Chance me please

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm a junior in high-school studying in India. It has always been my dream to get into the ivy league or one of the elite universities in the USA.
I plan on applying to the following universities:
MIT
Stanford
Caltech
Texas A&M
Princeton
Cornell
uPenn
Yale
Columbia
Duke</p>

<p>I would like to take up Electrical Engineering as my major as I've always been enthusiastic about electronics and cars. I am interested in pursuing a career in the automotive industry mainly DAS(driver assist systems) and artificial intelligence in cars.</p>

<p>My Profile:</p>

<p>*Note: I am yet to take the SATs and subject tests, but have mentioned my possible scores.</p>

<p>SAT: 2300
SAT subject tests: Physics - 780
Math II - 770</p>

<p>GPA(year-wise):
3.92
4.0
3.4 (expecting)
4.0 (expecting)</p>

<p>LORs: I am in my teacher's good books and among the top students at school. So, they will be good.</p>

<p>Curriculum: CBSE (competitive) </p>

<p>ECs:
- Playing guitar for almost four years now. I have participated in various inter-school competitions. I am currently the lead guitarist in my school's band.</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Member of Debate/JAM club at school</p></li>
<li><p>Member of Drama club at school</p></li>
<li><p>Have been house captain during my sophomore year</p></li>
<li><p>Attended three MUNs</p></li>
<li><p>Participated/won various essay competitions</p></li>
</ul>

<p>Volunteering/community-service: Just help out the poor if and when possible but nothing very notable. But I am eager to do something(any suggestions will be grateful). </p>

<p>Essay:
I'm working a lot towards my essay and I'm pretty sure it'll be an 'ivy-league' quality essay. </p>

<p>I will also definitely need financial aid.</p>

<p>My question:
Do I have a shot at any of the mentioned universities?
Any suggestions to improve my profile?</p>

<p>Highly appreciate the opinions/suggestions.</p>

2

<p>Bump…</p>

3

<p>A 2300 on the SAT is a very high score, and based on your grades I think its hard to imagine anything past a 2100. Your average gpa comes out to 3.8 putting you way bellow the average for all of these schools expect maybe Texas A&M.</p>

4

<p>Thanks for your opinion.
Say I do get a 2300 (I am working towards it), will it improve my chances?</p>

5

<p>Also, how is the engineering program (electrical engineering) at Texas A&M?</p>

6

<p>The only thing a 2300 will do is bring you up to the average level. If you look at the admission statistics for the schools you listed, you’ll find that the 75% for SAT is above 2300 at most. So, a 2300 will only put you into the pool of typical applicants, and the decision will be made based on your ECs, rec letters, and essays. And, to be honest, your ECs seem pretty standard. I think that almost all of these schools will be reaches for you, unless you find some way to make yourself stand out from the rest.
And just an unrelated question - if you’re so sure that you wanna go into engineering, why are you applying to so many ultra-competitive schools which don’t even have the best engineering programs? For example, Yale, Duke, UPenn - don’t get me wrong, they are absolutely amazing schools, but there are plenty of less competitive colleges with stronger engineering programs, like University of Michigan and Carnegie Mellon. It seems like you just picked the most well-known and prestigious schools without really doing much research.</p>

7

<p>Appreciate your opinion.
The reason I’m applying to these schools is because they offer financial aid, which I’ll be needing.
The other schools do not offer aid to international applicants.</p>

8

<p>Your sat is pretty good</p>