Chances for the Great Caltech?

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
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<p>Hi, I am a current junior and wanted to know my chances for Caltech? (Korean-American male)</p>

<p>All GPA's listed are weighted</p>

<p>GPA Freshman Year: 4.00 </p>

<p>GPA Sophomore Year: 4.33 </p>

<p>GPA Junior (as of now): 4.67 </p>

<p>SAT: 800 Math, 800 CR, 780 WR
Total: 2380 (single sitting)</p>

<p>SAT Subject Tests: Chemistry (800), Math IIc (800), Biology (660) <- epic fail
About Biology: I'm not good at memorizing things. I consider myself more of a problem solver.</p>

<p>Rank:: 1st quintile (school ranks as such: 1'st Quintile is the highest GPA's, 4th has the lowest)</p>

<p>AP Classes (taking currently): AP Statistics, AP computer science, AP US History, AP Biology</p>

<p>AP Classes to be taken senior year: AP Calculus BC, AP World History, AP English</p>

<p>I plan on applying Early Action.</p>

<p>Extra Curricular Activities:
President and Founder of School's computer science club
a) won top 3 at programming competition at local university
Mathematics Team Co-Captain
Academic Decathlon
Environmental Club
Political Club
NJ Chemistry Olympics - ranked top 3
Volunteer EMT</p>

<p>Research Experience:
NYU-Poly - did computer science/applied mathematics research on various encryption algorithms (md5, etc.) and worked on developing modes of encryption</p>

<p>Summer Program:
Columbia University High School Summer Program</p>

<p>Computer Experience:
Contribute to open-source projects
President of Local Town Linux Users Group
Programming languages: C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Intel Assembly
Working knowledge of unix based systems: BSD, linux, etc.</p>

<p>I have a passion for mathematics and computer science which I hope will come out in my application. My recommendations should be great. One of them is from my professor who taught me both computer science and mathematics who likes me a lot. The other is from my Honors Pre-Calc teacher who went to M.I.T. for both undergraduate school and graduate school (may not be such a good thing actually) and is known for writing great recommendations. </p>

<p>Going to participate in USACO so we shall see how that goes..</p>

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<p>You look like a great fit for caltech based on your high SATs (congrats 2380 is an excellent score!), science ECs, research, and awards! Just write great essays and you shouldn’t expect a “reject” at all. You only lack awards but i guess your “top 3 award in NJ Chemistry Olympics” is good enough. Just don’t apply any biology-related courses! (:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/california-institute-technology/442418-anyone-wanting-know-their-chances-getting-into-caltech.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/california-institute-technology/442418-anyone-wanting-know-their-chances-getting-into-caltech.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/867598-chances-mit.html?highlight=nyu-poly#post1064135180[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/867598-chances-mit.html?highlight=nyu-poly#post1064135180&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>lol busted for having 2+ accounts!</p>

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<p>Yeah, your stats look great. Btw, have you tried USACO training pages?</p>

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<p>I posted on the MIT thread using my brother’s account by accident (we share a computer). I didn’t know that he did not log out I just acted without thinking.</p>

<p>We don’t all have the luxury of having multiple computers in our homes -_-</p>

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<p>Ya… Passion for Math… I hope my essay on craziness about math works.</p>

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<p>@phrenze: Looking through your profile carefully, I would strongly urge you not to apply Early Action! Even though you have VERY GREAT stats, your ECs don’t show any STRONG signals of a REAL PASSION, and Caltech admissioners are VERY GOOD at pointing out types of passionate people. I guess you know the classical saying:“Let your actions SPEAK for your words!” Essays ARE IMPORTANT, yes, but essays ALONE won’t help you that much in Caltech’s admission if your ECs don’t show that type of strong passion mentioned in your essays. You may wonder why I say this? The answer is very simple: Those types of people who ONLY show their passions through essays without the significant activities to back up for their words, in my definition, are trying to FAKE their passions! Your case is almost the same though you did research, which is a good point! Therefore, you should reconsider about the option of applying Early Action. My best piece of advice for you is this: If you LOVE MATH, go out and do THINGS that PROFESSIONAL MATHEMATICIANS do! You may say “Is this guy crazy?” but if you are able to pull up your resume with significant activities(e.g: publications on journals, research contests, talks at conference, write a book and get it published to be sold internationally,etc), you stand a GREAT chance of getting into Caltech! To get a sense of what a PROFESSIONAL Mathematicians do(e.g: Terence Tao, Ngo Bao Chau, Vladimir Drinfield,etc), just go to their homepages and take a look at their CVs! This way, you can actually get a sense of what you want/need to do to “jump out of page!” Of course, don’t sweet my words if you don’t like Math, since it will take you a huge amount of work to have a resume like that of a professional mathematician. Feel free to apply this way into science too, if you think it works out well for you! Good luck:)</p>

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<p>Maybe I’m not good at sensing sarcasm…but 17-year-old Caltech applicants do not regularly publish books or journal articles or give conference talks. The OP seems to have decent raw material; now, as always, it’s up to the quality of the essays and teacher recs.</p>

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<p>@LHC: I’m sorry if I make you feel that way, but I’m not being sarcastic or anything when I wrote those things. If Caltech is that much into math/science, the applicants should be expected to show their superior passions on those areas. If those applicants are not able to show their passions through their actions, why should the admission officers have to believe in his words? Aren’t those words persuasive to them?Not much, or really, not at all. Those applicants, therefore, don’t deserve to get into this special school right? Because I know many people who have that kind of superior achievements/activities that show unusual maturity on the subject they love(in this case is mathematics!). I’m sure that Caltech will have a class of 200 international students each year,where each of them has such kinds of activities, or even more rare ones. Working in this way, the place which should be taken by the most talented/passionate students in mathematics/science will be fulfilled, instead of being “mistakenly” occupied by those who are simply show their passions through “their mouths.”, who simply don’t deserve a place at Caltech. Unfortunately, reality occurs backwardly, which simply decreases the quality of Caltech’s class itself in that year.
@phrenze: I don’t meant to criticize you or anything like that. Those are just my honest opinions, and what I feel about the applicants who should be accepted at Caltech:)</p>

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<p>edited out for demonstration purposes</p>

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<p>If those numbers are real, you are a genius, lol</p>

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<p>tappium: Those numbers are typical for a Caltech applicant.</p>

<p>ghjk: We are of course looking for passion. However, it’s not common for an undergrad, and exceptionally rare for a high school student, to have the ability and opportunity to do something like publishing a paper.</p>

<p>Also, I’d like to add these words of wisdom from my friend who was around when I was writing this and asked what CC is:
“You have so many better things to do. Why the [edited] would you discuss college?”</p>

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<p>Note that this friend said “You have so many better things to do” while watching me and LHC post on CC… she’s still sitting here… she must be really bored. Also, she’s just a frosh… I wouldn’t exactly turn to her for wisdom.</p>

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<p>@LHC: I don’t think it’s “really” rare to have such high school students as applicants applying to Caltech!Again, Caltech can definitely fill out its class with 200 international applicants who have such activities. If one lives in a quite well-opened countries like China, Singapore, Western Europe, Russia or USA and some other countries, one shouldn’t bother to borrowing the reason like you stated:" I don’t have opportunities to do those TOUGH things!" to avoid the fact that “he personally didn’t take all of the opportunities open to himself, either directly or indirectly in his life!” Such applicants, no matter how GREAT their test scores are, deserve a rejection letter! The explanation is easy: they are too less self-motivated and driven to become another Feynman, who is the typical figure of Caltech! Why do admission officers accept such a normal applicant like that, if they keep saying they want another “Feynman or Euler?” My point is that with such a small accepted applicants pool, Caltech REALLY SHOULD be aware of the applicants who are not self-motivated, or that driven, apply to it annually! I’m pretty sure that such number of applicants increase a lot, and if the admissioner officers basically said “yes” to just 5% of those guys, they apparently reject a huge number of the most driven, self-motivated applicants who ACTUALLY know and understand clearly what they want to do at Caltech, or even further in their lives! Again, passion MUST BE weighted more, or Caltech simply loses a bunch of geniuses out there just because its admission system contains a serious flaw: Accept people with high raw score and FAKED passion! Unfortunately, I have seen such number of admitted applicants who exactly belong to this group rises year by year at Caltech:(</p>

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<p>@ghjk:</p>

<p>I have several issues with your posts.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I show my passion for computer science by my activities inside and outside the classroom. I participate in many local programming competitions and work hard to spark the community of people in my local area who are interested in computers. However, what do you want me to do? Invite Caltech admissions officers to my town to see my passion for themselves? That is absurd. People use essays to demonstrate passion. My ECs also demonstrate my passion for CS. If these admissions officers are as good as you say they are, they will be able to see that I am not faking a passion (which seems to be your opinion of me)</p></li>
<li><p>You say that to actually jump off the page one must be as accomplished as people like Terence Tao. It is absurd to assume that people do things like compete in the Math Olympiad as people under the age of 15. By your standards, anyone who hasn’t broken the preconceptions of their fields by the age of college admissions is not worthy of admission. That is absurd. You cannot possibly expect everyone to be able to accomplish the things that Tao and others have.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Another example is this… I have been a great fan of Feynman ever since my dad gave me the book, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman?” From that, along with various other articles, I notice that while Feynman had passion he didn’t have the so called EC’s and others that you told me to see from various afore mentioned professor’s CV’s. This proves that just because you do not have spectacular extra curricular activities you CAN have passion, which I have.</p>

<p>You contradict yourself. You say that people need to prove their worthiness through actions throughout high school, and point to people such as Feynman as people who have passion. However, many people who have gone on to great things (Richard Stallman (Harvard), Linus Torvalds (University of Helsinki), & Richard Feynman (MIT)) got into college even without amazing high school achievements in their fields. They were able to show true passion.</p>

<p>I don’t think you should be so quick to judge people. I am sorry if this was too harsh, but by the way you talk you make it seem like I am faking my passion, which annoys me greatly.</p>

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<p>Frankly, ghjk, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Just because you don’t necessarily see “passion” from a chances thread on CC doesn’t mean that the adcomm won’t. This is why I think chances threads are essentially useless. There are a lot of things that go into an admissions decision. Also, if Caltech only accepted people with published papers, I don’t think we’d be able to fill our freshman class. There are plenty of amazing students out there who haven’t published papers. Stop thinking you can tell whether a student “deserves” to go to Caltech based on a CC chances post. It’s incredibly difficult for Adcomms to tell, and they have a lot more information than you.</p>

<p>@phrenzE</p>

<p>Your stats are good. Good luck with your application.</p>

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<p>Heck, there’s grad students at Caltech that haven’t published papers prior to admission.</p>

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<p>I think you have a very nice shot. Your stats are very solid. Try to put a lot of effort into your essays. Definitely do some research about Caltech life and culture. I think at Caltech the essays and personality an applicant portrays matter the most. I read a blog post about job interviews at Google that said something like: Google doesn’t care about what you did before, but they do care about why and how well you did it.</p>