Egyptian-American Junior Chances?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi,
So I am currently a junior at an extremely competitive high school in California(ranked top 15 in CA).

My Background: I lived in Egypt for 8-9 years, and both of my parents were born and raised in Egypt(as well as grandparents and further back etc). I moved to the US in the middle of third grade while the Egyptian revolution was happening. I have been living in California ever since. Some people tell me to apply under African American, but I am not sure(I think I am going to call admissions offices for the colleges that I am applying to, and see what they say.

My Stats:
SAT: 1560 (790 Math, 770 Reading/Writing)
ACT:36 (36 on every section)
UW GPA: 3.87
W GPA: 4.67
SAT Subject Tests: Math(800), Biology(800)

My Grades:
Sophomore Year Classes: AP Calculus AB(5), AP Calculus BC(5), AP Chemistry(4), AP Computer Science Principles(4), AP World History, Honors English 10, Spanish 3(3rd year of language), Photography(Art Class required)

Junior Year Classes: Calculus 3, Linear Algebra, AP Computer Science A, AP Statistics, AP English Language, AP US History, AP Physics 1, AP Physics 2

I got an A in everything except for the classes listed below.

All of my Bs: I got a B in the first quarter of AP Calculus AB, a B in the first quarter of AP Calculus BC, a B in the first quarter of AP Chemistry, and a B in the second quarter of AP Biology.
(My school doesn’t differentiate between + & - for gpa or even show them on transcript)

My Extracurriculars:

  • I am the lead programmer and head of controls on my school’s First Robotics Competition team, and we are ranked about 7th in the world(technically tied with like 10 other teams for it but whatever). I have over 450 hours logged over the course of 2.5 years.
  • I have held a paid software internship with a startup company for the entire duration of my high school career, and I plan to continue it until the very end of high school(so in total, it will be 4 years of internship). I have like 4 big projects I can talk about, and they are all related to optimizing agricultural efficiency through machine learning and physical sensors.
  • I am working on patenting a patent for project(can’t say specifically what it is on a public forum, but it has to do with the aforementioned agricultural machine learning stuff).
  • I am entering my regional science fair for some of my projects listed above, and I think I have a pretty good chance at qualifying for ISEF(on a side note, how would that improve my chances)?
  • I am the President of my school’s app development club where we participate/compete in hackathons and app development competitions, as well as teach peers about the fundamentals of programming and java to prepare them for the competitions
  • I am the technology coordinator of a food bank/volunteering club at my school, and I help plan and organize many events.
  • I am an avid member of my school’s peer tutoring club, in which I tutor my fellow peers free of charge before school, during school, and after school.

My notes:
I know that noone can give me a definite chance, but I just want to see what general ballpark I am in. I am aware that my unweighted gpa is not the best. What do you think I am missing to make me a more plausible choice for top colleges?

I am dead set on majoring in computer science/electrical engineering(EECS), and I am not willing to change my major for any college.

Do you think I have a chance at colleges like: UCLA, Berkeley, Stanford(I know its an extremely long shot), MIT, Caltech… etc? If not, what should I improve, or what colleges do you think I can get into?

Thank you!

2

Your stats are awesome. Your passion for engineering is obvious in your extracurriculars. Just take that passion as far as you can, differentiate yourself from all the other people who also love engineering – you’re already doing that with the patent, which is so cool!

Here’s what I’ll say: You can be the best candidate ever, but if that doesn’t come across in your app, then it’s for nothing. In your essays, tell those schools why they should choose you over any other engineer. How will you use your passions to make a difference? How will this school help you do that? What do these activities say about you as a person, as a leader?

Also, don’t worry about UW GPA and a couple of Bs. Calc, Chem, and Bio are all hard classes and colleges know that. If it makes you feel better, I have a 3.9 UW GPA, got Bs in Physics and Calc, and still got into Columbia. And your other stats are loads better than mine.

Side note, u should add Columbia to your list – we have a great engineering program! :wink:

3

Thank you for your advice! Columbia is definitely on my list, near the top :). You’re right, I need to start thinking of things that I can write about for my college essays.

4

Egyptian would be Arab and for college demographics Arabs are usually defined in the Caucasian category.

5

Also if finances are not a concern, OOS public schools like UDub, Illinois, Purdue, and Georgia Tech have outstanding Engineering schools and are well known for their EECS programs.

6

In the US, African American refers to people whose origins are one of the Black racial groups in Africa. I think Egyptian heritage would be considered Caucasian.

7

UCs also do not take race into consideration for applications. So it doesn’t matter for Berkeley/UCLA.

Would you consider Harvey Mudd as a target school? Your GPA/SAT/ACT are in line with what it wants.