Chances for Carnegie Mellon

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>White Male Junior in a highly regarded public school. I hope to major in math, engineering, or comp sci related major.</p>

<p>GPA (assumption for the end of the year):
Unweighted: 3.95
Weighted: 4.65+
A's in every class for Sophomore and Junior Years; Freshman- B in Comp Sci I and French II H
Freshman: Earth/Space Sci GT, Comp Sci I(Honors Class), US History GT, English 9 Honors, Geometry GT, Required PE/Health classes, French II Honors
Sophomore: AP Govt, Bio GT, Comp Sci III AP, French III Honors (GT not offered), Algebra II GT, Advanced Object Oriented Design GT, English 10 GT (AP non existent at sophomore level)
During Summer school, I took Precalc to get ahead (showing initiative?)
Junior: World History AP, Guitar I (fine arts requirement), Calc AB AP, French IV Honors (GT not offered), Chem GT, Computer Sci IV (AP no longer offered), English 11 AP (Language and Comp Test)
Senior planned schedule: Physics A/B and C AP(two sections, both courses), English 12 AP (Literature Test), Calc C AP, Euro AP or Psych AP, Math/Tech/Science Research for Two Periods (GT, used to work on comp sci/programming and web-related development)</p>

<p>Scores (here's where the problems start):
1990 SAT (1880 previous)
700 Math (610 previous exactly)
650 Writing (600 something previous)
640 Verbal (600 something previous)
5 on Comp Sci and Govt Exams
Planning to take ACT in June
Planning on taking WHAP, Calc and Language next month
Planning on physics tests, calc, literature and maybe Psych tests senior year</p>

<p>EC's:
Big one (Sophomore and Junior)- Web Admin for past 2 years...developed and maintain my school site constantly, leader in development and stuff (is this a leadership position?)
Math Team- Participated in the ARML test and the UMD test...got my ranks back (not very good at all)
FBLA (Sophomore and Junior)- Reached state level for word processing and database design and applications
Table Tennis Club (Last 3 years)
School Tech Team Member (Last 3 years) - participated in American Computer Science League AllStars and several regional programming competitions
Judo (Last 3 years, in hiatus) - progressed through orange belt, skipped a total of two belts
National Honor Society (this year)
SGA member (this year) - fluff, nothing really there
Track Team (this year) - spring track, sprints and jumping</p>

<p>Skills:
I have several skills including fluency in 5-10 programming/scripting/markup languages (depending on what you consider is in those categories)
Extensive work with databases online and offline</p>

<p>Awards:
School AP Scholar
Regional Awards for FBLA</p>

<p>What should I be aiming for with my SAT and ACT scores? Which SAT II's should I take?
Can people also tell me my reach, match and safety schools?</p>

2

<p>EDIT:
I forgot to mention that I’m planning on some type of tech-related internship/job during the summer, and that I’m also going to go into extensive community service operations (mainly tutoring stuff)- maybe 30-50 hours total</p>

3

<p>The major weakness I see (and the one you identified) is test scores. Your grades and ECs all seem fine (the ECs are very interesting and go well with your potential majors), but the SAT definitely needs to be raised.
The School of Computer Science is the most competitive. For a white male in SCS, get your math SAT as close to 800 as possible. I would try to aim at least for 750. SCS is really, really tough. Engineering and math are also tough of course, so raising your math score would still be a really, really god idea, but SCS has the highest middle 50% range for SAT scores.
It would be good to bring up your reading and verbal closer to 700, but CMU will definitely cut you some slack if you’re applying to a math/science kind of major, so I wouldn’t worry as much.</p>

<p>In terms of other schools, have you considered Case Western? Maybe RPI, WPI…those would all be a lot less reach-y. </p>

<p>Anyway, good luck! I’m strongly considering attending CMU this fall…</p>

4

<p>Thanks for the reply! As far as SCS, I see that I really need to improve my scores, but how are my current scores in aplying to the CIT of CMU?</p>

<p>Also, if I took the ACT and did exceptionally well, could I just submit that instead of the SAT scores?</p>

5

<p>bump? im just curious about the ACT stuff</p>

6

<p>One of my friend she sent only ACT to CMU (33) and got in.<br>
Colleges look more heavy on GPA than test scores. I think SCS, CIT or other schools are all match for you. Don’t worry.</p>