Hello! Any advice would be appreciated.
Applied EA to MIT, Caltech, UIUC, GATech, UChicago
SAT: 1570 (800 Math, 770 Reading/Writing), 2nd sitting
SAT Math 2: 800
SAT Bio M: 800
GPA: 4.0 UW, 6.4 W
All Applicable Honors and AP: (15 APs total, 5 currently, 5s on 9 exams [AB, BC, Chem, Bio, Physics C Mech, Physics C: E and M, APUSH, AP Euro, Stats], 4 on English Lang)
Extracurriculars:
(Reported on MIT App and Common App):
- Captain of STEM, Science Club, and Math Team: Help run these clubs and get students to participate. Also participate myself in almost all of the opportunities. Brought the biology and chemistry olympiads to my school.
- Mathematics Teaching Assistant: I help out the Calculus courses in my school by tutoring struggling students, and also giving full lessons as well as creating exams. (I didn’t report that I was giving full lessons and making exams when I submitted my app, should I update them?)
- Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Sciences (PGSS): Highly-selective STEM summer camp (14% accept rate) at CMU
- Graduate Math Courses at UPenn: Sitting in on three graduate-level mathematics courses at UPenn. Didn’t report grades as they were not available, but currently have As in all three.
(Reported on Common App but not MIT App):
5. DECA: Business club, designed a financial aid marketing program, won 2nd place at international competition
6. Research: Currently developing a data clustering algorithm. Didn’t report on MIT app because it was not very developed at the time and I hadn’t written a paper.
7. Fruit Fly Research: Studied effects of electromagnetic fields on fruit flies, submitted the paper as the research supplement.
8. Spanish Club/National Spanish Honor Society
9. Job at Kumon
10. Community Service at Local Soup Kitchen
Awards: Top 50 on USABO Semifinal Exam, Top 141 on USNCO National Exam, AIME qualifier, 1st Place in State Engineering Competition, 1st Place in Category at State Science Fair, AP National Scholar and National Merit Semifinalist, 2nd Place at DECA ICDC, School-wide Chemistry Award, Accepted to PGSS, 1st Place in Local University Mathematics Contest, Gold Award in National Spanish Exam (9th, 10th, 11th grade).
Maker Portfolio: Worked with a team to create a novel water filter/regulator that could regulate water output, filter water, and determine methane concentration. Won first place in state engineering competition. (Might be able to submit to some schools, sent to Caltech and MIT already).
Research Supplement: Studied the effects of electromagnetic fields on fruit fly behavior and health. Won first place in category at state science fair (Intel ISEF qualifying fair, but did not qualify for ISEF).
Common App Essay: Decent, wrote about my really long last name and how it relates to my heritage/upbringing
Recs:
Research advisor was about a page and a half, very well-written.
Engineering advisor (school) was also about a page long and well written.
APUSH teacher: not as good as others but decent.
AP Biology teacher: well-written, decent length. (not sent to all schools)
Gender and Ethnicity: Iranian Male with dual citizenship (Could someone enlighten me as to how affirmative action affects me? I can’t seem to find anything regarding Iranian males.)
Reach: MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Ivies, CMU CS, UChicago
Target: GTech, UIUC, UT Austin, JHU
Safety: Pitt and Penn State (already accepted)
Thank you