decisions.

UCB has been the only UC which has considered LOR’s but submission is by invitation only so no guarantees you will be asked for an LOR.

Although the UC application allows you to select an alternate major, both UCB and UCLA will only consider your 1st choice major in the original admission process. UCB may consider your alternate major if you are waitlisted.

Overall admit rates for International Applicants below:
UCLA: 5.8%
UCB: 5.5%

Specific Engineering admit rates for UCLA:
Aerospace: 3.7%
ME: 5.5%
Undeclared: 4.7%

Specific Engineering admit rates for UCB:
Aerospace: 4.45%
Industrial: 16.02%
ME: 7.42%
Undeclared: 3.67%

What the admit data does not show is how competitive the applicant pool was for each of the majors listed so both schools are in the Reach Category.

Best of luck and UC’s only offer RD admission.

8

I agree with the chancing that others have given you above. And although you don’t need another reach on your list, is there a reason why MIT is not in it? As CMU is on the list, and they are both northeastern schools within $1k of each other in cost with a highly technical mindset, I’m just curious.

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Well, I thought CMU would be the rather more kinda “realistic” and had a higher chance than MIT if I had to choose.

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Oh I didn’t mention it in here but I’ll get two more LOCs from my CS teacher and Psyc teacher. Both tought me over 2 years and will focus on my academic side and how I am as a student (personality wise)

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I understand. As MIT is need-blind and meets full need for international students, it is probably even more competitive than CMU, which is not.

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Do you think UCB IE is worth it? Since it does have the highest accetance rate, although I know it does not show the difficulty of admission.

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UCB has the global recognition regardless of major and if you have interest in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research then definitely apply.

Here is the link to the major information: B.S. - UC Berkeley IEOR Department - Industrial Engineering & Operations Research

Is it worth it, that question can only be answered by you since you will be a full pay student at $72K/year to attend.

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Thx for the information!

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What is EA 2? If you want to apply EA, just apply EA…if this is allowed by CMU if you apply ED.

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Gatech lets nonresidents to apply only at EA 2…

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Thank you. It looks like that EA 2 deadline is November 1…only two weeks after the EA 1 deadline…and that EA2 deadline aligns with EA deadlines at a lot of schools…or is a tad earlier.

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