Help a Black engineer find a fit !

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>Help a Black engineer find a fit !</p>

<p>Oh hey, sorry for the title, just trying to get some views. So I am not really looking for a chance, one would be great, but I am trying more to find input to where I would fit best. Any help appreciated.</p>

<p>Academic-
• UW GPA = 3.92 / W GPA = 4.36/ Top 10
• SAT = 2010 (660cr, 700math, 650wr) / SAT II = Math2(730)
• HS is Gold Medal On US News, 2 Junior year AP’s, 4 AP classes Senior year
• Major: Biomedical/Chemical Engineering or Human Bio, but with interests also in classics and anthro, maybe premed</p>

<p>Unique Traits-
• URM- Black/Latvian
• Low-income
• First Generation to go to College
• Red-Green Colorblind
• Minority interested in S.T.E.M.</p>

<p>School Activities/Sports-
• Varsity Track & Field(Captain),Varsity XC(captain),JV Basketball(captain), Varsity Swimming(lol so few urm's on the team)
• Minority/World Culture Club
• National Honor Society/Mu Alpha Theta/ Science Honor Society lol
• Student Athletic Trainer/Hospital Volunteer</p>

<p>Award/Scholarships/Special Programs-
• Questbridge Finalist
• Nordstrom Scholarship Finalist
• Stanford Phoenix Scholar Mentorship
• Venture Scholar
• Student Athlete Award</p>

<p>High Achieving//Elite College Visit Programs/Winky faces in admissions-
• MIT Weekend Immersion in Science and Engineering
• Cornell Fall Diversity Visit
• Dartmouth Bound
• Explore Bowdoin
• Pomona College</p>

<p>Personality/Interests-
• EXTROVERT, love chatting with random people, want a social environment
• Social Scene- ME ENCANTA PARTYING, not really into hard drugs tho
• People- they don’t all have to be social climbers, but a little less awkward then MIT ya know
• Academic Environment- Rigorous, but not sleep depriving, good balance, don’t want a very stressed student body, research opportunities
• I love S.T.E.M. but I also want a liberal arts education as well, not really feeling the tech schools
• Accepting/NON-Pretentious student body, I know that it’s not your fault polo and Abercrombie have a store at your house, but I don’t want it shoved in my face, ya know
• Sport friendly- I am not expecting SEC style fans, I don’t want to go back to the south, but I would like to have a couple peers cheering with me in the stands and to play club sports with
• EAST COAST, I’ve lived in SoCal for 12 years and the Dirty south for 6, I want a change</p>

<p>So I know that was A LOT, and I know I can’t have it all, but could you look at the list tell me the do’s and don’t, any opinion wanted !</p>

<p>Colleges-
• Yale
• Stanford
• Harvard
• Princeton
• Cornell “Conditional Acceptance”
• Penn
• Brown
• Dartmouth “Conditional Acceptance”
• MIT “winky face ;)”
• I’ve already applied to the UC’s, matches and safeties, so none of those plz</p>

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<p>“Oh hey, sorry for the title, just trying to get some views. So I am not really looking for a chance”</p>

<p>Yes, you are! See: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1420290-chance-threads-please-read-before-posting-one.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1420290-chance-threads-please-read-before-posting-one.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Thanks gibby, but I wasn’t looking for where I would get in, but where should I focus my applying efforts and what student body I would best get along with, srry</p>

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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1421360-help-black-engineer-find-fit.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1421360-help-black-engineer-find-fit.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>And, as you also posted the same thread on the Princeton forum, you obviously are looking for chances at either college.</p>

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<p>This is not rocket science: You should focus your applications on whatever school you are MOST interested in attending – be it H or P. You should then google the H or P professors that you most want to study with and contact them. Express your interest to them and ask for their guidance. Be “real” and genuine, and you will be surprised how far that will take you!</p>

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<p>You need another subject test?</p>

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<p>^^ That is true; Harvard requires 2 subject tests!</p>

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<p>Have you considered U. of Michigan or any Big 10 schools? If you are truly considering engineering, you should consider some of these schools as many are top 10 in engineering. Some state schools in the Pac 10 are very strong in engineering as well. The Big 10 and Pac 10 are also strong in science, with many of them in the #5-#10 range. It seems to fit your other criteria–not East Coast, not pretentious, some sports culture.</p>

<p>Northwestern and Duke are also other ones to consider. Research-wise, there may be schools higher-rated, but their curriculum is geared toward training high-level engineers. Of course, Duke is great research-wise at biomed, but I’m not sure they have a chem E dept.</p>

<p>Also, whether you are really interested in engineering/science or whether you are premed may affect your choices. At some of the ivies, I would think twice about majoring in engineering. However, if you are premed, you may just care about getting a survey of engineering with a lot of flexibility to take other subjects. </p>

<p>I’m not sure what your “conditional acceptances” mean. Your scores are a <em>little</em> less competitive than the engineering/science majors at the top schools. It looks like you did well in class. Did you get 5’s on the AP tests? If not, if you go to the top schools you are seriously going to have to step it up in college (and maybe at some of the not-so-top schools if you are an engineering major.) This may impact your social life, so you want to think about it beforehand if you are comfortable with doing what it takes.</p>

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<p>Whoops, I missed this. But you might find my post useful so I’ll leave it. The ivies do not seem to fit the criteria you’ve listed, though, so some of the state schools should be considered as top choices and not just safeties.</p>

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<p>Of your list, Stanford, Brown, and MIT are probably the most accepting/not pretentions. UPenn is very pre-professional. I wouldn’t describe Harvard/Princeton as not pretentious. Cornell is the best school for engineering in the ivy league. Stanford is excellent at engineering, but chem E is a weak point. It is mostly used fo premeds.</p>

<p>Dartmouth has an untraditional engineering program, so you may not want that. It is a general engineering major rather than having specific disciplines, if it is still the same.</p>

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<p>Thank you for the advice, I know my post comes off as pompous, but since I don’t know too much of the “real feel” at these colleges, I’ve been at a loss. I’ll definitely look into those schools, and your right that I am not totally stuck on engineering, I’m just a math/science guy and that’s what my teachers have said I should do. I would still like the flexibility though, so I might just do a BA in a science with a minor in a humanities.</p>

<p>Gibby- I didn’t mean to affend anyone, and thank you for the tip about professors, I’ve never thought about it that way</p>

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<p>This is really interesting advice…would you recommend this for a student who is somewhat decided on their field of study and has done significant work in the area? I’m not talking about mindless grunt work (which of course, does have its uses and is helpful in giving first hand experience :slight_smile: ) but perhaps work on several projects, awards etc.? [Unhooked as of now Intl]</p>

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<p>In my opinion you have some good criteria for picking schools (like the availability of humanities programs) and also bad ones (like whether or not a school is “pretentious”). It’s not a bad thing to want to avoid pretentious people, but it’s a bad thing to think that a school can be itself pretentious, which is usually more a stereotype than reality. At any school of ambitious folks, which is where you should aim to be, there will be a boatload of pretentious people and also a boatload of unpretentious people. At Harvard I run into pretentious people in some of my classes, but it wasn’t hard at all for me to find a group of roommates and a ton of friends that aren’t.</p>

<p>I have a roommate from the deep south and another from the middle of nowhere in the midwest and both said they almost didn’t go to Harvard because of the stereotype that it was pretentious. They both came here and did find people who meet that stereotype to be sure, but they were happy to find it didn’t apply to everyone.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure contacting H & P professors out of the blue is a great idea, especially if you haven’t been admitted yet.</p>

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<p>I agree with this somewhat. I don’t think it could hurt, but I doubt it will be very fruitful either. Most will probably ignore you. You may get a few that are eager to talk about their department and the opportunities therefor at their school, but it’s not as though you can judge a program’s quality by how eager its professors are to talk to random high schoolers that email them. And it almost certainly won’t help (but also won’t hurt) your admissions chances if that’s your strategy.</p>

<p>I would be more inclined to try to find students who attend these schools, like alums from your high school or neighboring high schools or friends of friends or whatever you can manage. They’ll have more time on their hands and will probably have more balanced things to say about various programs.</p>

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<p>Frankly, professors at research universities get a lot of emails from graduate student applicants who want to work in their research group. Many of these go unanswered or answered perfunctorily. Emails from prospective undergraduate students are even less likely to be answered unless the professor is specifically involved in undergraduate recruitment. I’d bet that many of them can’t even respond to questions about the undergraduate program.</p>

<p>My suggestion, as a physics professor at a research university, is to contact the admission office and ask to speak or communicate with a professor in your department of interest. That individual will be of assistance and can give you the answers you want.</p>

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<p>I did the Pomona College visit weekend in November and loved it, but it’s probably relatively close to you and you want to leave!</p>

<p>As everyone’s been saying apply to Ivies…they’re on the East Coast and not in the “Dirty South”.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the advice! :slight_smile: I’m well aware how busy most research (or teaching) Profs are in general, so I was a bit surprised by Gibby’s suggestion. </p>

<p>In any event, I have been lucky enough to get a broad base of experiences so I’m kind of getting a sense into what I think is “cool” and what is truly meaningful and fascinating for me. I don’t really think an undergraduate curriculum vary * that * much from place to place (at least in decent schools), so I don’t care as much about that as I do about research in specific areas of my preferred field. If I am fortunate enough to get in, I’ll probably do what xraymancs suggested or maybe talk to academics that I know personally who are familiar with the programs there. I do know some kids at H but they’re kind of on the intense hard science/techy side so I am unsure whether it’s worth asking them…I guess we’ll see then!</p>