Chances at MIT, RPI, CMU, CalTech, ?

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>GPA ~4.2 weighted
Class Rank: Top 5 of 315</p>

<p>ACT 33
SAT I 1540 (800 math, 740 verbal)
SAT II 760 Math IIc 760 Chem 760 US History</p>

<p>AP's
English Comp/Lit-5
Calculus AB-5
Chemistry-5
Gov't (US)-5
US History-5</p>

<p>College Credit
Calculus II + III (4+4) credits
Japanese I-IV (4+4+4+4) credits</p>

<p>EC
Web Design Team 2yr
Marching Band 4yr (1yr section leader)
Symphony Band 3yrs (Section leader 2yrs)
NHS 2yr
Boy Scouts 8yr, Eagle Scout
City Library Board-nonvoting student rep 1yr
Math League
PATH/Hope College Accelerated Learning Prog 2yr
ACS Semifinalist
Computer Club
Robotics Team
several other minor committees etc..</p>

<p>Notes:</p>

<p>I'm primarily interested in CompSci, and possibly other related majors such as EE and CompEng. May look to do a double major if i'm interested. MIT is my first choice, with Penn State/Purdue as backups.</p>

<p>Maybe 2-3 students from my high school go out of state for college, and none go to anything higher than a Big Ten/tier2 engineering school. The top 5% of my class goes to Michigan State or U of Michigan. I've run out of classes relevant to math/eng so i'm dual enrolling 2nd and 3rd semester calculus, as well as finishing my second year of college Japanese classes. My high school only offers 10 AP's, and due to policy I couldn't take them as an underclassmen, and can't schedule any more of them. Consistently the top grade in class, all A's and A-.</p>

<p>I've gotten a 1540 SAT I so i am under the impression that I shouldn't take that again, nor the ACT. However I am considering retaking SAT II's, would it be worth it? I'm also looking for other things I can do to make my app more appealing. All constructive comments appreciated!!</p>

<p>I had similar stats, activities, interests, etc. when I applied to colleges this year. I was accepted to CMU SCS and Caltech, WL at MIT, didn't apply to RPI.</p>

<p>I don't think it's not worth it to retake the SAT I. You're already above average for all of those schools, and I don't think they care much past 1500. If you have nothing better to do, you might want to consider retaking math 2c for an 800 (although I scored 770 and decided not to retake it).</p>

<p>If possible you should try to do get involved in some kind of university research. Caltech especially likes to see that. It might be too late to do anything like that at this point, however, and it's not really essential. </p>

<p>Although you're academically in MIT territory, don't put much stock into being accepted. MIT is very unpredictable when it comes to admissions, although being a member of an underrepresented gender/racial/geographical group helps.</p>

<p>(I'm going to CMU, by the way)</p>

<p>MIT is almost always a reach for everyone. Your scores definitely look good and you have a better shot that most. I don't even know if you need to retake anything. I guess it can't hurt. I think the eagle scout thing could come up big, but hard to say.</p>

<p>I might be able to do some research (both parents are PhD teaching at local university) but most likely it would be in their field (Biomedical/HS). I'm assuming they want me to do research in disciplines i'm interested in, right? My local university doesn't have a very strong CompSci, CompEng or EE departments and they probably aren't doing anything that I can help with during just a few months.</p>

<p>I'll plan on retaking the SAT II's as well. I'll also mention 300+ hours or something like that for boy scouts related (even though its probably way more than that, over 8 years).</p>

<p>Oh, and BUMP</p>