Hi everyone, thanks for reading this post. It must be a huge slog this time of year, and I really appreciate it. I hereby commit to posting an after-action report around February once results are in!
Demographics
US domestic
Virginia resident
Competitive HS (#2 in the state)
Generic white male with immigrant, college-grad parents
State-competitive athlete in solo sport, D3 at the very best
Intended Major(s)
Electrical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Anything else possibly contributing to career in energy generation and distribution
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.40 (I didn’t handle the COVID era especially well)
Weighted HS GPA: 3.93 including my school’s bonuses for honors and AP
College GPA: 3.1 (I was a full-time college student for one term at 13, got 3 As and a D, long story)
Class Rank: My school doesn’t rank, but I’m about top 20%
SAT Scores: 1570, 790v 780q
96 AFQT on the ASVAB
Coursework
AP 5s in Biology, Micro, Macro, World History; AP 4 in French; AP 3 in Comp Sci A. Planning to do AP Physics, Calc BC, Government, Lang senior year. Every possible honors class where I couldn’t do an AP. I’ve also gotten As in AoPS Pre-Calc and Calc. With AP French, I’m maxed out on foreign languages, and I also fluently speak my oddball heritage language.
Awards
Davidson Young Scholar, 4 years honor roll, 4 years Mu Alpha Theta, LOE to West Point. Notably, choked hard on PSAT and did not get National Merit Semi-Finalist or better, only Commendation.
Extracurriculars
Paid software development job – working in a small capacity for a startup that got an 8-figure Series A
Intensely involved in my religious community as assistant to choir director and in religious education programs
Wrote 10-week curriculum and homework for 10-member elementary school math team, about 80 pages including solutions for parents
Volunteered for 70 hours for outdoor survival and education program (two 35-hour weeks as assistant to the paid staffer taking 12 children ages 10-12 into the woods to catch fish, build fires, construct shelters, identify palatable plants, etc.)
West Point SLE, top 5% CFA, received LOE; working on Congressional nominations
Serious pianist formally certified by National Piano Guild as conservatory-ready
Serious hobby aquarist with expertise in management of freshwater and saltwater biomes; current project is preparing a tank for a peacock mantis shrimp
Essays/LORs/Other
I think my essays are pretty strong. I wrote everything myself, went through at least 10 drafts on all of them, and had them reviewed by two major-outlet journalists. My LORs from my high school teachers are likely to be generically positive but not anything special.
Cost Constraints / Budget
I really want to go for free. I am willing to sacrifice prestige to money. My parents cannot contribute anything of significance and I don’t want to take loans. I am applying to USMA and USNA, but Virginia is really competitive for nominations, so I’m doing my best but I’m not betting on either. I am also planning to do ROTC, so if schools have a clear policy to pay room and board for ROTC students, or to allow merit money to go to room and board, that’s a huge plus.
Schools
Safety: South Carolina State (nuclear engineering program), Virginia Commonwealth
Likely: Milwaukee School of Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, Pitt, North Carolina State
Match: William & Mary, Purdue, RPI, RIT
Reach: UVA, Washington & Lee (if I get a Johnson Scholarship), JHU
Please have your parents run the net price calculator at the schools to determine what your cost might be. Unfortunately, many (most?) of the schools on your list won’t be affordable. You should look at schools like Alabama and Arizona that will give you substantial merit aid, up to full ride.
Tagging @tsbna44 who can provide further guidance.
Why isn’t Virginia Tech on your list? And why is W&M, which doesn’t offer engineering courses, on your list? (W&L doesn’t offer engineering courses, either.) Old Dominion University offers environmental engineering, also.
You are not going to get money from Purdue, so take it off your list (also, it isn’t a match for you; it would be a reach). NCSU is not likely for you, as an OOS applicant; and you won’t get money from NCSU, either, so you might as well take it off your list. Your grades and test scores make it unlikely that you would get a Johnson Scholarship at W&L.
Generally, and if you haven’t done so, check out the Common Data Sets for schools that you are considering. Section C7 tells you how different academic and non-academic admissions factors are weighted by a school; Sections C9-C11 give objective information for recently matriculated students, which may in turn give you a crude estimate of how you compare with them for admissions purposes.
Was this during high school, or after you graduated or otherwise left high school?
If this was after you graduated or otherwise left high school, you may be a transfer applicant for some or many colleges. Check each college’s rules on the matter.
W&L does have an engineering major but it’s not ABET certified. That’s said, the OP isn’t likely getting in with a 3.4. and extremely doubtful for the Johnson. I also think W&M is a reach.
Yes; and the two engineering majors are lumped in with the Physics Department as part of “the liberal arts core of the University”. It definitely has a different emphasis than those of traditional engineering departments/colleges.
Thank you! My EFC doesn’t have any resemblance to my parents’ ability to write a check (I’m sure this is an old story around here,) so I’ll refocus on merit aid schools. Much appreciated.
Great points. VT is on my list, so I’ll fix that in the original post. W&M is on the list because it’s a state school that seems to have good placement, so my parents suggested sending an application, but I take your point and will remove it. W&L has a non-ABET engineering major, but I also take your point there and will stop dreaming of an LAC (sigh…)
It’s bracing to hear that Purdue is a reach. I’m sure you are right, so I’m wondering what I’m missing. I was going by their SAT 75th being 1430. What’s making me uncompetitive there? Low GPA, poor HS coursework selection, OOS, other factors? Same question re W&L (though I guess it doesn’t matter now): going by the CollegeConfidential thread with partial URL johnson-results-2020/2080823/9, some people seemed to be saying that stats didn’t make you a lock and that there was a lot of “random” feel from the outside. What’s wrong with my application that puts it in the no-hope category?
Thanks again and really appreciate the reply! Sorry, I can’t embed hyperlinks yet.
Thanks for pointing this out. This was me leveraging a couple provisions in Florida law to get a free term of college credits while I lived there. I was a 9th grader, but I realized I could combine Florida homeschool law with Florida access to college classes law. After that experiment was over, I went back to taking classes through Florida Virtual High School, and I will graduate on schedule from a Virginia high school.
I realize that this is a bizarre situation, and even though I don’t believe I’ll count as a transfer student at most schools, I’ll check the policies carefully and point it out to the admissions teams to make sure that they understand what I did and that they agree that it fits with college policy. Much obliged!
You need to look at the information from the College of Engineering at Purdue. The scores are much higher than the university as a whole (which is what is reported on the common data set. Your unweighted GPA (which is what most colleges use) is low.
This is from the FAQ page for Office of Future Engineers:
If you took your college courses before you graduate high school, then you should not generally be considered a transfer applicant. But you can check each college’s policy to be sure.
In general, unweighted GPA is the best means of comparison, unless the college specifies its GPA calculation method and you recalculate your GPA based on that method. A weighted GPA from your high school is generally not relevant outside of your high school, since weighted GPA calculations vary across high schools and college admission offices.
Thanks for pointing all of this out. I’ll apply to all of those. I’ve visited VMI, but none of the others you mentioned yet.
I take your point as well that ROTC is competitive. I’m also visiting the local ROTC battalion for every college I tour, and my ROTC app is complete but for my medical assessment and the fitness test (I’m on the injured list for another few weeks.) I expect to submit by mid-September and thus make the October 9th deadline for the first ROTC board.
For what it’s worth, I spoke to the JHU ROTC battalion last week and they seemed to think that I was academically competitive for ROTC. In terms of fitness and softs, I’m hoping that good enough for West Point LOE indicates strong ROTC candidate as well. But no guarantees, and it doesn’t help me that much to get ROTC for tuition while being left with no way to pay everything else, so I’m trying to focus on covering room, board and books as well, hopefully through merit aid.
To follow up on what @momofboiler1 mentioned, here is a link to the Purdue Data Digest: https://www.purdue.edu/datadigest/. If you go to “Applications, Admits, and Matriculations” and “New First-Time Beginner Profile,” you will find some interactive charts that can give you some information that is more specific to you; and allow you to compare your statistics to those of entering first-year students. This may also give you some answers, or perhaps clarification, to your questions about Purdue.
As for W&L, I think that I wrote “unlikely” and not “no-hope”. There’s a little bit of difference there.
Sorry if I misread… but I also one person telling me to consider community college, so I’m still finding my feet here. Thanks again for your ongoing responses and advice.
If it really is merely “unlikely,” I’ll give it my best shot. Effort required compares favorably to potential upside
This is the kind of bad news that I was hoping for with a reality-check chance me thread. Thanks very much.
I’m happy to go anywhere for free, of course. It’s a huge privilege if I can pull it off and if a school chooses to give me a shot. I guess I’m still kind of in shock that a 1570 SAT isn’t “worth more” in admissions, but no point crying about it.
I had already decided that UVA was a long shot. It’s bracing to hear the same about VT, but looking at C7 in their CDS set, I can see why you’re saying that.
Regarding community college – again, that’s a hard reality check. By recommending this, are you suggesting that I have thin prospects at GM, VCU, ODU as well, or is this more of a maturity/adjustment concern?
Regarding your parents being unable or unwilling to contribute anything, how does subsidized living at home and commuting to a local community college or four year college fit into this?
If you are highly interested in a military career but do not get admitted to a service academy or get a full ride ROTC scholarship, there is also a pathway to apply to a service academy as an enlisted service member. However, admission to the service academy is obviously not assured, so you have to be satisfied with enlisted military service if you do not get admitted (though there are eventual veterans’ education benefits and financial aid treatment as an independent student after honorable discharge upon completion of enlistment contract). You may be able to find more information on forums focused on the service academies.
