Just curious what you guys think my chances are to these schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I go to an Early college (STEM focus) so when I graduate I will have over 52-56 college credits hours completed. I am a rising senior and a white male, want to go into some engineering field (or possibly poli sci or international relations), not sure what yet

High School GPA- UW:3.94 W: 4.96
College GPA: 3.96

SAT: 2150, M:670 R:800 W:680
ACT: 32, M:30 E:29 S:33 R: 34
(I know my act is pretty low, I probably won’t report it and I am retaking the sat soon to improve my math score, I am also waiting to here back on my sat subject tests although I feel pretty good about them)
My goal for the sat is over a 2200 and over a 700 on the math section

AP’s: (only took a few because my school only offers literally 5 because in our junior and senior years we take all college classes on campus, the school is so small our curriculum is chosen for us and until our senior year we don’t get to pick any of our classes, the only choice we have is if we choose to go the biomed track or engineering track, im engineering)
APUSH-4
AP lit-3
APES- 4
APHG-4
(AP Scholar with Honor)

EC’S:
-vp of NHS
-captain of the quiz bowl team (Came 4th in the state in a competition)
-team leader for the 2015 rwdc(National aeronautical design challenge) team (we won states and are moving on to nationals)
-model congress
-nccj
-Varisty track and field (Will continue with v cross country and v indoor track in the fall and winter)
-conducting independent research with the assistance of a professor at the college ( going to enter my research into the siemens competition when we are done, or possibly try and get published)
-over 100 hours of community service
-world travel (well rounded and experienced blah blah blah)
-occasional tutoring when I’m needed
-am attending the Naval Academy Summer Seminar

Random stuff:
-can solve a rubik’s cube sub 30 seconds
-read a lot
-play chess a lot, considered creating a chess club but not enough interest
-try to exercise 3-5 times a week not including track practice (for the naval academy)
-learning to program
-know how to use autocad as well as manual drafting

Senior Year:
-As part of our schools curriculum in our senior year we are supposed to have internships, so hopefully I will have one at a reputable engineering company
-Also I plan to become president of NHS next year, senior class president, start a debate club with my friend, and am applying to another organization to do more community service
-Plus I expect to have pretty good essays and interviews for schools that want them and probably really good recommendations

I probably won’t apply to all of these schools but these are some that I am looking at, and I do realize that a lot of them are reach schools, and they are roughly in order of my interest

  1. naval academy
  2. mit
  3. Princeton
  4. stanford
  5. cornell
  6. NC state
  7. Caltech
  8. Williams
  9. Columbia
  10. uchicago
  11. GT
2

Oh and georgetown, also my subject tests were in math 2 and chemistry

3

Your ACT and SAT scores are comparable, so I don’t see why you think your ACT is bad. Your Math section scores are weaker for engineering, particularly the top ones on your list. Try to improve the scores for a better chance.

4

my act was the same as the bottom 25 for some of the top schools i listed and then for a couple one below, and I’m not really sure why my math SAT and ACT scores are low compared to the others especially since I consider math one of my best subjects and and I’m not too interested in writing or english (although i am good at them)

5

but thanks for responding!

6

bump

7

Lol how to you solve the Rubik’s cube in 30 seconds? That’s amazing! I only did it twice in my life…and each time it took me hours (I enjoy thinking about it and solving it tho), and I remember when I first got it, it was like winning a lottery for me :wink:
You’re probably really smart! If you don’t make stupid mistakes on math, i bet you can get 800, it’s not that hard. I got both 800s on SAT and SATII math level 2, and I’m not even as smart as you are, so… :slight_smile:
Good luck!!!

8

Hahahaha thanks, and yeah thats what I think happened for the math part, hopefully my math 2 SAT II scores are better than my sat I scores, as for the rubiks cube, its not that hard, just google how to solve them, you really can learn how to do it in a few hours and how to do it without looking online within a couple days

9

Also I have a refined list of all of the colleges I will apply actually apply to, so if somebody wanted to give specifics for any and or all of these that would be amazing (rough order of where I want to go but in no way concrete):

  1. Naval Academy
  2. MIT
  3. Princeton
  4. Georgetown
  5. Cornell
  6. UNC
  7. NC State
10

bump

11

I too could solve the Rubik cubes under a minute (a few times near 30s), but that was 35 years ago. You just need to follow the formula. :wink:

12

You Princeton is a high reach, and MIT is a very high reach. The rest are either low reach or high matches with NC state being a safety. But I don’t know anything about the naval academy.

13

Thanks! @CCuser528

14

Is there anything in particular you’d recommend to boost my chances, I know already I need a higher sat, specifically a higher math score, I just got a SAT study book and am retaking it again in October, but anything other than that?

15

I think your scores are your biggest weakness; improving those will greatly improve your chances. The only other advice I have is to make sure you are developing great relationships with the teachers you’ll be asking for recommendations. Also, spend a lot of time on the essays and make sure that they stand out and tell admissions officers something about you that cannot be ascertained from your list of EC’s and awards. For example, you could write about how your passion for solving problems (i.e rubies cubes and playing chess) relates to your intended major (engineering).

16

Thanks for the advice @CCuser528 ! I hadn’t even thought about the solving problems angle I will definitely take a look at that

17

I actually think ur 32 ACT is stronger than your 2150 SAT because your SAT distribution has two sections under 700. Colleges tend to place emphasis on individual sections when looking at SAT. When colleges look at your ACT, they don’t really place emphasis on specific sections, but they place more emphasis on your composite score (32).

18

princeton and mit are high reaches because of your math scores but the rest are matches to high matches

19

but @isl4ndsurf3r my math and verbal sat scores are especially low, 30 and 29 respectively and usually when I look up what the average act scores are for a school they report the average composite and those two scores, so it seems to me like those are the most important, which are my two weakest scores. Im going to retake the sat again and I got a study book and I will actually study this time so Im hoping to get my math score to at least a 750 and my writing to at least a 700, but obviously those are just goals. For schools like MIT im hesitant to even send in my act for fear of them seeing my low math score, their average for the math subsection is something like 34 or 35 to 36. I consider myself good at math even though my scores don’t really show that so Im confident I can handle top notch schools, but do you think it would hurt my chances by sending my low math act scores? especially if i improve my math and writing above a 700

20

Just retake ACT and get that math score up. For example, UMich engineering requires a 31 ACT Math , MIT average is 34-36. Early college programs are still not well understood by many Adcoms, but the logic is pretty clear: if you are already in college, why can’t you get a superior ACT/SAT score?

S in early college program followed this logic - despite a 3.8 college GPA and numerous awards-and didn’t get admitted to colleges he wanted because of his ACT (similar to yours). He believed that his college grades alone would be fine and refused to study for ACT to improve - for him - it was mostly a low math score. You also have the option of continuing in your EC school as a student, and then transferring (not all of the colleges on your list accept transfers)

If you consider yourself good in math prove it to the adcoms ; retake the test and improve the score to the 75%+ of admits.