I am a male Asian from Texas, intended econ major for Ivies, MIT, and Uchicago, computer science major for Caltech, Stanford, CMU. I have automatic admission to UT (thankfully).
GPA is pretty high, around 97 unweighted and 101 weighted (senior year grades may be lower).
SAT 1600, 18 on essay (yikes!)
SAT II - 800 Math II, 800 Physics, 800 World History
I take the IB diploma, but I have 5s in AP Chinese, both Physics C, and AP Calc BC.
I have taken close to the most rigorous courses at my school, but my senior year grades are lacking.
Extracurriculars: USAPhO Semifinalist and Medalist, 5x AIME participant, national qualification in quiz bowl and science bowl. Region/State level music, and varsity baseball 1 year. Club leader of physics, science bowl, and maths team, and elected grade level representative in student government.
I would say that my teachers like me, but I am not sure if they are able to write moving letters of recommendation.
Do you think USAPhO medalist is not much of a distinguishing accomplishment? I have other competitions, but this was my “main gig,” so to speak. Genuine question
I think you’ll be a competitive applicant for any school. USAPhO and AIME will definitely help you stand out. That said, please have match and safety schools on your list too as you never know with the highly competitive reach schools.
Thanks for the reply! I am auto-admit for UT Austin, so I consider that as my “safety” even though it’s definitely competitive, and especially for my majors. Do you have any suggestions for other safeties?
RPI would be a match, maybe even a safety, and you would most likely see merit money. Purdue would be another school I would think would be a match for CS. Totally missed that you are auto admit to UT. Great safety!!!
If you’re certain that you’ll be happy with UT Austin, you don’t need another safety or even a match. But don’t apply to all these reach schools. You’d be much better off finding and concentrating on a few that fit you the best.
I agree that UT Austin is a great safety. With a safety that is this excellent, I am fine with your other applications going to reaches.
I agree with @1NJParent that you should concentrate on a few reaches. For computer science, I don’t understand why you have multiple Ivy League schools on your list. If you want to major in computer science, then apply to schools that are known as being excellent for computer science. MIT, Caltech, Stanford, and CMU are excellent universities for computer science.
You also might want to run the NPC on all of the schools on your list other than your in-state safety and make sure that you and your parents are okay with the results.
I think you are in pretty good shape, especially if you pick an ED and go for it.
It will all depend on the intangibles of your application (essays, recos, interviews for those that have it). Sure perfect SAT scores do get rejected, but I believe those often happen because people with perfect SAT scores often think the rest is a layup. Make sure you pick two good recommendation writers that will personalize the recommendation and write about examples of how you showed traits the university will care about. Many have a standard form. My son saw one after the fact that didn’t even include his name.
Other safeties for you for CS would be UofICU and UMD, both have pretty highly ranked CS departments and UMD has brand new Iribe Center for CS. But, I think if your application is complete you have a good shot at many of the schools listed.
Why are your senior year grades dropping? You may have to have a better answer then senioritis. (that question was rhetorical).
Thanks for the replies! I am going to EA MIT and Caltech, and maybe UChicago, though it is increasingly likely that I will not be able to complete that by the deadline. I am not planning on only applying for CS major. In fact, most of my applications will be for an economics major. I am only going to apply for CS for those schools with especially great programs (Caltech, CMU, etc.) and comparatively weaker economics programs. My idea is to apply for MIT course 15, but I don’t know which major would be optimal for Stanford or other “all-round” powerhouse schools.
I am going to be brutally honest. This is just my opinion. Based on your application, I think you are a competitive applicant, especially with a USAPhO medal and AIME. However, I am puzzled as to why you are applying for economics or cs. Your awards do not reflect any achievements in computer science or economics whatsoever. I would have expected some type of USACO medal, hackathon participation, FBLA, DECA, etc. If I were you, I would apply for physics or math, because your application will be stronger for those majors rather than going against kids who are FBLA participants with years of experience or kids who have been hacking since day one. Furthermore, I don’t see an AP CS test that was taken, which will be a red flag for admission officers.
School list:
Reach: MIT, Stanford, UIUC, UChicago, CalTech, Most Ivies, CMU, UCB, UCLA
Match: Cornell, Brown (maybe), Purdue, RPI, the rest of the UCs
Safeties: UT
Don’t bother EA UChicago. Unless you have some special hook, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’ll be deferred by UChicago. If you want to apply to UChicago, you need to apply ED. Spend your time and focus your energy on the other ones.
Yeah I don’t have AP CS since I’m not an AP student. I kinda just took the AP exams for fun. I’m currently finishing IB CS HL, but those exam results won’t come back until the end of the school year. Thanks for the info on UChicago, that actually had me worried quite a bit since I heard Chicago’s early acceptances are very different regular ones. My highest AIME was an 8, highest AMC 10 was a ~142? I missed USAJMO by 2 points and I didn’t really try for USAMO after that.