Hi everyone!
Just another senior looking for a chance me because that February fear is getting to me.
California Resident
SAT: 1460
SAT Math II: 780, SAT Physics: 770
APs taken: Calc AB (5), AP Phys 1(4), AP Lang(4), AP CSP (4) WHAP (3)
APs taking this year: Calc BC, Phys 2, AP Lit, AP-CSA, AP Macro, AP American Gov
GPA: UW 3.72, UC W: 4.08
Major: Aerospace Engineering for UCLA, UCSD, UCI, and UCD, Mech Engineering for UCSB, UCB, and UCSC.
ECs: (This is hopefully my redemption)
NASA Intern in a Bio program, selected from part of a larger group of other 15 interns to run my own experiment, publishing in the summer of 2020, also went to a national aerospace conference to represent NASA Ames and present proposed experiment.
Robotics: Lots of leadership positions: treasurer, business lead, VP
STEM clubs: Math club, physics club, Cyberpatriot(team lead), python club, and a few others
Work experience: Worked at target in electronics, youngest person put on the electronics team ever at that branch, moved up to Head of Demonstrations, got a spot on branch leadership
Science fairs: won a few regional awards for engineering projects but nothing particularly worthy
Volunteering: I run a program where I lead some volunteers from my robotics team to visit kids in junior robotics teams and teach them about STEM and engineering, I also spend my free period as a teacher’s assistant in physics.
And lots of smaller things that aren’t worth mentioning here.
My essays are pretty decent, I’ve focused my writing to be very STEM heavy in my work experience, clubs, and volunteering to show I’m a dedicated engineer with aerospace experience.
My fear is that my GPA is so low, I’m right in waitlist territory for the top UCs (especially since I’m going engineering). I hoped that being super engineering heavy would help make up for less than amazing GPA. The reason why its so low is that I got pretty darn sick in the middle of junior year and my Calc AB teacher didn’t let me make up a lot of my work, so I pulled a phat C+ (79% argh) in both semesters of the class. I ended up having to self study most of the class and got away with a 5 on the AP test. I wrote about this a little, but not as much as I probably should have.
Really dreaming for UCB and UCLA like everyone else, but I’d be amazed if i got UCSD, wondering what everyone else thinks.
Thanks!