Chance Me!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Chance me for Northwestern, WashU, Cornell, Vanderbilt, Carnegie Mellon, RICE, and Notre Dame!

About Me:
I am white, female, and Catholic. I applied into Mechanical Engineering or Undecided Engineering at all of these schools. So far I have been admitted to Georgia Tech, Purdue, and Penn State. My brother goes to Cornell but I don’t know if that would be considered legacy.

Cumulative Weighted GPA (on a scale of 100, my school doesn’t do 4.0 scale): 99.29
Cumulative Unweighted GPA: 94.05
My school does not rank but I believe I am in the top 10% of my class.
I have taken all honors classes or AP classes when they are offered. I have taken AP Calc BC, AP Chemistry, AP European History and I am currently taking AP Latin, AP Physics I, and AP Macroeconomics. My school doesn’t offer very many AP classes.

Test Scores:
ACT: 35 (Math 33, Science 36, Reading 36, and English 35)
Math SAT II: 790
Chemistry SAT II: 800
AP Scores: Calc BC-5 (AB subscore of 5), US History-5, Chemistry-5, English Language and Composition- 5, European History- 4

ECs:
Varsity Gymnastics (4 years)
Captain of the Robotics Team (3 years)
Girl Scouts (since 6th grade)
Atlar Server at my Church (since 5th grade)
Debate (4 years)
Latin Club Leader (2 years)
Summer Internship
National Honor Society
National Merit Semifinalist

My essays for all the schools were pretty good according to my college counselor. I have had interviews with Vanderbilt, WashU, and Cornell and I think they went well! As far as I know I have good recs. I have visited WashU, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, and Northwestern.

2

Most of the rest of your schools are reach/low reach because of the acceptance rates, but your GPA/test scores put you in the running. WashU/ND should be low reaches since you have visited/interviewed with WashU (they love the demonstrated interest) and ND because you’re Catholic.

The others will be reaches since their acceptance rates are roughly 10% or lower but it’s quite possible for acceptances to all of them (girl with interest in STEM).

You have some very good acceptances in your pocket. Purdue is very good for ME and Georgia Tech is one of the premier engineering schools in the country.

3

All things considered, since you already have acceptances in hand and there is a good chance that you will get into at least 2 of your reach schools, you will need to consider affordability and best fit/best opportunities for your major.

If you are sticking with Engineering, Purdue and Georgia Tech are the way to go. Since you mention Notre Dame, I assume you’re from Indiana. Purdue would be the good in-state affordable option and is probably the best for Mechanical Engineering. And Penn State is pretty underrated in many areas.

For your reaches, Cornell probably has the best Engineering school, although it’s probably better known for EECS and BME. Next would be CMU, then NW.

WashU isn’t all that well known for its Engineering program (my kid goes there) although they are putting in the money for new facilities, which you probably have seen during your visit. Even at that they are better known for BME and the school has a stereotype where everybody and their friend is pre-med.

I’m not that familiar with Vandy Engineering although I had a coworker graduate from there in the late 90s with an EE degree and she said they could have been more focused on Engineering. In many respects they are pretty similar to WashU.

4

Forgot to mention Rice. Not familiar with it but they also seem to have a strong emphasis on BME. I would say for Texas schools UT-Austin and TAMU are the best Engineering schools.

5

@Hamurtle Thank you for all of your feedback! I just wanted some outside opinions besides my parents about my chances at these schools. I am actually from the south so affordability-wise Georgia Tech would be my best option, but I am hoping to be able to go out of state. Both my parents went to Penn State and I visit there frequently, so if I were to get accepted to the Schreyer Honors College, though I do not expect to since it is very much based on your responses to some tough essay questions that I had trouble with, I would most likely go there over Purdue.