Hi everyone, I’m new to this forums thing and would like to hear what you all have to say on my chances of getting into engineering oriented colleges like Cornell, Johns Hopkins and Stanford.
So here are my stats:
SAT: 2130 with 700 CR 700M 730W
Subject tests: 660 M II 690 Physics
GPA: 3.7/4.0
Academic rigor: School offers no AP or honor courses and has no flexibility. Requires thirteen subjects per semester
Extracurriculars:
Software design - designed an AI engine that optimizes economic development and created a not-for-profit organization that freely distributes it to governmental agencies
Programming: ranked online as the fifth fastest fastest coder on the nation and takes part in programming competition on TopCoder and Codeforces.
Leadership: President of school physics and Astronomy Club for all four years of high school, founder of school coding club, Collaborated with a Space science society to organize interactive events
Participated in a three month long robotics workshop as a freshman
Awards/honors:
National science fair champ, Intel ISEF finalist
Iken Scientifica robotics finalist
Honorary mention on CNN
Do I have a good chance of getting into the schools I listed above? Any help is appreciated
Wow, the Intel medal is a nice touch. Your SAT score and GPA are a bit low for prestigious schools, but your EC’s are great – they might make up for your scores. I would say stanford is a low reach, and Cornell and John Hopkins a high match.
Hi @iamjack thanks for the reply. My SATs, GPAs and subject tests are a bit low for most of the prestigious schools yeah. But I ranked in the 99.97th percentile in a national exam in Grade 8 and had straight A’s and received regional distinction awards for the one in grade 10. Do you think this excuses my GPA and subject scores? Also, what other schools do you recommend?
I’m not really sure what that 8th grade national exam is, but my guess is it wouldn’t make up for your grades because colleges usually only care about grade 9-12. Other good engineering schools you have a solid shot at might be University of Michigan, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Georgia Tech, etc.
Not too familiar with programming/engineering, but your ECs look pretty stellar.
Your SAT scores contradict what colleges would expect for someone with your expertise in engineering AKA pretty low (especially math/physics-those should be 800)
While your school does not offer AP, if your regular classes are anything like the classes in the US, then that GPA is fairly low for these schools.
However, these colleges will definitely look at your ECs and essays with much more emphasis than other schools, so you definitely have a chance.
like iamjack said, there are other good engineering schools where you have a higher chance.
Yeah the UC schools are pretty much out of the range I can pay so I most probably won’t be applying there. Do any of you think I should take the subject tests on January to improve my chances? I hadn’t studied much for the ones I took on November (too much overconfidence I suppose) and feel like I could do much better. But then again, most schools are very specific on when they want to receive scores so I fear it won’t be much of a help