Chance me (MIT, Rice, Caltech, etc.) and give some advice please (would really appreciate it)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m considering MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Cornell, UPenn, Columbia, Stanford, UChicago, & Rice for chemical engineering. My top picks are MIT and Stanford. I know all these are HUGE reaches but I have UT Austin (which is also really good for engineering) to fall back on if I get rejected from all of them because of the automatic admission policy. My decision to do engineering was pretty recent but I’m pretty confident in my decision. I wanted to major in biochemistry at Rice and apply ED but I’m not sure anymore about applying ED since their engineering program isn’t as great. MIT and CalTech have nonrestrictive early action. Any suggestions on where I should apply, and which plans? I want to do biochemical engineering and then decide if I’m prepared for med school or not. I’ve heard that chemical engineering isn’t really chemistry though. Is it still good? Any suggestions for what I should do in engineering if I love chemistry? Here’s the deets:

Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Asian (Pakistani)
Intended major: Chemical engineering
I go to a small charter school.
Unweighted GPA: 3.92 (all Bs are in history bc I mean who cares about history)
Weighted GPA: 4.26
Rank: Top 7% out of 108

SATs: 1st sitting: 760 (M), 680 (CR), 680 (W)
2nd sitting: 740 (M), 740 (CR), 730 (W)

SAT IIs: Will take soon but my projected scores are 800 for Math Level II and around 730-780 for Chemistry.

Courses:
9th: AP Human Geography (3)
10th: AP World History (3), AP Psychology (5)
11th: AP Chemistry (5), AP Statistics (5), AP Physics I (didn’t take test bc horrible and confusing teacher), AP English Language and Composition (4), AP US History (4); took Art Appreciation, Philosophy, Federal Government, and Humanities during the summer as online dual credit & got all As
Senior course load: Anatomy and Physiology (Dual), AP Biology, AP Calculus AB (self-studying for BC component bc not offered by school), AP Environmental Science, AP English Literature and Composition, Computer Programming (self-studying for AP Computer Science A exam bc not offered by school), Biomedical Innovation (PLTW), will take dual Economics online 2nd semester, taking PE online too

ECs (school)
-UNICEF club (9th and 10th grade, re-founded in 12th grade)
restarted club after finding out that nobody was doing it in 11th grade and my school said it was too late to start it by then; organized fundraisers for UNICEF donations and raised awareness
-AMC/Math club (10th & 11th grade, president in 12th grade): the usual; AMC 10 school winner
-HOSA (10th, 11th, & 12th grade): organized fundraisers, attended leadership conferences, participated in competitions; won 2nd place in Medical Innovation regionals, advanced to state
-NHS (11th grade): did around 17 hours of volunteering for the club (really disorganized club, all of them are tbh)

ECs (out of school)
-Some program at Baylor (doctors and scientists come to lecture and stuff), not special at all and pretty pointless (11th)
-Shadowed chem grad student at Stanford; observed and discussed research (cool stuff, 11th)
-Shadowed pediatrician during the summer (11th)
-Math tutor (tutor 2 children approximately 4 hours per week in math and chemistry) (love teaching, 11th)
-Summer volunteer @ 2 hospitals (one is psychiatric, 10th-11th) and library (8th-11th); around 230 hrs total

Awards
-AP Scholar, AP Scholar with Honor, AP Scholar with Distinction
-2nd place in Medical Innovation in HOSA regional competitions (10th grade), advanced to state competitions
-AMC 10 school winner
-Published in school literary magazine (9th grade)

2

I’m aware that nobody can predict anything but I want to see if anybody thinks I have a reasonable chance (just for fun). :slight_smile:

3

I think your test scores are a little on the low side for most of those schools. I also think that chemical engineering is a pretty specialized major and you seem rather uncertain about what it even is. You should look into it.

4

This may be of interest to you. It’s from Princeton, but I think many of these top schools have similar admissions profiles. You can check the sites of the schools you like for more info on SAT scores of admitted students, but many of them won’t break it down like this. In looking at these numbers, you should consider that probably at least 20% of the students are recruited athletes or URMs, both of which have significantly lower scores on average than most admitted students and would populate most of the lower test score admits. Of course, scores are not everything, but I don’t really see anything in the rest of the stuff you listed that I think would wow the colleges into overlooking lowish scores. Not sure if Caltech is so generous to athletes or URMs but my understanding is that they are pretty stats driven.

PERCENTAGE OF APPLICANTS ACCEPTED BY SAT RANGE SAT SCORES % ACCEPTED
2300-2400 12.8
2100-2290 7.6
1900-2090 4.2
1700-1890 1.9
1500-1690 0.0

My advice is if you really want to attend those schools, go ahead and apply, nothing can be predicted. But you should be willing to attend UT if you aren’t accepted. If UT isn’t a good option for you, then I think you need to put some less selective schools on your list.

5

@mathyone You’re kind of right. I actually have looked into what chemical engineering is but I see a lot of different answers, probably because there are various jobs. However, I don’t think I’ll be able to make an informed decision until I actually see for myself. Also, I’m curious: what schools do you think are reasonable for me, based on my scores?

6

@mathyone I know I’m not a competitive applicant and am aware of my low scores. I’m expecting to get rejected from most if not all of them but I just want to know I’m not totally crazy for trying.

7

I don’t think you are totally crazy for trying. Just ask yourself if you don’t get into any of them will you be ok going to UT or will you be desperately wishing you had included some easier schools? And are your parents willing to pay any cost difference?