Chances: SCS ED?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Carnegie Mellon University
1

<p>White, male, pretty decent (not the best) public school, with somewhat bad guidance counselors...</p>

<p>ACT: Math - 36, Science -34, Writing -27, 10/12 on Essay, Composite - 31
SAT: 660 | 780 | 680
SAT IIs: Math IIc - 800, Chemistry - 800, US History - 700
Should I include my US History score?</p>

<p>GPA: 3.7UW
Have taken all Seminar/AP options possible (highest level course rigor available)</p>

<p>Total 11 AP classes (12 including both Physics C's):
Calc BC - 5 (AB Subscore - 5), Chem - 5, English Lang - 5, Euro - 4, US History - 4
Taking AB Comp/Sci and expecting a breeze 5, would have taken if not for scheduling issues each year.</p>

<p>Clubs and ECs:
Freshman - FIRST Robotics, Math Team, People to People Foreign Exchange in Europe, National German Honor Society
Sophomore - FIRST Robotics (2nd Place Team), Math Team, Foreign Exchange to Germany, National German Honor Society
Junior - FIRST Robotics (President), Math Team, Science Olympiad, Youth Leadership Program, Pennsylvania Governor's School for IT, National Honor Society, National German Honor Society
Senior - FIRST Robotics (President), Math Team, Science Olympiad, Physics Olympics (Co-Founder), National Honor Society, National German Honor Society</p>

<p>Also, question about teacher recs: is Calc/CompSci Teacher and Physics Teacher good? Should I get a Supp Recommendation from my Robotics Coach/Physics 2 teacher? And if so, do they fill out a normal recommendation form or just write a letter?</p>

<p>And one more question: Can I apply Early Action to another College and apply early for a semi-rolling College right as I apply ED to CMU SCS?</p>

<p>So what are my odds for ED?</p>

2

<p>As you know, your weaknesses are your writing/reading scores (and your grades in those classes are probably why you don't have a 4.0). I would suggest that you make sure you spend plenty of time on your essays and ask your English teacher or someone to look them over, because that is probably the best way to balance out the lower (by CC standards) scores. I think that your stats are matchy for SCS, but your application probably will look a lot like a bunch of other peoples', so try to distinguish yourself in the essays, if possible.</p>

<p>Make sure CMU isn't one of the schools that requires that one recommendation is from a humanities teacher. If that's not the case, your recs will be fine. No comment on whether you should send a supplementary rec - I'm pretty sure only one of my recs ever made to CMU.</p>

<p>ED is binding, so I think that you could apply EA/rolling admissions at other schools, but if you were admitted you would have to attend CMU. I'm not an expert on how these things work though - I only applied EA one place. Because it's binding, make sure that you can afford CMU if you don't get any merit aid. Use a financial aid calculator to check how much need based aid you can expect to get.</p>

3

<p>I couldn't find anywhere if it requires a humanities recommendation or not. My family can afford CMU and I know that I would have to retract any other applications, I just didn't know if applying EA anywhere was allowed.</p>

<p>The essays are my primary focus at the moment.</p>

4

<p>Bumpety Bump!</p>

5

<p>If you send one SAT score, they'll get all of them, your US History score is fine anyway. </p>

<p>Last year's admissions stats for SCS (from <a href="http://my.cmu.edu/site/admission/menuitem.edce48707aab43c019300710d4a02008/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://my.cmu.edu/site/admission/menuitem.edce48707aab43c019300710d4a02008/&lt;/a> ):</p>

<p>Applied 2,307<br>
Admitted 431<br>
Enrolled 143<br>
SAT-CR 650-750<br>
SAT-M 740-800
SAT-WR 640-730
Rank top 6%<br>
GPA 3.78 (probably unweighted)</p>

<p>SAT ranges are 25-75%iles. </p>

<p>Your reading score is low, your math score is high, your writing score is average. Your GPA is a bit below average and we don't know your rank. Your ECs seem fine. I also don't know what percentage of the class was accepted early decision. I'd say you are in range, so go for it, but there are no guarantees.</p>

<p>My son got recommendations from physics and Latin teachers because MIT required a humanities teacher. He had two supplemental recommendations from people for whom he did computer programming work. If your extra recommendation knows a different side of you and will truly supplement the regular teacher recommendations, it can't hurt.</p>

6

<p>Top 5-10% of class, 4.4W GPA. I now have a supplemental recommendation from my Robotics coach.</p>