Target Schools: All UC’s, UIUC, Cal Poly SLO (my goal), CU Boulder, Purdue, Harvey Mudd, USC, sjsu, uw, umich
ACT: 31 (33,34,32,25) - This was my first attempt at the test. Couldn’t take it after that cause all he test centers closed. (Couldnt take any subject tests either)
GPA: 3.6UC and CSU gpa (This is what I am most worried about. My grades dropped a little in my soph and junior year because of a chronic disease that surfaced. I never got any c’s or d’s. All a’s and b’s. I also improved throughout each semester). I talk about it in one of my Uc essays
ECs: - I’ve played an classical instrument for about 8 yrs now. I’ve done a bunch of solo performances at cultural events. I also passed all the mastery exams.
Marching Band: I'm in wind ensemble right now. We went to a lot of competitions in the past
Volunteering: I have a total of 90 hours. I volunteered at a local museum where I talk to visitors about STEM and new technology in our world. I also volunteered at senior centers and helped seniors with technology.
Robotics: I've done 2 years of robotics now. Last year I was the hardware lead of my team. I overlooked all mechanism designs and worked with software. I got more involved in our robotics club and am an outreach manager. I help plan and organize events in the community to showcase our robots. We've won many awards over the years. I've pretty much dedicated most of my time to robotics in high school.
Was part of a research project over the summer. My project was related to mechanical engineering and applied physics.
Tutor for about 3 hours each week.
Won 1st place in a local hackathon with around 200 people
Courses: 11: AP bio (4), AP Calc AB (5) 12: AP Stats, AP Physics C, AP Comp Sci A
Overall Im really scared because my gpa is pretty low and mech e is generally very competitive. I will be including my situation in the additional info section but I’m not sure how much impact that will have.
My MCA score with ACT is 4300 but I don’t know how its working this year for cal poly.
CPSLO: reach. Last year, CPSLO engineering frosh had a 25th-75th percentile HS GPA of 4.04-4.27.
If you look through this thread, you can see that fall 2020 CPSLO ME admits tended to have MCA scores over 4500. However, CPSLO presumably will be using a different version without SAT/ACT scores.
SJSU: probably match. Last year, SJSU ME frosh applicants with a 3.6 HS GPA needed a 970 SAT score to be admitted. However, with the changes due to removal of SAT/ACT scores from use, this year is less easily predictable from previous results. This year SJSU will heavily overweight your math GPA when calculating its admission index for engineering major applicants.
For UCs, for fall 2019, applicants with 3.40-3.79 HS GPA had the following admission rates:
2% UCB
9% UCD
7% UCI
1% UCLA
85% UCM
53% UCR
6% UCSB
9% UCSD
40% UCSC
Please note that engineering majors tend to be more selective than the campus overall.
If UW is University of Wyoming, you may want to ask directly whether the admission requirements listed here give automatic admission, or are merely the minimum to enter a competitive admission process:
To shore up your safeties, you might want to consider adding U of Utah, which has a lot of the same virtues as CU Boulder, but is both closer and cheaper (lower sticker price, plus the WUE discount or the 1-year path to residency). Excellent STEM programs and great music opportunities also. The ME program is project-based and offers a Mechatronics certificate. There’s Robotics Center with multiple graduate programs.
You could add Cal Poly Pomona to your CSU application, if you like the Cal Poly teaching philosophy.
In Colorado, maybe apply to Mines as well as CU Boulder? It’s know for its strong MechE. Colorado State offers the WUE discount so maybe worth a look also.
If you’d consider going all the way to the east coast, WPI seems like a great fit - very strong MechE/Robotics/Mechatronics programs and strong music programs also.
Yeah, I’ll definitely consider those as well. I di apply to Cal Poly Pomona and hope to at least get in there but I don’t know if that is a safety for me.
engineering majors at UIUC will be reaches for you.
You may get admitted instead to DGS, but then you need to switch to pre-engineering, after which it will be very difficult to get into the mechanical engineering major (3.75 college GPA minimum to qualify to enter a competitive admission process). Click on “major capacities” in the following page: https://dgs.illinois.edu/current-pre-engineering
Have you considered Santa Clara University? I’m not sure if it could be considered a safety, but it might be a target school. And I think their engineering program is good.