SAT I: Math: 790, Reading - 770, Writing - 750
ACT (breakdown): 36 composite, Math 35, English 36, Science 36, Reading 36
Unweighted GPA: 4.0
Weighted GPA (I don’t know if this is the norm but at my school the highest weighted gpa you can have is a 7.0): 6.63
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1/484
AP (place score in parentheses): Calculus AB 4, World History 5, Human Geography 5, Psychology 5, Computer Science A 5, English Literature 5
IB (place score in parentheses): Spanish SL 6
Senior Year Course Load: IB English HL, Math HL, Biology HL, History of the Americas HL, Physics SL, Theory of Knowledge, AP Environmental Science
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): Finalist at ACM Mobicom App Challenge (prestigious mobile device conference), Honorable Mention at MIT Think, 3rd at ISEF in my category, Won a minor award at the Hackaday Prize competition, two-time winner of the Congressional App Challenge in my district, 3rd place at UF JSEHS, Sunshine State Scholar, Bronze medal at I-SWEEEP (another international science fair)
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): AP Scholar, pretty sure I'm going to be a NM semifinalist, got to the second round of the International Linguistics olympiad, 5th place at state science fair in 9th grade, 4th place in tenth, 1st place in eleventh, 2nd at Florida Junior Academy of Science (FJAS)
Taught myself Portugese through duo have taken AP Spanish and French 1 Honors
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description):
Math Club: Junior Officer (11th) and Senior Officer (12th)
Science Olympiad: Captain (12th)
Band (9th)
Tennis: (participated 9th, 10th, and 11th, and district finalist in 11th)
Quiz Bowl: Co-Captain (11th and 12th)
MIT Launch: Vice President (11th) and we made it to the Launch Club finals at MIT but didn’t win anything there, Design Lead (12th)
NHS (10, 11th, and 12th) but everyone does NHS
Summer Experience: Participated in UF SSTP, and I’m working on publishing a paper of my own research with a UF professor
Do you have $250,000 ? If not, take Berkeley and UCLA off your list. They don’t give financial aid to international students. Stanford is not need blind for international students so if you need financial aid, you’re at a huge disadvantage when applying.
Your chances for all the other schools are not good. Not because you’re not a good candidate – you are – but because they reject more than 90% of their American applicants, and even a higher percentage of international applicants. You can do the math: your chances are tiny.
Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t apply. But it does mean you have to have a back-up plan.
If you’re a citizen/permanent resident, that increases your odds slightly at all the schools. Except you still have to have the approx $250,000 for UCLA and Berkeley, which don’t give financial aid to out-of-state applicants.
With your ISEF recognition, you are a really good candidate for a lot of those schools. Just make sure to continue your research through your senior at talent search, RSI, ISEF, etc.
Competitive? Yes. But so are many others applying to the same schools. In the end, it’s a bit like playing the lottery. I will say, competitive full-pay out of state students do have an advantage at UCLA and Berkeley.
One other thing I forgot to mention: I’ve volunteered for about 200 hours at my local library helping educate kids and adults about STEM using robotics. More importantly, I started my own charity where anyone in my county can donate used or old computers at a branch of the library system, which I then used to build functional computers that I donated to underserved households. I did this for the full duration of my junior year and I have built around fifteen computers so far.
The template also asks for any hooks - urm, ethnicity, first gen, etc. Do you have any? If you don’t, you still have a good shot at MIT, Cal Tech and the UCs who don’t look at those things or don’ prioritize them as highly as HYPS. Do you have an idea on major?
I’m an Asian male so hooks there. Both of my parents are immigrants that went to college in their home country, and we’re middle class with an income of ~120 thousand. I’m definitely majoring in computer science and/or electrical engineering
Several of my high school classmates were recognized at science competitions such as ISWEEP, ISEF, and STS. Most of them got into several top Ivies. The competition is tough for an asian male, but write some great essays and I would not be surprised if you got into 3-4 of the schools you listed.
All of the listed colleges are reaches for admission (for computer science and engineering for those which admit by major). Did you expect any other answer?
Yeah, so Asian male is going to work against you at HYSP and some other places, but not the UCs or stem-focused schools. Because you’re going into EECS, they’re all reaches as ucb noted. Your chances are the best at the two UC schools, followed by Cal Tech, MIT, Stanford, and really HYP is a huge crapshoot for you. So I’d probably avoid them, you already have five reaches with MIT, UCB, Stanford considered among the best for EECS, along with CMU (match) and Michigan (match). I would add those two, and Purdue, Illinois (very good chance as long as you can pay).
And the only ED school is CMU, the only SCEA is Stanford, the rest are EA so you could apply early to say MIT ad Michigan and see how that goes.
You have a pretty good chance at the UC’s, but like a commenter said earlier, the cost is hefty. However, UC’s have tons of international students so I don’t think you should rule them out as an option. They’re probably more likely to accept you than the rest on your list, but since you have MIT, I’d say apply there too.