Hi, if anyone would be willing to read this and chance me and give me some advice on what I should do to improve I would greatly appreciate it!
Schools: Penn, Cornell, WashU, Columbia, Michigan Ann Arbor, NYU, BU, Cooper Union
Demographics
Straight white male
$140,000 house income
Missouri public high school
Stats
ACT: 33 comp, will take again
1410 PSAT (700 reading, 710 math)
GPA: upward trend, 4.85 this semester, 4.3 past two years
Rank: 4 of 350
Courses
AP: 1 sophomore year
APUSH (4)
5 junior year (current)
Physics 1
Bio
Calc AB
Lang/Comp
Government
- (school does not offer BC or Phys C)
Planning on taking 4 or 5 APs next year
Awards
Literally nothing
Extracurriculars
Technology Student Association (Reporter - manage PR and advertising) 2 years
FIRST Robotics Team (CAD team, no leadership available) 1 year
Scholar Bowl (varsity captain) 1 year
Assistant Student Council, 2 years
Varsity Tennis, 2 years
Possibilities
I have some other ECs in the works:
STEM Club for local elementary schools, founder and leader (this project is done basically)
Math Club Founder
Summer program or research - SSP or MITES is are top choices but i def wont get in lol
- If these two fall through, there’s a local one I can do, still very good and much more research oriented
Tutoring? (physics, math, or writing)
Independent engineering projects
And a boost to some of my current stats:
Rank will likely jump to 1 or 2
ACT will hopefully jump to a 34/35
Cumulative GPA will hopefully jump to a 4.5/4.6
Hopefully elected TSA President
MAY take Calc II at local community college next year, and also may independently study AP Physics C (my AP 1 teacher offered)
i’d say you’ll be admitted to nyu, bu, umich, and possibly washu, but i’m not sure about penn, cornell, or cooper union. the only thing i have to say is to try and have some volunteering in your community on your application, for you seem to be missing that. other than that, you’re on your way, my dude!
It is difficult to know how to interpret a 4.8 GPA since we live in a district where it is not possible to get a 4.8, even if you have only 100’s in AP or DE classes.
Have you run the NPCs on all of these schools and discussed the results with your parents? Taking on significant debt for undergrad can seriously reduce your options going forward (such as what jobs or internships you can accept, or whether you have the option to go to graduate school).
Think about the subject areas that you’d like to major in, and commit a significant amount of time (say, 30+ hours) over the summer focused on a project related to that subject area. This can be one of the summer programs, an internship or job in an interesting field, research, or a project done on your own time: teach yourself a new coding language, build a machine from old parts, etc etc. Get as involved as possible in your extracurriculars - run for an elected position, take on extra responsibilities, and try to make a significant difference in at least one extracurric that you really enjoy.
@DadTwoGirls yeah, I have. They aren’t super cheap but Penn is my top choice and I can definitely swing the price ($15000 per year). My parents are okay with this because they know how bad I want to go. I have a few back up stat schools where I likely could go for cheap/free. As for the GPA, that’s the GPA my school issues, they derive it in a strange way so I don’t know exactly what my normal weighted GPA is. My school doesn’t give me my UW GPA so I don’t know it exactly.
@westcoastbby yeah, i’m really trying. my main interests are physics and engineering. TSA and robotics relate to that, and some of the other projects i have listed do too. theres a really nice research opportunity i can do over the summer if MITES and SSP fall through. As for the leadership positions, I go to a very new high school that doesn’t have a ton of clubs, so before I can get a leadership position, I need to start them. I’ll probably be TSA president by May when we hold elections, but that’s the only leadership I’m missing; the rest of my clubs I’m already a leader in or don’t offer positions. I definitely appreciate the input though, just more reason to really dedicate time to a focused interest.
@therealsadboi With the ACT that you have, I was accepted SCEA to Yale. The acceptance rate for SCEA was 14% this year, but for RD, it can go below 5%. Apply EA as much as possible because the results end up better.