How can I make my admissions profile more appealing?

Applying to College
1

<p>I'm planning to go into a STEM field (most likely computer science), but most of my high-school activities are humanities-based. I'm going to do National History Day (in eighth grade, two years ago, I was an alternate to states, and the high school division is much less competitive), and I'll almost definitely make it to states (and hopefully farther). I also do Model United Nations, although I've only been doing it for a year and haven't won anything. I also do colorguard, and hopefully my parents will let me do winterguard. I hope to be accepted into our school's Journalism program, but I botched up my interview this year. </p>

<p>However, I don't do any STEM activities, which may be a problem. Although my grades in science and math are typically my highest, my school doesn't have that many STEM programs. There's robotics, which so many people do that it's a bit overused in applications, and HOSA, which is more biology-based (I don't want to go into biology, nor will I ever want to). There's also the club for people interested in science competitions, but I'm extremely impulsive and very bad at using buzzers (otherwise I would have made it onto the Science Bowl team in middle school). Although there are other clubs for science at our school, none of the others do competitions. </p>

<p>I've got 3 Bs my freshman year (out of 12 total semesters); all of them were about 0.5% away from an A, but there's no way for colleges to know that. I'm taking all honors and I'm taking an engineering class next year. The only class that I will be taking that isn't Honors, AP, or an application-based class Junior or Senior year is US History, and that because our school's course is famed for being incredibly hard. I'm hoping to get As in all my remaining classes, and I'll certainly work harder than I did last year (I sort of had a "whatever" perspective).</p>

<p>I'm taking Psychology at my local community college this summer (the session is almost over, and it seems like I'll be able to get an A; this is the summer between my freshman and sophomore year), and I'm planning on taking AP Calculus B/C, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics 1, AP Physics C, AP Government/Economics, and AP English. I also might take AP World History and AP Computer Science, depending on whether I get into certain classes. Senior year, I'll also be taking Multivariable Calculus/Linear Algebra, since I skipped a grade in math (this isn't all that uncommon, though, so it won't raise my profile that much appealing). The courses are counted as college credits, since they're community college courses offered at our high school. I go to an extremely competitive public California high school.</p>

<p>That was certainly a mouthful to write, but do you have any advice? And do you think I'll be able to get into any of my top four college choices (UC Berkeley, Stanford, Caltech, and Harvey Mudd)? What could I do so it doesn't seem like I only have formal experience in the humanities?</p>

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<p>Do some research, enter some science fair competitions, maybe participate in some Olympiads, do some of your own personal projects related to your STEM passion of interest.</p>

<p>As for getting into those schools, you don’t seem unique enough for Stanford and not STEM enough for Caltech. I don’t know much about Mudd, and your chances for Berkeley depend largely on your SAT and if you’re in-state. You don’t have enough information for people to provide adequate chances. You have time, however; just don’t waste it. </p>

3

<p>Just curious: why haven’t you done more science/tech stuff if that is your interest? Why did you stay out of the clubs just because they did not participate in competitions? </p>

<p>Your middle school activities are not considered, and CA publics do not consider your freshman GPA.</p>

4

<p>@KKmama In terms of those clubs, I can kind of understand why. Since they didn’t have participation in competitions, the incentive to join and spend time seems to be diminished. I didn’t join a lot of clubs that “seemed fun” because I wanted my time to be worthwhile. An small club run by busy high schoolers can only further an individual’s passion so much; it can be thought that the time and effort that could be spent within that club could be better spent somewhere else.</p>

5

<p>I am part of our school’s Biotech club, but that won’t really figure on my transcript since there’s no competitions or the like. Our school really only has two tech programs. I did robotics last year, but I just sort of… didn’t this year. I didn’t do much this year at all, actually. I was under the impression that I needed to have a friend doing a club with me, so for clubs like Academic Challenge (the club where people who compete in Math Bowl, Science Bowl, and similar competitions convene), I didn’t go because I didn’t want to be alone. Obviously I don’t care anymore, but still.</p>

<p>I want to do research, but my main problem is finding a topic. I can’t think of anything to do research on. </p>

<p>@kkmama I’m also interested in Political Science and Journalism (I’m thinking of either double-majoring or minoring in one of them). </p>

<p>Privates, sadly, do consider my freshman GPA (I probably should have worked harder, but what’s done is done). I can still achieve a 3.95 unweighted GPA. </p>

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<p>Oh, also, I took an ACT practice test earlier this year with no previous preparation, and I got a 30 (apparently that’s supposed to be good?). So I’m hoping to get a 35 or a 36 once I do actual prep. I’m planning on taking the SAT Bio in October, Math II next spring, and I’ll probably take the SAT Chem test as my third subject test in the spring (however, it depends on what teacher I get for Chemistry this year).</p>

<p>I’m thinking of taking both the new SAT and the old one (the new one comes out spring of my junior year); do you advise it, or think I should just stick with one of them?</p>

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<p>@topaz1116 3.95 UW is great. If you’re instate and you get 2200+ on your SAT, you’re pretty much a shoe-in for Berkeley. For the UC’s, it’s largely just a threshold of objective stats you have to pass to basically ensure admission.</p>

<p>As for research, just find something general that sparks some kind of interest within you. Wanna do neuro? There’s a lot of opportunities to do projects related to neuroscience, even in things you wouldn’t expect (like what I’m doing, ophthalmology). After you pick something that interests you, then you can start getting more and more specific and eventually find a concrete topic under a mentor.</p>

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<p>@capitalamerica The main bad thing about my GPA is that my school is incredibly competitive, so I’m not sure whether I’ll be ranked in the top 10% (we generally have 20 valedictorians each year in a class of 500, and there are a lot more people who get only one B in all their classes). But the UCs generally accept large numbers of students from my school, probably because we’re nearby (as is the case for Berkeley). So hopefully I’ll get in.</p>

<p>Neuroscience is actually quite interesting to me; but I’ve always been confused as how to find a mentor. I see people in my grade winning at state science fairs with research they’ve done with professors from Davis or Berkeley, but I’ve never figured out how they found the mentors in the first place, especially since some of them haven’t been to programs like Cosmos or ATDP (where they may have potentially met professors).</p>

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<p>Buzzing is a learned skill. Seriously… one of my kids was a top Quiz Bowler in our state by senior year, but she was terrible at buzzing her first couple of years. It takes a lot of playing to get the hang of it – but she was amazing at it by senior year. </p>

<p>It seems to me that you have sort of only given a halfhearted stab at the activities that are science based. Just because a lot of students are in Robotics is no reason not to join or continue this year. And for heaven’s sake, give up the idea that you need a friend to join a club! Your problems are pretty clearly of your own making… </p>

<p>One of my kids is at Mudd. Her science-related activities were:

  • Robotics - only junior and senior year, school did not have a team before that.
  • Self-studied for the USA Biology Olympiad for two years (no team at our school)
  • Senior year she joined programming club
  • Outside schools she collected insects for 9th - 12th grade and entered them in the county fair
  • She went to a 3 week engineering camp summer before Junior year</p>

<p>She was in Quiz Bowl, but was a literature specialist. :slight_smile: So she didn’t have some great research experience or top finish in a science contest. But she did what was interesting to her and what was available, and got into one of your top choices. She did have great test scores, which helped (but grades weren’t top of the line).</p>

<p>So the main message is to get off your tail and start taking advantage of the opportunities you do have. You seem to be moping and waiting for something to drop in your lap…</p>

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<p>@intparent I’m actually not moping. I’ve been learning programming languages this summer (I know HTML/CSS, and right now I’m working on Javascript and JQuery. I’m hoping to learn the basics of Python and Ruby by the end of the summer as well). And that was at the beginning of freshman year, when I really didn’t know anything about high school. I’m also taking a college course at the moment, and doing quite well.</p>

<p>I want to do summer programs, but my parents won’t let me do any sleepaway camps (which rules out most of the summer programs available to high school students; the rest are overly expensive for commuter camps).</p>

<p>Earlier this year, I also wasn’t as sure about what I wanted to do. I was mostly flitting around different areas of science and journalism and the like. I didn’t want to go into engineering, so I didn’t do robotic.</p>

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<p>My kid doesn’t want to be an engineer, either. She wasn’t sure until she went to the engineering camp. But she still enjoyed Robotics her senior year of high school. She probably will be a CS major. You don’t have very many choices, unless you have the gumption to contact local professors and ask to volunteer in their labs or something (and you need to be able to get there and find the time to do it if you volunteer). You need to take advantage of the opportunities that do exist in your environment.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I did enjoy robotics in eighth grade. I’m probably going to do it this year if I have the time (the main thing I’m worried about is that competition dates for the rest of my activities will conflict with competition dates for Winterguard if I do it).</p>

<p>Oh, I’m also the writing editor for a literary magazine at the junior high I went to, if that counts for anything. I was a staff member in eighth grade (the year the program started), an assistant editor last year, and I’m now writing editor. </p>

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<p>Okay… but if you want to go to top colleges as a STEM major, you are going to have to prioritize some STEM activities. It doesn’t have to be ALL you do, but if you can’t show a deep commitment to one or two, the colleges you are interested (esp. Cal Tech, Mudd, and Stanford) will think your application is inconsistent and it will hurt your admissions chances. Now… maybe those schools aren’t for you anyway. And usually I advise students to follow their interests in their ECs. But normally that would lead them to more STEM-focused activities. You seem to have a lot of excuses why you haven’t been involved in any (slow buzzer speed, just didn’t feel like doing robotics this year, needed a friend to join a club).</p>

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<p>Talk to your teachers and tell them you are looking for research opportunities. Do you live close to a university or community college? If so, read up on faculty members there and find some who are involved in projects you find interesting. Email them and ask them if you can help out on any of their projects. My kids did this and included a short description if classes they had taken/programming basics they knew. One of them found a paying job over the summer in programming and one is volunteering in a lab. They both have taken ap CS which was enough to get them started with programming and then learn python, SQL, swift as needed for research projects. If you can take AP CS next year, I’d advise it. They are not doing projects that will be entered into any kind of competitions–but they are gaining experience and learning from mentors.</p>

<p>Another option would be to find volunteer organizations that need help with web pages or what have you. Some organizations may already have programmers who help out and you could potentially learn more from them. Also, reach out to friends and neighbors who may be involved in stem fields. </p>

<p>Btw–I suggested to my children that they try contacting professors directly. They also did not know how to go about finding research opportunities. The high school does have some stem clubs but my kids haven’t found them to be particularly engaging or quite aligned with their interests. </p>

<p>Good luck </p>

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<p>@midwestsalmon I actually do live in close proximity to three universities, Berkeley, Stanford, and Santa Clara University, but since Berkeley and Stanford are so famous, I’m a little afraid to ask the professors there. My freshman year record isn’t all that great as a general thing, and one of my Bs was in math (oops–but I did end up with a 95 in the class second semester).</p>

<p>I would take APCS next year, but we aren’t allowed to take any APs at my school until Junior year unless it’s AP Chinese (for the native Chinese speakers) or AP Stats if you’re taking Precalculus (I would take it, but I’m taking Engineering instead). I’m planning on taking it Junior year.</p>

<p>The main thing with asking professors directly is that it’s scary. Do you have any pointers?</p>

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<p>For Berkeley it depends on your intended major. If you apply for EECS then you definitely have your work cut out for you. The College of Engineering at Berkeley (and the EECS major in particular) has a much lower admission rate than the rest of the school. If you apply as a CS major you’ll have a much better shot since (technically) you’ll be applying undeclared to the College of Letters and Sciences.
Stanford is always a crapshoot.
Caltech and Harvey Mudd admit extremely small classes so it’s hard to say how your application will fare with them. However I do know that Caltech in particular is extremely STEM focused so I doubt you’ll have much luck there unless you get involved in a lot more STEM stuff.
The spread of schools you’ve mentioned are extremely varied so I would recommend that you visit the schools (if you haven’t already) to make sure your interest is genuine. You don’t want to waste your time on some of these applications (Caltech’s in particular is really long) if you find you don’t like the school’s atmosphere. </p>

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<p>@saif235 I’m still a sophomore, so my parent’s won’t let me travel down to Southern California yet. But I have visited the Berkeley and Stanford campuses extensively (Stanford’s been my dream school since I was eight years old) since I live in the area, and I know I want to apply there.</p>

<p>I will be getting involved in more STEM stuff next year for sure, though. And I’m only going to apply to CS (I’m not particularly interested in EECS).</p>

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<p>For most elite privates, you don’t enter as a major. So you don’t have to declare that you’re a STEM major. There are more than 4 colleges in the world, you know.</p>

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<p>I know, but I’m only applying to schools in California–hence the fact that all four are from California.
And two of those colleges (Mudd and Caltech) are heavily STEM-focused, which is why I wanted to have more STEM stuff in my schedule.</p>

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<p>I am an engineer who majored in engineering and went to Case Western but did no STEM based ECs (granted, this was in the 80’s)…I did Band and Varsity Soccer, Basketball and Softball. </p>

<p>To get in to the tippytop of the Engineering Schools I would imagine STEM based ECs woudl be helpful, but for many other very very good schools I don’t think it is critical.</p>