Duke, Brown or JHU ED 2018

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Chance me as if I applied ED to all. I will obviously pick one, I just would like to hear feedback about my chances ED.

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): NA
ACT (breakdown): Single: 34 (35M, 36E, 34R, 32S) Super: 35
SAT II: 800 Math II, 800 Physics, 780 Chemistry
USED UC GPA for context
UW: 3.88
UC Capped (including honors): 4.21
UC Fully weight (including honors): 4.44
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): School doesn’t rank, likely in top 10%
Senior Year Course Load: IB Physics II, IB Bio II, IB Calc II, IB English II, IB History II, IB French IV, IB TOK II
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Internationally ranked robotics, top 3 in state for math team, NHD state winner, HOBY state ambassador, presidential service award, national merit semifinalist

Subjective (left these vague to preserve anonymity):

Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):

  • Robotics (Captain): Went to internationals and placed top 20, I also help maintain website
  • Math team (Captain): Compete against schools statewide, placed in top 3 this year
  • Investment club (CEO): Campaigned for money, then donate it to a cause
  • Stock Market (Captain): Educate school about stock market
  • National History (Captain): Went to nationals, did not place there though

Volunteer/Community service: Help out local robotics teams, over 300 hours throughout HS

Work Experience:

  • Started a business where I created an app with several thousand downloads, run app and website, CEO
  • Performed research on vision processing, CS related, wrote a 20 page paper, will submit to Siemens
  • Took several summer robotics and CS related workshops through robotics team -Taught a summer course about robotics to youth, ran an appathon
  • Maintain several websites for different clubs

Skills:

Fluent in several programming languages (Python, Java, C, HTML, CSS)
Implemented investment based algorithms for investment club
Proficient in CAD software
Proficient with machine tools, Mill Lathe etc

Essays (rating 1-10, details): Don’t know yet, but will likely be decent, 7.5/10 to be conservative

Teacher Rec #1: 8/10 Math
Teacher Rec #2: 7.5/10 English
Counselor Rec: 8/10 (was overall conservative with these gradings)
Additional Rec: 9/10

Applied for Financial Aid?: Prolly but don’t need it
Intended Major: Depends on school, wrote below
State (if domestic applicant): Relatively competitive, cutoff was 216 last year, want to preserve anonymity
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Public (400 in class)
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: $200k+
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.):
Asian male in stem

Schools + Major

Duke: CS
Brown: CS
JHU: CS

2

Weak ECs. Rich. From California or similar state.

Poor odds, better apply to a lot of safeties.

3

^ I’d hardly say those ECs are weak. I mean, you have leadership positions in all of them and their relative similarity (read: all except one having to do with math) indicate that you have a strong interest in a particular field. I’d say that’s much more important than having a mile-long list of ECs that you’re only tangentially involved in and that lack evidence of you having a clear passion for anything. So don’t worry about ECs.

However (as I’m sure you’ve heard a million and one times by now) schools like Brown, Duke, and JHU are rather difficult to do any predicting with. Thousands of students with your stats (and even better) will be denied; that’s just how it is now. I don’t know enough about any of them to say which one you’d have the best shot with, but if I were in your position I’d just pick the one that you like the most, due to their unpredictable nature.

That all being said, you’re clearly a genius and are already doing great things, and I’m practically certain that you’re going to end up at a wonderful school, be it one of those three or not. (Very inspirational coming from a stranger on the internet; I know.)

Best of luck.

4

@skrrrtskrrrtskeeetskeeet I’ll keep your advice in mind when applying to schools, thank you

5

@dramax4 those ECs are actually great from where I come from but to stand out among the pool of Californian Asians you have to be internationally ranked in an olympiad pretty much.

6

@dramax4 thank you very much for the response. Your concerns are valid; I’ll keep them in mind, and keep expectations tempered. While it is premature to call me a genius, I’ll take the compliment.

Good luck to you as well

7

I’m actually not from California, I really don’t know how you deduced that. @skrrrtskrrrtskeeetskeeet
And I am aware my EC are not amazing, that is why I posted this so I could gauge my chances at these schools.

8

@kjake2000
It doesn’t matter what state you’re actually from, but since you said it’s competitive, it’s fair to just go ahead and talk about as if it was California.

It’s pretty clear you’re not from Kansas or any other boring state like it.

9

anyone else?

10

All 3 of those schools are a crapshoot. Being asian male in CS isnt a hook its an anti-hook. Your ECs are strong and your scores are great. Great UW GPA. You have shots at all 3 tbh

11

bump

12

I am focusing on entrepreneurship in my essay/ supplementals. Which of the schools do you think an essay like this would resonate best with?

13

last question, if anyone would like to chance me for Cornell ED CAS or Engineering computer science, please go ahead

Thanks

14

Assuming ED: I would say you have a very good shot at JHU (you would get in), decent shot at Cornell, Duke, and Brown (>=50%) - though I think Cornell and Duke generally provide more of a ‘boost’ for applying early so better chances at those. The ECs are good enough for those schools so only concern is that UW gpa is <3.9 but I have no idea what’s considered good at your school.

15

@dblazer

Having interviewed candidates that applied ED to hopkins with even better credentials that got rejected this past cycle for ED, (aka Valedictorian and Salutatorian ranked with 35 ACTs and national awards, not sure how on earth you can say he’d get in), it is a crapshoot. It’s irresponsible for you to suggest he would get in. His UW GPA is also below the JHU average of 3.93 and his ACT is about average (range is 32 to 35 for Hopkins enrolled - admitted is higher).

16

At this point, I am leaning towards Duke, with a possibility in Cornell. I understand all these schools are extremely competitive, and even if someone says I will get in, I will expect the worst. @dblazer @stevensPR

thanks for the help

17

@stevensPR @kjake2000 yea was probably a too bold - just hate to give a generic reply like ‘your stats and ECs are good enough to get in but it’s a crapshoot’ because that’s not really analysis. Bottom line, i think it makes sense for you to apply early to one of those if fall in love with one of them

18

I got into Hopkins RD with the same stats/slightly worse stats than you. Waitlisted at Duke RD and denied at Brown RD, although Brown just does not like my high school very much.

In my opinion, your chances are a little more than 50% for each of these schools if you ED there. I’m interested in what you’re thinking for your entrepreneurship essay. What angle will you be taking? Will you be telling a story? There will be many people who submit essays on entrepreneurship so you need to be as creative and thoughtful as you can be

19

I honestly am not sure about my essay as of now, I haven’t started thinking deeply about it. (I will this week though). Also, if I do not get into one of these schools early, then I will likely not apply to them RD. I am pretty sure I will get rejected RD so it is a waste. @doorrealthe

20

@dblazer I appreciate the thought. Thanks for the feedback, whatever happens I will try not to take it personally and get too hung up on the result.