I’m a Hispanic female who applied to Tech with a 1440 SAT (750 R/W 690 Math) 3.8 UW 4.0 W, 8 APS including AP AB Calc this year, and pretty extensive extra curriculars. Most importantly and what I think I can talk about the most is that I work in a GTRI lab three days a week. I did swimming and water polo 9th-11th grade, I’m in NHS, the Gay Straight Alliance, and the Spanish Honor Society. I’ve been involved in non-church related, independently sought out volunteer programs in Latin America over the past few summers that I wasn’t able to discuss very much in my first application. I plan on asking my mentor, boss, and his boss to all put in good words wth admissions, but other than that, should I use the deferred form to talk about my summer experiences? Nothing has really changed in the last 3 months.
From what you describe above, I can’t find any parallelism in your extracurricular activities. What do you plan to major in? I would suggest writing about something related to the major you want to go into. Doing way too many extracurricular activities without any awards to prove that you did them well always raises a red flag. For STEM related schools, people who are well rounded are almost always at a disadvantage because while you spend your time doing a little bit of everything, angular applicants are focusing on winning competitions in the field they are really passionate about. Writing about GTRI lab would be very beneficial for you if you plan to major in STEM. if you have leadership in clubs related to your major, update them on how you are doing. Is there any awards you have won? Did you do anything related to your major during the summer? They want to see that you continue to do what you love.
Thanks for replying! I haven’t held any leadership positions in the clubs. I talked about my job in one of the essays and plan to update them with the work I’m doing now. One volunteer experience was on an organic, sustainable farm in rural Ecuador where I helped teach indigenous communities sustainable agricultural techniques. The second was in rural Nicaragua, where I provided daily physical therapy for disabled adults and children. I’m very interested in the environment and public health. I applied to the environmental engineering program, but I can also see myself going into biomedical engineering or biology. Sorry, I should have included that! What do you think?
Also, the work I do at GTRI is also related to the environment as well as public health! I just don’t want to rely too much on the job and have nothing else to talk about.
Hey not sure if you submitted the form yet, but I’d recommend not highlighting your summer experiences. They stressed that it should be updates in your ec’s or new ec’s that you should write about, not re-explaining old ones that were included in your original app.